Caecus

Where is this statue of Lenin? I seem to recall there isn't one in the US. Correct me if I'm wrong. There's a black person protecting a confederate statue?! That's like seeing a hot red head, or a unicorn. I don't believe that exists, i need to see this shit. Funny, I was about to say that about pseudo-conservatives who foam at the mouth about a rabid left (yes, there is some irony in that) yet fall on the outside of the political spectrum in which both conservatives and liberals alike (in general, most decent people) condemn. !@#$, please. I'm a godless heathen who swipes right on tinder in the middle of my satanic ceremonies on Sunday so that I can have pre-marital intercourse with a feminazi under a painting of my beloved god, Hillary Clinton. Do you honestly think I'm going to want to have my body buried so that when the sound of 3 trumpet blasts signals the rise of the dead, I'm going to want to pop out of the ground and be eternally damned to live with hypocrites in an aimless existence shaming feisty teenagers? !@#$ no, I'm donating my body to science so that punk ass wannabe pre-medical students can stick their fingers through my os coxae.

I wasn't aware Virginia had statues of Stalin, Mao, and Lenin in the city square. I would be extremely surprised if they did. But I agree with your statement. I believe the analogous political opposite of Lee are mass-murdering communists, so by all means, take any statues down of Lenin and Mao you see. But if we are going to also burn all communist literature, we should go tit for tat and erase all trace of Lee. Dig up his grave, knock over his headstone, erase any literary mentioning of him and his toxic ideology just as you would do for communist dictators. Foolsmate.

The reason why I ask is because I don't think a statue of Robert E. Lee in the city town hall square has anything to do with remembering fallen soldiers (unless said city town hall square is built on top of the graves of Confederate soldiers?). Otherwise, the statue would be in a graveyard, and not of a random person who ordered them into battle. Also, most of those war memorials were built during Reconstruction as a recognition of fallen American soldiers. We are talking about statues of Lee, which were built in the Jim Crow era to express the dominance of the South's 'Lost Cause' alternative history and was used as a symbol of systemic state-sponsored racial terrorism. Thus, the reason why I think this is irrelevant. Also, the speech is stupid. You don't have those war memorial monuments (which, again, is different in purpose, object, and geographic/temporal location compared to a statue of Lee) because you are afraid you are going to forget history (there is something called a book), you have them so that you honor people who died in the war. Nobody here is advocating to dig up the graves of Confederate soldiers or knocking down headstones. They may have been (at best, misguided) traitors consciously fighting for the preservation of slavery and the destruction of their own country, but they were still Americans and deserve a grave.

I'm not sure how this is relevant. Please explain.

I hope that we can all agree that the Graham-Cassidy bill is a !@#$ing joke, right? Even healthy young people who never paid a day's worth of taxes know that the GOP Healthcare bill is going to bend them over and plow their ass. That being said, Bernie Sanders is a dipshit idiot. By posing his bill on the Senate floor with the GOP bill up in the air, he is essentially making people choose between two opposite extremes: a single-payer system that will bankrupt America or a give-no-!@#$-sucks-to-be-fat-and-have-heart-disease bill that will literally kill people. Some speculate that this debate (and the subsequent attachment of 'socialism' to Bernie) would up the approval of the GOP bill from 15% to around 40%, potentially changing the minds of people like McCain and the only three women in the GOP party. Bernie is a short-sighted dipshit who is doing this to garner attention so that he can run in 2020 on the democratic ticket despite being A !@#$ing INDEPENDENT YOU LITTLE WHINY SHITS! By pulling this stupid fiasco, he is breathing life into a bill that should have stay dead. If he really cared about the working class people, he could have proposed this dipshit idea after the Republican bill falls flat on its face in a week instead of giving it a chance to pass. Bernie is either too damn stupid or too detached from reality to realize he could be !@#$ing the entire nation with his egotistical need for the spotlight on his dipshit ideas. He's still marginally better than Trump though. Bernie is an egotistical idiot detached from reality. Trump is an egotistical idiot detached from reality who doesn't have a single moral fiber in his entire 270 pound butterball-KFC finger-licking fat ass. Both might end up !@#$ing at least 1/6th of the American economy.

And waste precious, precious bullets?! You sick bastard. Also, this goes to show you that you can get away with anything by promising a 4% GDP growth.

