Violence in Charlottesville

[Montmorency]

Obviously, many or all of you were ignorant of the Presidential pardon. Some of you were still ignorant that an unconditional Presidential pardon does indeed return the pardoned to innocense. That leaves those who still just desire to be ignorant.

Again, this is false.

See the source you linked and the DOJ website.

10. Effect of a pardon

While a presidential pardon will restore various rights lost as a result of the pardoned offense and should lessen to some extent the stigma arising from a conviction, it will not erase or expunge the record of your conviction.

This much is most certainly true. All of the voting age Confederates were Democrats. My Republican ancestors fought that war because the Democrats thought they owned African Americans, so they could lie to them, cheat them and tell them what to think. We're still working on that one.

Perhaps we should erect statues in honor of the over 100,000 Southern patriots who took up arms in resistance to the Treason of their State governments.

[Agent Miles]

Check Unconditional Presidential pardon. Your link is not about Johnson's proclamation. Also, the southerners who fought against the South were not Confederate soldiers, right? You can get that part without a second reading.

[Montmorency]

Check Unconditional Presidential pardon. Your link is not about Johnson's proclamation.

It is the very same. You have not understood what the presidential pardon actually is.

[Agent Miles]

One more time:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=72360

"Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson President of the United States, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested by the Constitution and in the name of the sovereign people of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare unconditionally and without reservation, to all and to every person who, directly or indirectly, participated in the late insurrection or rebellion a full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof."

"unconditionally and without reservation"

"with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution"

That means without conditions. "All rights and privileges" would not mean that you're mostly still a traitor.

[Montmorency]

Conditions means on the part of the pardoner or the pardonee. It has nothing to do with the offense.

The President is empowered to pardon unconditionally.
The beneficiary may receive the benefits of the pardon unconditionally.
The beneficiary is still on record for the offense. There is no exoneration unless specified.

Here's an example you should be able to understand: Obama pardons someone for drug possession. This individual is still a felon on counts of drug possession.

While a presidential pardon will restore various rights lost as a result of the pardoned offense and should lessen to some extent the stigma arising from a conviction, it will not erase or expunge the record of your conviction.

You have a wrong understanding of the English here.

[Beskar]

Never thought I would see one of my relatives on the Org. Their channel must be getting decent views, how did you find this?

Initially via twitter. Seems to have gone very viral. @drone

[Agent Miles]

Montmorency, you're posting from the regular presidential pardon discussion, like the one Obama issued. Read the proclamation from Johnson. There is no muddy water here.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Obviously, many or all of you were ignorant of the Presidential pardon. Some of you were still ignorant that an unconditional Presidential pardon does indeed return the pardoned to innocense. That leaves those who still just desire to be ignorant.

Nonetheless, the Confederate soldiers were no longer traitors. It's not a sign of moral superiority for someone to refer to the men Obama pardoned as criminal scum, because that would be slander. Of course, one can speak ill of the dead and not suffer judgement for slander.

This much is most certainly true. All of the voting age Confederates were Democrats. My Republican ancestors fought that war because the Democrats thought they owned African Americans, so they could lie to them, cheat them and tell them what to think. We're still working on that one.

Don't be snarky. That is EXACTLY what I meant when I said unpunished and free of legal taint. In all matters of law, etc. the pardoned is given a tablula rasa. That does NOT mean the event did not occur or that they were not responsible for it. Nixon was pardoned for his participation in an obstruction of justice (actually the pardon was even more broadly framed) and could not be brought before any court for any cause relating to that. He is still thought of and labeled a criminal by most.

[Agent Miles]

The Confederate soldiers were pardoned. You agree to that. Nothing else in your post matters. Some of the pardoned served in their state and local governments or actually became Congressmen. Not the usual treatment for traitors, or double secret traitors. History will not be rewritten to serve a political goal. Also, slandering the dead is about as snarky as it gets.

