The Goat Pen

everyone thinks they're entitled - to privilege, to reclamation, to reparations - to a past, current or future injustice by forces beyond their ability to detour.

until we get a government in place that spells it out that nobody deserves anything other than the inalienable rights afforded between these borders to our citizens, we're never going to get past this. 240 years ago people were thrilled to have a government that said just this - then a few years later came the whiskey rebellion where government decided it needed to take from the masses to push its own agenda on how to finance war. The first example of federal authority to take from the citizens for redistribution.

people don't want equality, they want entitlement - a reason to believe why they should get something for their lot in life. I'm poor, I'm black, I'm a coal miner, I'm a southerner, I'm in California -just get up each day and recognize you're given the same opportunities as anyone else. In 2017, its not anyone's fault outside your home that you don't have what you think you should have.

and I fully understand why a statue being honored of a slave holder who fought to separate from the union to keep slavery is offensive and not based on equality. We tore down a statue of Joe Paterno for looking past child molestation. There were people who were close to it who didn't see it that way, but his position defined the man he was. It wiped out all the good he did for the 70 years prior. We don't need reminders of injustice and/or the failures of man on prominent display.

only 23% of americans are for tearing them down
44% of blacks say leave them alone
40% say tear them down
per NPR poll of 1500

I understand the reasoning behind going after real head scratcher type things like high school, and statues, named after figures like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, esp away from their areas of specific influence (like Texas). But I dont really get the push for going after random other people who just happened to be confederates.

I can semi-understand someone like Albert Sidney Johnston, who fought for the Republic of Texas and the Unites States, but really was a high ranking Confederate General who basically chose to fight for the South (like Lee).

However, someone like Dick Dowling, who recently had a school renamed here, as well as a Dowling St renamed to Emancipation Ave, (so far I dont think that anyone realized that Tuam St is another street named for him after his birthplace in Ireland), and some fucking lunatic kid just got arrested (and a whole rich part of town got shut down by bomb squads and haz mat squads) for trying to blow up a statue of him in a park here. As far as I can tell Dick Dowling was basically a conscript, yes he was an officer, but an officer in a Texas militia of basically all his drunk Irish countrymen and friends, who were all conscripted after secession and his unit was nationalized as part of the confederate army. I'm pretty sure not going off to fight probably would have meant you get hanged as a deserter or traitor at that point. He also was an influential Houston businessman (hence statues, schools, and streets) who I'm pretty sure never owned slaves. So basically his major offense is that he ended up commanding forces that won a battle which probably increased his fame. He's a poster boy for basically what amounts to "who gives a fuck who you actually were, you were a confederate and its been 150 years, so you must be eliminated."

I also dislike going after mass memorials to small fry confederate soldiers who died. There's this idea that people could choose who to fight for, and maybe that was the case for professional soldiers already in the US Army, and folks in the border states. But in general the war for southerners was a war for the rich assholes, who everybody else got conscripted to fight. I dislike the idea that these soldiers who were basically offered up to the meat grinder, with far less choice about it than the Northerners who were mostly at least recruited to fight, should be whitewashed from history in their home states and towns just because the side they had to fight for is now "evil" or whatever.

Speaking of Texas and those who fought under the Lone Star flag in the Civil War, I wonder if they will rename "Ft. Hood." The name, "Ft. Malcolm X" or "Ft. Harvey Milk" down in Killeen just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

When all the statues and flags are gone it won't end.

A Pennsylvania high school student who visited the nation’s capital last week says she was harassed for wearing “Make America Great Again” attire that showed her support for president Trump.

Allie Vandee, a student from Union City, Pennsylvania, was in Washington, D.C. on Saturday when she and some high schoolers traveling with her decided to visit Howard University, a historically black college, for lunch.

Vandee took to Twitter to describe her visit to HU. She said upon entering the cafeteria, a man shouted an expletive directed at her. The group of students hadn’t made it fully inside the cafeteria when someone “made physical contact” with her friend, Sarah Applequist, by grabbing her “MAGA” hat and removing it from her head.

"But in general the war for southerners was a war for the rich assholes, who everybody else got conscripted to fight."

Making it the same as just about every other war in history...

Cincinnati has a rich German history. Up to, during and after the war , many streets with German names were renamed, a part of history lost forever. The area called Over The Rhine had violence against German Americans break out quite often during the war years. Now its full of hipsters and yuppied mad about AirBnB pricing them out of the area.

Seems silly to me now, probably not too silly to the people who had a father, brother or uncle die in Europe during WWII in 1945

But this isn't about the statues, its about MAGA and media making it out that all Trump supporters are Nazi supporters which of course means take down confederate statues because the connection is obvious.

As I said, I'm not against it, but the timing of this is weak.

This has been going on for several years now. HISD renamed several schools that were named for Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, John H. Reagan, Stonewall Jackson, Dick Dowling, and Sidney Lanier, a couple years ago. The media and protester attention to it right now is because of the whole Trump political microscope, but the actual movements have been out there for a while.

yea I guess so

the Indians can't even get a team called the Redskins changed.

I guess brook finally couldnt stand posting on a board with so many honkeys anymore.

I think I had something to do with that

It's hard to blame him.

Its easy if you try

Cletus wrote:It's hard to blame him.

thankfully you've balanced it out

Well, I guess someone needs to take the surprisingly unpopular anti-Nazi stance.

Trump started this speech in Phoenix reasonably enough, but it couldn't last. He's gone off the teleprompter now and is basically shilling for Fox News...

I don't think an assassination attempt by some lefty nutjob is going to shock anyone...

Trump basically just promised that he was going to pardon that hardass sheriff from Arizona...

Toemeesleather wrote:When all the statues and flags are gone it won't end.

A Pennsylvania high school student who visited the nation’s capital last week says she was harassed for wearing “Make America Great Again” attire that showed her support for president Trump.

Allie Vandee, a student from Union City, Pennsylvania, was in Washington, D.C. on Saturday when she and some high schoolers traveling with her decided to visit Howard University, a historically black college, for lunch.

Vandee took to Twitter to describe her visit to HU. She said upon entering the cafeteria, a man shouted an expletive directed at her. The group of students hadn’t made it fully inside the cafeteria when someone “made physical contact” with her friend, Sarah Applequist, by grabbing her “MAGA” hat and removing it from her head.

Pay attention to your president. MAGA is passe'. Listen to what he says, watch what he does. It's MAWA. It probably always was.

What..you didn't think there'd be a backlash to MAWA? 120 American non-whites know the score with this administration.