Well, I can't speak for other people, but I'm more interested in tearing down statues because it hurts my eyes to see anything related to Lee higher than eye level. In general, when I see something so morally !@#$ed up, my primary issue is removing that thing from my sight, not worried about building more of it. I'm sure most statue builders have a second job, if you are worried about the monument building market.

Oh, I'm not denying that if the 2016 election happened again, Trump would not be going to the white house with 33%. The electoral college is !@#$ed up, but it's not that !@#$ed up. I'm just saying that 33% of the people are going to stick with him even if he launched a nuke at Florida (assuming everyone who likes him didn't die in the explosion). I am doubtful there is anything that would turn off Trump voters unless he personally evicted them from their homes or something. That being said, if the economy tanks under his watch, I would guess that 33% would drop to upper 20s. Keep in mind, at the bottom of the housing market and the geostrategic quagmire of a desert Vietnam, Bush still polled at around 25% so there is at least a quarter of Americans who are too damn stupid to give a shit.

Longstreet admittedly was. I haven't heard of Mahone until now. Nonetheless, I think we need to consider whether or not if those actions redeem his choices in the Civil War, and whether or not those actions are ultimately worthy of glorification despite his actions in the Civil War. Also, it doesn't help that both of Longstreet's statues are of him in his Confederate battle uniform if we are honoring his actions not related to treason and the preservation of slavery. Were all of the Confederate soldiers professional soldiers who staffed the Union army before? There is also another possibility besides joining the Union army... Just not be involved in the war at all. That would be infinitely better than volunteering for a cause you know is morally bankrupt. Besides, the wikipedia page says Mahone was very cavalier for the secessionist cause and was fighting on behalf of the south as a volunteer before he became an officer. He was not a professional soldier. Longstreet was, but considering he swore to uphold the constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, I don't particularly hold his actions in high regard either.

The crux Trump ran on was Trump himself. Literally this. I believe the quote that Trump will be remembered in history for is this: "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? It's like, incredible." -Donald J. Trump

But there is a shit ton of Lee statues, and you are saying we shouldn't take them down. I assume that because we are debating about CONFEDERATE STATUES, you would also be defending Lee. But I recognize you don't have a defense of Lee and conceded on the point that his statue shouldn't be up in the first place, so I'll stop bringing him up. Just proportion-wise, there are a lot more Lee statues than there are of Longstreet (are there any of Mahone?). My defense of Jefferson was an exercise to prove a point: that even your most vilely-hated Jefferson has more reason to have a statue than any Confederate leader. And yes, the deeds of Mahone are insignificant because you had to google it. We all know the great deeds of better men. Mahone's actions after the war bring no bearing on the course of American history, they play no part in its founding or continuation to a more perfect union. At least when Lee's statue is up, he's somewhat significant in that he gave the South a realistic chance at destroying the union. Contrast Mahone to any character that has a statue (even Lee), and his deeds fall short of the standard for greatness. Mahone can't boast he changed the south to become more equal for blacks (even if he tried). Mahone can't boast he created this nation. Mahone can't even boast making the right decision when his country split apart. But it is black and white. Literally. Everyone knew the South seceded from the union because an anti-slavery president was elected. The South fought to preserve the institution of slavery, it was as simple as that. You're right that not every Confederate was out there because they had a vested interest in slavery (most who fought in the enlisted ranks didn't even own slaves), but they fought with the fundamental knowledge that if they won, it would preserve slavery. For whatever reason they fought, they did so knowing that they actively supported the cause of the Confederacy, which is to preserve slavery in the South (and expand it West, which is why most people had beef with Lincoln, since he was a free-soiler).

Oh shit, my bad. 43%. I think I was remembering his disapproval rating as president was 57%, not approval as candidate. Either way, goes to show that conservatives are delusional if Trump supporters are going to abandon him over DACA.

I don't want to say I told you so, but.... I told you so. Also, !@#$, please. This guy grabs people by the !@#$ and still polled at 57%. This guy insulted a gold star family and still got elected. This guy isn't going to lose support because he doesn't want to pull DACA anymore, it's a cult of personality, and conservative media is just as naive as liberal media if they honestly believe that Trump supporters are going to abandon him over this issue.