[Beskar]

Confederate Statues were mass produced and crumple very easily. They are used as reactionary devices, nothing about honouring the dead in the slightest. They are propaganda pieces, not time honoured pieces. The fact they were quickly constructed 60 years or so after the end of the civil war puts the idea as honouring family members in the dust, as there have been at least couple of generations since that time. Spikes were during the Jim Crow laws period, foundation of the Klan (and 2nd Klan) and the 100 year anniversary (1960s Civil Rights Movement)... all periods of racial conflict.

[Husar]

The Confederate soldiers were pardoned. You agree to that. Nothing else in your post matters. Some of the pardoned served in their state and local governments or actually became Congressmen. Not the usual treatment for traitors, or double secret traitors. History will not be rewritten to serve a political goal. Also, slandering the dead is about as snarky as it gets.

You're apparently unable to differentiate between being legally guilty and being morally guilty in the eyes of your fellow humans.

A presidential pardon removes any guilt you may have had for which the legal system could prosecute you, it does not however say that you didn't commit a crime and it certainly does not force anyone to forget that you committed a crime. In fact it can only be given as your first link said, when you've committed a crime in the first place. If there was no crime then there cannot be a pardon. The very existence of a pardon depends on the existence of a crime that can be pardoned. To deny that is just silly. Surely the legal system and some of its extensions will pretend there was no crime after a pardon but that's about it.

See your quoted part: "with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution"

Notice the reference to the Constitution, which is a legal document? Exactly, it refers to a restoration of legal rights, it does not refer to an annullment of moral guilt. It does not say the crime never happened, it says the crime shall have no further legal consequences.

[Montmorency]

Montmorency, you're posting from the regular presidential pardon discussion, like the one Obama issued. Read the proclamation from Johnson. There is no muddy water here.

It's the same kind of pardon. The pardon you seem to be thinking of does not exist.

[Pannonian]

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=72360

"Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson President of the United States, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested by the Constitution and in the name of the sovereign people of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare unconditionally and without reservation, to all and to every person who, directly or indirectly, participated in the late insurrection or rebellion a full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof."

Just as President Obama pardoned men who are now no longer criminals, so all Confederates were pardoned "unconditionally and without reservation" and were no longer traitors. After the Civil War, the widows, orphans and survivors of Confederate soldiers were allowed to decorate the graves of the fallen and yes, build statues to them. The statues do not honor traitors, because the men were pardoned.

About 20% of the Confederate Army owned slaves. However, some of the men who fought for the Union owned slaves, too. Over the previous centuries, African rulers sold prisoners of war, criminals and undesirables into slavery. Arab slavers sold them to Europeans who brought them to the Americas. The economy of much of the world was based on the slave trade.

So, statues were built for pardoned men out of love and respect from family and admirers, not to honor traitors. I hate slavery in all of its forms and we all most certainly should. However, blind hatred makes us "useful idiots" to groups that are trying to create one-issue voters. In science, the saying goes that we can see farther because we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. This should apply to our history as well. On Grant's tomb are the words, "Let us have Peace".

Shouldn't Stonewall Jackson's statues be taken down?

[Agent Miles]

Read the Proclamation. Unconditional pardon is not ambiguous. You are being intentionally misleading in some ridiculous effort to create an alternate fact. The men were pardoned. Some served as mayors and governors or even judges who understood what a pardon is. They were not mostly pardoned or only 99.9% pardoned. Read it.

The irrefutable moral argument, "You're still a traitor, because my mommy says you are!" will always be popular with pre-schoolers. I'll call the 90's so that you and Church Lady can do the superiority dance. Otherwise, thanks for your opinion.

Who can say what people were thinking when they built a statue to a person that had been returned to innocense by a lawful Constitutional process? I don't believe that those who hated and despised the men built the statues, which leaves those who loved and admired them. I don't know why the Almighty did not smite the men down immediately after the armistice, but instead some of them actually lived for decades after, only to die in the last century...when the statues were then built.

