The Civil War

It's a question Duke...can you answer it?

Can you explain why we are supposed to honor the Confederate with statues? Why do we have military bases named after Confederate generals? Why do we have no statues of Benedict Arnold?

Those are just questions Duke, but I don't suppose you have anything to add except more juvenile insults. Carry on.

Simple answer is that they are all Americans and our leaders were trying heal the deep scars of our most  horrible period in our history, which many times were relatives vs. relatives. 

You complaining about anyone posting " juvenile insults" is certainly amusing. 

The Confederate statues and bases were all Democrats, therefore it stands to reason that they were put in place by Democrats. There is no one better to answer that question than you. So what do you say?

People who are students of the American Civil War have a more in-depth understanding of the nuances and don’t look at it from a simplistic good versus evil perspective. So, what I am about to say is going to fly right over the heads of those who do not have an in-depth understanding of the conflict, the motivations or the individuals.

Prior to the Civil War the majority - at least in the South - had more allegiance to their state than they did the union. The union was generally viewed as a contract that bound the states together for mutual protection, free trade, infrastructure, etc. You were a Virginian, for example, who was a member of one of the several united states bound together by mutually beneficial laws. When the Civil War broke out that is why, for example, Robert E Lee turned down command of the Union Army, because it was about to be turned on his home state where his allegiance lay.

People who believe these Southern soldiers were simply small minded, parochial traitors do not understand the thinking of the times. They saw themselves as patriots as much as Pennsylvanians did. The Pennsylvanians were considered invaders of their home state. The fact that so many today do not comprehend this does not change the reality of those days. It just indicates a lack of understanding of American history.

The Civil War is the first and only time where Americans were invaded on their home lands, overwhelmed and defeated despite extraordinary effort. That has never happened before or since. The South was demolished, a good part of a generation was lost and those people were understandably crushed and demoralized. They admired those dead battlefield leaders and the valor they represented. It was natural for them to want to have some of these Americans memorialized. Robert E. Lee was a great man, as was Patrick Cleburne and Albert Sidney Johnston and James Longstreet.
(But Braxton Bragg was a jerk and Nathan Forrest was a miserable individual.)

We can admire, for example, Erwin Rommel and not assume he was a Nazi simply for being German, and not ourselves be taken as supporters of the Holocaust for admiring him. Admiring Georgy Zhukov does not make you a Stalinist psychopath. There is a natural proclivity to want to conclude "Four legs good/Two legs bad." It relieves you of the responsibility of having to think critically. 

This current statue-destroying and book burning movement reminds me of the Chinese Great Cultural Revolution of the 60’s and the Red Guards, that uneducated, mindless mob that ran wild destroying so much of China without feeling the need to have any rational justification for it. It fed on emotions and did way more harm than good in the final analysis. 

The Union had right on its side, but only the uninformed think this means that the South and its soldiers necessarily represented evil. .....................Luca

Thanks, Luca, that's very well put, and it is another reminder of how people wrongly apply today's standards and values to past times.  Today, the United States comes first, and individual states are secondary.  In 1861, to many, if not most, Americans, their state came first and the union was secondary.  That was the Zeitgeist then, and trying to override it with today's values dishonors the integrity and valor of the people who lived in those times

The analogy I've used before is this:  The United States is a member of the United Nations.  If the U.S. decided to "secede" from that organization, and Secretary General Antonio Guterres decided to use military force to prevent us from doing so, none of us would have a second thought about siding with and supporting our nation, even to the point of bloodshed.  It would be considered patriotic.  Those same feelings, sincere and honorable, were what motivated people like Lee and Jackson to side with their states once they made the decision to secede.

I,agree with your observation about gumption.

My step-daughter is 26 and living in a Minneapolis suburb. Many times, I have observed to her and to her mother, my wife, that she craves convenience and comfort and, the reverse, has a very low tolerance for discomfort. As you say, convenience is a... possibly THE driving force in her life.

When I mention it to her mother, I get a rationale that she coddled her daughter because her father walked out on them... but the reason doesn’t really matter. She won’t vote because it is too inconvenient to drive all the way to the local polling place. She has no boyfriend because a relationship takes too much effort. She got a BFA in animation from a private art school, got handed a job animating for a small studio in Minneapolis, and quit after almost a year because it takes too much out of her to do that job. Since then, she has held 3 or 4 jobs, all low-skill, which she leaves if her management recognizes her good work and wants to promote her because an elevated position would require more effort.

Is it possible for someone to hold "sincere and honorable feelings" that are morally wrong?