Remind me what "good deeds" Lee did for Virginia. Last I checked, he prolonged a war that they would have lost and had they won, a quarter of Virginia's population would be in slavery, not to mention the unborn millions who would still be in slavery. Can't say he really did anything good for his state. Lee's "defense" of Virginia meant one of two things: either thousands die for no reason at all or those same thousands would die so that a quarter of their population remain slaves. He did a lot of good things for his state and country, I'm proud of Lee. That's why everyone who isn't a Nazi is clamoring to keep Lee's statues up. To honor all his good deeds. So if me defending Jefferson is amoral, what does that say about you? You defend Lee and other Confederate leaders, people who are objectively worse than Jefferson. The fact that you consider the insignificant shit (and it is insignificant; if it were significant, you wouldn't have had to google it when I asked you to find "good things" about Confederate leaders) that Mahone did as redeemable after he fought to preserve slavery goes to show how you don't really consider slavery and treason to be such an egregious crime. Hmmm, what does that say about you?

Remind me what "good things" Lee did again? Also, none of the Confederate leaders you mentioned as doing "good things" have statues. Presuming you aren't ignoring the fact that they are Confederate leaders who fought for slavery, why would anyone want to keep a statue of them? There are so many other people who deserve a statue more than any of these Confederate leaders. The fact that you are so insistent on getting a Confederate statue while ignoring their crimes tells a whole lot about your views on what is considered moral and right.

Yes. They haven't contributed anything to their country, they are not significant. Idk, maybe because it's the fact that they actively fought a war to preserve slavery and divide our country, that's the reason why I don't think we should celebrate them. But that logic doesn't make any sense to you. You still don't understand do you? Both Jefferson and the Confederate leaders are racist trash. But Jefferson built this country. The Confederate leaders tried to tear it down. If you can't wrap that around your head, I can't help you. Yeah, because I would have just melted them down and repurpose them. Putting them out of sight isn't my position, so yeah, it's a middle ground. That's ironic, you questioning my intelligence and understanding. And yet I still don't see academics marching en-masse to defend their beloved statues. How come only Nazis and White Supremacists march to defend statues of people who fought a war so that white people can own black people like cattle? Oh wait, I think I just answered my own question. That's like saying we shouldn't kill Nazis because once all the Nazis are dead, anyone who isn't a Nazi is next. Your slope argument is ignoring what Lee and the rest of the Confederate leaders did, and why they did it. I'm not saying you are racist, I'm just saying that the way you ignore these facts is something that Nazis do to whitewash the Confederacy. You should try and reconcile what is worse: keeping up statues of racist slaveowners who have no reason being on a pedestal (even you lost on that), or the possibility that Jefferson's statue might be taken down (someone you have called a 'racist paedophile rapist'). You can't win at anything here, I've been kicking you around like a football all week. You've lost on Lee, you had to scour the internet to try and find a single Confederate leader who was decently palatable (who doesn't even have a statue up in the first place to take down), and you still haven't addressed the issue that your slope argument ignores everything amoral about keeping up a statue of Lee. You can't take anything as a win.

Malone isn't significant. None of the Confederate leaders are significant. Who gives a shit about Malone. Did you even know who Malone was before you googled him? He killed Americans to preserve slavery in an independent country. If it wasn't for the decisions of better men who actually deserve statues, he would be swinging on a rope at the end of the war, not starting his own political party. You seem to have the memory of a goldfish. I told you that I CAN defend Jefferson, you CAN'T defend Lee. The fact that I can demonstrate Jefferson - despite being a racist slave owning rapist "paedophile" - still has some merit to having his own statue while you can't even justify Lee's existence outside of a slope argument goes to show that every time you mock me for defending Jefferson, you are only pointing out how much worse you actually are. Yes, it is funny. Funny that you can't even see that you are laughing at yourself. The slope argument is the only thing you have. Sad. Your slope argument depends so much on everyone tossing out every amoral, treasonous thing that Lee has done. Furthermore, your slope argument assumes that only "rabid progressives" want to remove Confederate statues, despite it being advocated by practically everyone who isn't a Nazi. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/347035-house-republican-calls-for-taking-confederate-monuments-off-pedestals I suppose that's the new standard of what it means to be a "rabid progressive": not pro-white supremacy. The people who want to keep up the statues are in the (racist) minority. It's not a coincidence that only people with accused (or sometimes, outright vocal) cases of racism still want Lee in their town square. Again, find me a moderate, not-racist history buff who wants to keep a statue of Lee so badly, that person was willing to march down the streets with a bunch of Nazis to preserve it. And why is it that only Nazis march to preserve the statues? Where is the masses of normal, non-racist people who just want to "preserve history?" I actually like the middle ground argument proposed by the republican in the news article above. That I can live with, because we are no longer glorifying Confederate leaders. Do you agree?