Of course, Confederate soldiers owned slaves. Well at least there's an 80% chance that the statues were built for the non-slave owners. As I've already posted, some Union statues might be of slave owners. And even though it's an irrelevancy, statues all over the world may be to men who were involved in the slave trade. Good luck cleansing the world's history. That's the real shame. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. For centuries, learned people thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the fact we now know that the opposite is true. For centuries, people thought that one race was superior to another. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the truth we now know. Our mitochondrial DNA proves that the ancestors of every human alive today came out of Africa. There's only one human race and we are all Africans. People a century ago could not actually know this. We know it because people in the last century proved it. That doesn't make someone guilty for being born in an age of ignorance. I'm not the least bit interested in the smug version of historical facts.

However, someone who still thinks the Earth is the center of the universe should be the focus of debate to reveal their stupid claim as ridiculous. That goes doubly for racial supremacists. Learn the actual truth and speak with absolute facts to those who use pompous lies to impress their friends.

[Pannonian]

Read the Proclamation. Unconditional pardon is not ambiguous. You are being intentionally misleading in some ridiculous effort to create an alternate fact. The men were pardoned. Some served as mayors and governors or even judges who understood what a pardon is. They were not mostly pardoned or only 99.9% pardoned. Read it.

The irrefutable moral argument, "You're still a traitor, because my mommy says you are!" will always be popular with pre-schoolers. I'll call the 90's so that you and Church Lady can do the superiority dance. Otherwise, thanks for your opinion.

Who can say what people were thinking when they built a statue to a person that had been returned to innocense by a lawful Constitutional process? I don't believe that those who hated and despised the men built the statues, which leaves those who loved and admired them. I don't know why the Almighty did not smite the men down immediately after the armistice, but instead some of them actually lived for decades after, only to die in the last century...when the statues were then built.

Of course, Confederate soldiers owned slaves. Well at least there's an 80% chance that the statues were built for the non-slave owners. As I've already posted, some Union statues might be of slave owners. And even though it's an irrelevancy, statues all over the world may be to men who were involved in the slave trade. Good luck cleansing the world's history. That's the real shame. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. For centuries, learned people thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the fact we now know that the opposite is true. For centuries, people thought that one race was superior to another. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the truth we now know. Our mitochondrial DNA proves that the ancestors of every human alive today came out of Africa. There's only one human race and we are all Africans. People a century ago could not actually know this. We know it because people in the last century proved it. That doesn't make someone guilty for being born in an age of ignorance. I'm not the least bit interested in the smug version of historical facts.

However, someone who still thinks the Earth is the center of the universe should be the focus of debate to reveal their stupid claim as ridiculous. That goes doubly for racial supremacists. Learn the actual truth and speak with absolute facts to those who use pompous lies to impress their friends.

Should Stonewall Jackson's statues be taken down?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Read the Proclamation. Unconditional pardon is not ambiguous. You are being intentionally misleading in some ridiculous effort to create an alternate fact. The men were pardoned. Some served as mayors and governors or even judges who understood what a pardon is. They were not mostly pardoned or only 99.9% pardoned. Read it.

The irrefutable moral argument, "You're still a traitor, because my mommy says you are!" will always be popular with pre-schoolers. I'll call the 90's so that you and Church Lady can do the superiority dance. Otherwise, thanks for your opinion.

Who can say what people were thinking when they built a statue to a person that had been returned to innocense by a lawful Constitutional process? I don't believe that those who hated and despised the men built the statues, which leaves those who loved and admired them. I don't know why the Almighty did not smite the men down immediately after the armistice, but instead some of them actually lived for decades after, only to die in the last century...when the statues were then built.

Of course, Confederate soldiers owned slaves. Well at least there's an 80% chance that the statues were built for the non-slave owners. As I've already posted, some Union statues might be of slave owners. And even though it's an irrelevancy, statues all over the world may be to men who were involved in the slave trade. Good luck cleansing the world's history. That's the real shame. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. For centuries, learned people thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the fact we now know that the opposite is true. For centuries, people thought that one race was superior to another. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the truth we now know. Our mitochondrial DNA proves that the ancestors of every human alive today came out of Africa. There's only one human race and we are all Africans. People a century ago could not actually know this. We know it because people in the last century proved it. That doesn't make someone guilty for being born in an age of ignorance. I'm not the least bit interested in the smug version of historical facts.

