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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   24939 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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then it is incumbent on you to explain why what Lee did, whatever label you assign to it, does not disqualify him from having a statue

Only if you care about the statue. Some people care more about the label of treason being thrown around by people who apparently don't care why it's treason, merely insist that it is, because that is weird as fuck.

One would think that most people who "care about the label of treason" would be perplexed as to why the label would not fit a military officer who resigned his commission and then led an army on a march towards the country's capital.

Care more about the label of treason. If someone doesn't give a single solitary shit about a statue, then merely wanting to be sure you are spelling treason correctly fits the criteria, as does anything beyond that.

It would be too annoying for readers to keep this up though, so I'll provide my perspective. I think the word treason is very serious and should not be thrown around lightly, and I think Lee fought for his home state because, like many Americans at the time, he saw the United States as a union of states - plural, not a singular entity, and Virginia was his home. It was a different country he lived in, unlike the United States as they are recognised today, and I don't feel comfortable accusing someone of something as serious as treason with my limited and anachronistic perspective, particularly when I know a lot of very serious men with much higher stakes in the matter refused to.

I can however, understand why someone living in the United States today would consider him a traitor, which is why I haven't gone tearing through these threads calling everyone who dislikes Lee assholes and why I have been upvoting many of @fuckduck9000's excellent comments despite disagreeing with him.

But you don't appear to have put much thought into it. You don't care why it's treason, you just demand people call him a traitor. You don't seem to care about the topic at all except to use it as a gotcha. As far as I can tell you have recognised an opportunity for a two minute hate and dove in with your boots on. I mean honestly, how does it not matter to you - of all people - that he wasn't convicted of treason?

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