Oh yes. Malone contributed so much to his country! When everyone tried to divide the country in two over the issue of slavery, he fought to preserve the Union. When it was unpopular to propose that all men are created equal, he stood up against the tide of his fellow racist southerners and fought for the liberation of millions of black people. He's a real !@#$ing hero. One !@#$ing guy. You literally spent a week and you only found one !@#$ing guy. What, is the south just going to all be statues of Malone? I'm against murder, slavery, and treason here, asking me to be on the middle ground is like asking me to find middle ground between child pornography and, well, no child pornography. Frankly, the fact that you think there is a middle ground here tells me how you don't really have a moral compass. I don't see your argument here. Are you trying to say that when most people see a statue of Lee, they think "well, if a piece of shit like Lee can get a statue by being a piece of shit, maybe I'll stop hating brown people," ergo, we would keep up statues of him? Solid point. I can't beat that logic there.

Why did people identify more with their states than they did with the USA? Furthermore, why did only slave-holding states form the CSA? Sectionalism developed because of slavery. People identified with their home state over their country because of their slavery status. Admittedly, there was nothing in the constitution that explicitly bars secession of states, but it was presumed that in the face of political differences, differing interests would be settled by democratic debate, not by lead slugs and bayonets. The CSA betrayed the ideals of the founding republic and used violence to enforce their political agenda. They were traitors. But don't take my word for it, ask Robert E. Lee in his private letters in 1861: "Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union," so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled." As for Lincoln declaring on the CSA, I wouldn't be so sure. A Civil War was extremely unpopular. It was presumed that if Lincoln would give in to the demands of the southern states, they would rejoin the Union. It was only after Fort Sumter that it became clear war was inevitable. My strongest evidence for this argument is that Lincoln only called for volunteers to man the Union army after Sumter, not a day before it.

1. People who should be glorified on statues are people who contributed to our country and have shown moral leadership worthy of the ideals of our nation. 2. Confederate leaders have not contributed to our country and have shown no moral leadership worthy of the ideals of our nation. Ergo, they do not deserve statues of themselves. See how nothing you just said there addresses my argument? Are you even arguing to keep up confederate statues anymore? See? This is called derailing the topic.

You have a bad habit of going off on tangents that don't relate to the topic at hand. Get your head in the game, son. I've already defeated you on Lee, if you can't follow my argument, you should give up.

I think you are getting off track, to be honest. Responding to your wall texts that are only tangentially related to the topic is tiring. I've simplified my argument here for you: 1. People who should be glorified on statues are people who contributed to our country and have shown moral leadership worthy of the ideals of our nation. 2. Confederate leaders have not contributed to our country and have shown no moral leadership worthy of the ideals of our nation. Ergo, they do not deserve statues of themselves. For your defense of keeping up these statues to be effective, you must prove one of these two statements to be false. So far, your arguments have not addressed what (if any) contributions have the Confederate leaders made to America, and what (if any) moral leadership they displayed in the republic's darkest hour. Your strongest argument is to attack #1, since we do have statues of other slave owners. In which case, you either agree with the statement that statues should be of people with flawless (or less flawed) moral leadership (and thus come to the same conclusion that Confederate statues should come down) or you think the statues should not be about who contributed to our country and have shown moral leadership. If the latter is the case, by what standard should we put up statues of people? Who deserve to be on a pedestal and why? I've already made my argument about how American leadership is moral before it is martial (assuming martial is the only quality trait worth mentioning in Confederate leaders).