However, someone who still thinks the Earth is the center of the universe should be the focus of debate to reveal their stupid claim as ridiculous. That goes doubly for racial supremacists. Learn the actual truth and speak with absolute facts to those who use pompous lies to impress their friends.

Concur with you completely. Genetic variability between any pair of random individuals shows greater variance than any difference in "race." Race is a medical irrelevance and race only matters as a social construct.

Racial supremacists are denying fact just as completely as those who assert that global warming does not exist. Happily, in the USA, they are entitled to their stupidity. Moreover, I find if helpful since someone who declares themselves an "Aryan First" type has signaled to me that their opinion on pretty much anything is likely to be useless and that I can therefore ignore them (save for obvious self protection issues).

My point has never been that a Presidential Pardon is incomplete or 'isn't really a pardon,' since the Constitution grants to the Presidency a broad and powerful power to pardon/grant clemency and the High Court has determined that this can, depending on the degree of pardon granted, function as anything up to a carte blanche.

My point is that it cannot make the offense to not have happened or change the agency of that offense. It can only alter the impact. Lee was a traitor; Lee was not simply shot at the conclusion of conflict; Lee was pardoned along with others by Johnson (who was impeached over his 'pro south' attitude); Lee could vote in federal elections, Lee could have served in office or gone back into military service. The pardon legally freed him from the status of traitor and restored his rights as a US citizen. It did not and could not, however, erase the fact of his treason between 1861 and 1865.

The President could pardon a child rapist. That child rapist would be viewed as having no legal impediment to their rights and would be free from judicial punishment or the requirement to be on a watch list etc. Is the child rapist any different as a person? Do her previous victims return to where they were before her crimes? Would you want this pardonee living in your neighborhood?

Yes, I am illustrating through absurdity here, but trying to clarify the distinction I am drawing.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Shouldn't Stonewall Jackson's statues be taken down?

It is on the to-do list with other confederate memoria.

[Strike For The South]

Read the Proclamation. Unconditional pardon is not ambiguous. You are being intentionally misleading in some ridiculous effort to create an alternate fact. The men were pardoned. Some served as mayors and governors or even judges who understood what a pardon is. They were not mostly pardoned or only 99.9% pardoned. Read it.

For the sake of argument, let's just give this to you.

The irrefutable moral argument, "You're still a traitor, because my mommy says you are!" will always be popular with pre-schoolers. I'll call the 90's so that you and Church Lady can do the superiority dance. Otherwise, thanks for your opinion.

Except by definition, they are literally traitors. Now, the state may choose to not prosecute and restore their rights but they are traitors none the less. I am quite confident that even your wide net definition doesn't include erasure.

Who can say what people were thinking when they built a statue to a person that had been returned to innocense by a lawful Constitutional process? I don't believe that those who hated and despised the men built the statues, which leaves those who loved and admired them. I don't know why the Almighty did not smite the men down immediately after the armistice, but instead some of them actually lived for decades after, only to die in the last century...when the statues were then built.

One of the main beauties of the written word is we know, or can at least infer, what they were thinking. There are a few monuments that were set up by the daughters of the Confederacy which are straight forward memorials. There are a few which are naked displays of defiance against the federal government (The obelisk in New Orleans comes to mind). However,The lions share of the monuments were erected while the black populations of these states were trying to assert their rights as citizens. That is not a coincidence.

Isn't it odd how Mississippi, which had a majority Black American population until the 1940 census, only has statues of European Americans? Actually I take that back. There are probably a few Choctaw monuments around. The enemy you vanquish must always be powerful. These things are very much about ensuring a European power structure.

Of course, Confederate soldiers owned slaves. Well at least there's an 80% chance that the statues were built for the non-slave owners.

The distinction between slave owner/non-slave owner is irrelevant. These things feed a larger European power structure. That is the issue here. The war may have ended, but the confederacy didn't lose.

As I've already posted, some Union statues might be of slave owners. And even though it's an irrelevancy, statues all over the world may be to men who were involved in the slave trade. Good luck cleansing the world's history. That's the real shame. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. For centuries, learned people thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the fact we now know that the opposite is true. For centuries, people thought that one race was superior to another. Fallacies with this and observation lead to the truth we now know. Our mitochondrial DNA proves that the ancestors of every human alive today came out of Africa. There's only one human race and we are all Africans. People a century ago could not actually know this. We know it because people in the last century proved it. That doesn't make someone guilty for being born in an age of ignorance. I'm not the least bit interested in the smug version of historical facts.

It is not that people thought differently yesterday. It is that people today are using yesterday to impose the same power structure. Also, our concept of races as we understand them is only a few centuries old.

However, someone who still thinks the Earth is the center of the universe should be the focus of debate to reveal their stupid claim as ridiculous. That goes doubly for racial supremacists. Learn the actual truth and speak with absolute facts to those who use pompous lies to impress their friends.

A fact is useless on its on.

[Agent Miles]

Seamus, like Monty, you're confusing a Presidential pardon of a criminal with the 179th Proclamation. The former is described at that DOJ site. The latter is a unique rendering that describes itself, step by step.

This part of the Constitution allows the President the power to pardon.
I, Johnson am the President.
I extend an unconditional pardon to all of these men.

Read the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Paraphrasing, it explains that traitors cannot become Congressmen. If I remember enough from Logic 101, that means this:

Congressmen cannot be traitors.
If pardoned Confederate soldiers are Congressmen,
Then pardoned Confederate soldiers cannot be traitors.

That pretty much means I nailed what the 179th Prsidential Proclamation did. If you read all of the 14th Amendment, you'll see that it also protects people from undo persecution. Liberals that cowardly malign the dead for personal gain are off the hook though, because obviously the dead cannot protect themselves in a court of law. I'm sure that Lenin would be proud of their efforts. However, statues aren't the enemy. Racists are.

I don't advise debating Nazis and white supremacists with liberal lies or half truths or opinions. I believe the actual truth works just fine.

[Montmorency]

Congressmen cannot be traitors.
If pardoned Confederate soldiers are Congressmen,
Then pardoned Confederate soldiers cannot be traitors.

But this is simply false. It means they are pardoned traitors. A pardoned traitor is still a traitor.

You are mistaken about the meanings of "pardon" and "unconditional". Until you overcome that, you have no hope of legitimate argument.

[Beskar]

It is on the to-do list with other confederate memoria.

I think the fact it is the relatives who are saying this, makes it very crucial and important, as it blows a massive hole into the excuses those with an alternative-tiki torch agenda and exposes them for who they really are.

[Husar]

For the sake of argument, let's just give this to you.

I don't think anyone even argued against what he said there, he just repeated it claiming we were all wrong on it when we actually agreed on that point.

Read the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Paraphrasing, it explains that traitors cannot become Congressmen. If I remember enough from Logic 101, that means this:

Congressmen cannot be traitors.
If pardoned Confederate soldiers are Congressmen,
Then pardoned Confederate soldiers cannot be traitors.

You're either wording this poorly or your logic is false. Either way you're still not making the distinction between the legal status and the "real", or as I earlier called it "moral" status.

Either way, about the logic:

If traitors cannot become congressmen it does not automatically follow that congressmen cannot be traitors, it only follows that traitors cannot be congressmen because that is the initial statement. A congressman can be a traitor if nobody knows about it (yet) but a known traitor cannot become a congressman. The way you worded it it sounds like a congressman could just give info about stealth tech to North Korea and then he couldn't be labelled a traitor. At least to me at first.

Wording aside, the pardoned Confederate is not a traitor anymore before the law, therefore he can become a congressman. Everybody still remembers that he performed actions that made him a traitor though, so in the eyes of the people he can still be a traitor. An unconditional presidential pardon is not thought control and not a memory wipe, it just means the person cannot be held responsible for a crime before the law.