Yeah, because you want to keep up statues of a racist rebel for no logically sound reason at all. At least when I defend Jefferson, there is substance behind it. You obviously haven't heard of the 13th and 14th amendment. It was the post-war south that tried to worm their way around the constitution, not the North. Well, we are talking about people we put on a pedestal. Longstreet is a far cry from what Lincoln was. It's not an unrelated argument, it's your entire argument. You've already lost on Lee, and now you are trying to justify putting Longstreet (admittedly, one of the more palatable Confederate leaders, but that's a low bar) on a pedestal. And I'm saying that he doesn't deserve to stand next to Lincoln. 1. I love how you ask me to prove this with more specifics, when in the next paragraph, you quote this: "In 1860, Mahone owned 7 African-American slaves: 3 male (ages 13, 4, 2), 4 female (ages 45, 24, 11, 1). Nevertheless, during the Civil War and after, he showed an empathy for former slaves that was atypical for the times, and worked diligently for their fair treatment and education." 2. Is that what he was saying? Or are you extrapolating your facts? It says that he thought slavery was harmful to slave and master, did it say that he tried to play the victim card? I can see you are being rather loose with your facts. 3. If you knew anything about American history, you would have known that it was a sound idea given the political situation and the expectations that slavery was financially bankrupt as it was morally. The only reason why slavery continued into the 19th century was because of cotton. Otherwise, with the importation ban, slavery would have died without pissing off the Southern states. And yes, I consider that action to be a lot more than taking up arms to defend slavery. This point here should end this debate. Jefferson easily did more to help black people than any confederate leader. But that's not the reason why we celebrate Jefferson and put him on a pedestal. He wasn't defending black civil rights, he was putting down a riot. And you are still ignoring the fact that he didn't think black people were equal and wanted to use the Reconstruction government to restore the antebellum racial hierarchy. But yeah, keep ignoring the points that refute your narrative that Longstreet was a champion of black rights and deserve to be put on a pedestal. Finally, you used your google ability to find that one obscure person. Now google me this, does he have a statue up somewhere? Let's just pretend that this one person has any redeeming qualities for what he chose to do in the Civil War. Where is his statues? Which Confederates doing what exactly? Go google your shit before posting some nonsense. There isn't any Confederates advocating for the enforcement of the 14th and 15th amendment. Oh, sorry, your one guy Mahone led a "coalition" that included black people. I've already gone over this, so let me get it into your thick head: The American Revolution is different from the Civil War. The American Revolution was fought on the basis of equal representation in the governing body, of which, the British colonies did not have in the English Parliament. The Civil War was a rebellion from states that had equal representation in their governing body, but chose to violently withdraw from that organization to preserve slavery. Those statues were mistakes, built during the Jim Crow and Civil Rights era as icons of social oppression.

They weren't defending their states, they were rebelling against their democratically elected government that gave them fair representation in order to preserve slavery. Stop trying to whitewash what they did, otherwise you might start to sound like a white supremacist/"Lost Cause" advocate. They knew it was for slavery, their decedents knew it was for slavery, and the only reason why the "Lost Cause" is there in the first place is because people can't grapple with the fact that their ancestors were a bunch of hypocritical racists who killed for slavery. I honestly don't see how this is relevant. Let me get this straight, you are trying to argue that the US should put up a statue of Longstreet because he commanded the local police and militia to put down violent protesters. So you are just going to ignore the fact that he didn't believe that black people were equals and was actively going about reconstituting an antebellum racial hierarchy by cooperating with the Reconstruction government? Even if we just entirely ignored that fact, what has Longstreet done for this country that warrants him being on a pedestal? Here is what Longstreet would be competing against: Lincoln saved this republic from tearing itself apart over the issue of slavery. He played a direct role in the 13th amendment and forever emancipated blacks from bondage in the United States, ending the hypocrisy that is slavery in a country that claims to be free. Instead of razing the South (as I would have done), he forgave them, had them return to the union with their representatives restored to the federal congress, and then proceeded to take a bullet for his country. Longstreet doesn't have shit on Lincoln, get the !@#$ out of here. His worthless ass shouldn't even be mentioned, much less put on a pedestal. I'm not Clinton. If Clinton represented the whole of the Democratic thrust, we wouldn't have whiny little shits called Bernie Bros !@#$ing our country over. By that logic, the whole movement to keep up the statues would be represented by David Duke and the white supremacists. Anyone who wants to keep up the statues must be either a Nazi or a white supremacist. After all, there aren't any moderate, non-violent history buffs just dying to preserve history. That would be sarcasm if it wasn't true. Let me know when you find someone protesting to keep up a statue who isn't a Nazi. If you claim to not be a Nazi, then you can stuff your generalization right back up your ass. Actually, completely ignoring the other achievements Jefferson made for his country, it looks like Jefferson did more than Lee or any other Confederate did. Unlike Lee and the rest of the Confederacy, Jefferson banned the importation of slaves and tried to end slavery gradually. Let me know how many !@#$ the Confederacy gave to end slavery. Jefferson founded the country, wrote its immortal ideals down and setting the tone for the moral path of the republic, and contributed to its intellectual motivations. He practically wrote the laws of our country and his state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson "Many historians have described Jefferson as a benevolent slaveowner[295] who didn't overwork his slaves by the conventions of his time, and provided them log cabins with fireplaces, food, clothing and some household provisions, though slaves often had to make many of their own provisions. Additionally, Jefferson gave his slaves financial and other incentives while also allowing them to grow gardens and raise their own chickens. The whip was employed only in rare and extreme cases of fighting and stealing.[293][296]" "Jefferson felt slavery was harmful to both slave and master, but had reservations about releasing unprepared slaves into freedom and advocated gradual emancipation.[300][301][302] In 1779, he proposed gradual voluntary training and resettlement to the Virginia legislature, and three years later drafted legislation allowing owners to free their own slaves.[303] In his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he included a section, stricken by other Southern delegates, criticizing King George III's role in promoting slavery in the colonies.[304] In 1784, Jefferson proposed the abolition of slavery in all western U.S. territories, limiting slave importation to 15 years.[305] Congress, however, failed to pass his proposal by one vote.[305]" Such as? Any specifics? Also, let me know how their plan to bring "fairness, education, protection and other positive things" worked out. It's been a while since I cracked a gilded age textbook, but if memory serves, Jim Crow was after Reconstruction, was it not? I love how when I ask you what "good things" were done, you can't name a single !@#$ing thing off the top of your head. Go google this shit, I'm sure you'll find some vague article on a Confederate general opening an orphanage. There is a BIG !@#$ing DIFFERENCE between being racist and killing Americans to chain up black people. Again, degrees and sizes, I'm not sure you have a conception of what a scale is. And yes, I don't believe that "leading some black troops" to put down a riot redeems you from betraying your country so you can keep slavery. Again, there isn't a lot that can morally redeem yourself after you knowingly fought for a cause that would keep people in chains and killed your own countrymen to do it. Even if it were somehow redeemable, even if we did forgive them, are they paragons of our ideals? Do they deserve to stand next to Lincoln and Washington? The answer is no, these worthless shits should stay in textbooks where kids can learn what they shouldn't be doing.

At least when the German soldiers ran around, they only knowingly shot Russian commissars. German soldiers were told (and many of them dumb enough to believe) that they were defending their country, not going on a campaign of aggressive expansion in which the end goal was to exterminate lesser races in order to make "living room" for the master race. Unlike Confederate soldiers, who knowingly fought for the preservation of their "state's rights." As for the execution of German soldiers, does freezing and starving in a Soviet POW camp count? In other words, he's not a decent guy? Like, between Jesus and Hitler, where does Longstreet stand? He's pretty morally dubious, to say the least. Longstreet "fought" against white supremacist Democrats? Oh really! Did he grab his rifle and volunteer to join the federal forces, both during the Civil War and Reconstruction? I honestly don't know, but I'm putting top dollar on not. "Fought" is an over-exaggeration for someone who vocally disagreed with dipshits on how to properly suppress black people in a post-slavery world. Longstreet didn't have any morals, he only had different ideas to achieve the same racist goal. Let's go over your argument here: you are trying to paint me as being hypocritical. You just have one problem: I'm not Clinton. Does that look like me hugging some KKK guy? Does that look like me putting up a statue of said KKK guy? You literally pulled that shit out of your ass to try and justify Lee's statue being up, and somehow confusing me for being Clinton. It's such a pointless tangent that really doesn't deserve a response to. I'm sure I could find a middle ground, just like all the other Confederate leaders who decided to find a middle ground at Antietam to morally die on. And as I have said before, I can defend Jefferson, I can't defend Confederate leaders. Keeping in mind that your only defense of Confederate leaders so far is "they did some other potentially redeemable shit after the fact" and you've already conceded on Lee being a piece of indefensible shit. You want to try that exercise? I'll list the legacy of Jefferson and all of his achievements, and you list how he was a racist little dipshit, and we'll weigh the moral righteousness of the founding father. Better yet! Try me with Washington or Lincoln, if you want a real challenge. List for me the achievements and contributions of any of the Confederate leaders to the United States, and let's weigh that against the half a million American lives they took to try and save slavery. I assure you, defending Jefferson (as much as a racist piece of shit he was) is a lot easier. I think I've given you the impression that I'm a middle-path guy on everything. I'm not, just on political issues that I couldn't care less about. The purpose of the middle ground is to get things done, partially satisfy both parties. How can anyone with a spine (key word there, I'm looking at you, Paul Ryan) walk the middle ground on moral issues that define the existence and purpose of a nation?