Society in general doesn't just consists of lawyers and judges though and there are other rules in a society next to the rule of law. You also don't poop on the carpet in your friend's house just because that may be legal. Would you deny him the right to call you a bad friend then even if a judge does not legally label you a bad friend in court?

[Montmorency]

Setting aside history or the topic of the thread, observing someone like Agent Miles is psychologically and philosophically alarming.

He's arguing something detached from law or legality, essentially a bizarre special pleading against ontological status.

Or is it not special pleading in that he really adopts a totally different ontology, one in which being fired from your job means you never worked that job or in which lost virginity can be 'done over'?

Is it just a linguistic quirk? Insanity? It recalls fundamental problems of human relations...

[Husar]

He's arguing something detached from law or legality, essentially a bizarre special pleading against ontological status.

That's what I was looking for when I said moral status, yes.
I'm a good example for not learning/remembering the proper terminology I guess.

[Agent Miles]

Ouch!

How does that saying go, "If you don't like the message, then shoot the messenger."

Fortunately for me, I'm told that saying is in the Loser's Handbook for Intellectual Cowardice.

So most of us now get the part about the legal pardon actually working as advertised. At least "for the sake of argument". The 14th Amendment proves the legal status of Confederates allowed them to serve as Congressmen, while actual traitors could not. So legally, a Confederate could only honestly be called a traitor from 1861 to 1868. (They were paroled from 1865 until the pardon, but "for the sake of argument".) Then, continuing use of this term would violate the restored rights and immunities they possessed under the 14th Amendment. They couldn't even be forced to sew a scarlet "T" on their clothes. Imagine liberals violating the civil rights of tens of thousands of people.

Now the deeper moral argument, "Once a traitor, always a traitor!", doesn't really seem moral to me. If the LGBTQ community builds statues to Chelsea Manning, can I tear them all down? Would Manning's statues get a pass because of the famous Liberal Total Hypocracy rule? It's a hypothetical question, because no decent human being would ever actually perform such a despicable, pathetic act. So the moral outrage only seems directed at these statues. The moral arguments I grew up with usually ended with "Live and let live" or "Forgive and forget" but not with "I'm going to get you even if it takes 150 years!". That sounds like vengeance. I don't see moral justice in talking ill of the dead. Undue persecution of the dead who cannot defend themselves also seems devoid of moral justice. In fact, blind hatred of tens of thousands of people that none of you could possibly have ever really known isn't moral, it's just bigotry.

Confederate soldiers became U.S. citizens again and got all the protections awarded our nation's citizens. None of them are traitors. Calling them such violates their rights under the Constitution, although the dead cannot sue you. That's how all those people get away with lying on TV. A supposed moral issue isn't an exception to this.

We as a nation didn't just pardon the Confederates, we forgave them. Two percent of the population had died in the war. Families had been torn apart and ripped to pieces. We didn't want to fight anymore. The nation wanted to heal and move on. Few knew the horror of that war better than U.S. Grant. He speaks to us from his tomb and the four words he chose to say for the rest of eternity are, "LET US HAVE PEACE".

[Pannonian]

Ouch!

How does that saying go, "If you don't like the message, then shoot the messenger."

Fortunately for me, I'm told that saying is in the Loser's Handbook for Intellectual Cowardice.

So most of us now get the part about the legal pardon actually working as advertised. At least "for the sake of argument". The 14th Amendment proves the legal status of Confederates allowed them to serve as Congressmen, while actual traitors could not. So legally, a Confederate could only honestly be called a traitor from 1861 to 1868. (They were paroled from 1865 until the pardon, but "for the sake of argument".) Then, continuing use of this term would violate the restored rights and immunities they possessed under the 14th Amendment. They couldn't even be forced to sew a scarlet "T" on their clothes. Imagine liberals violating the civil rights of tens of thousands of people.

Now the deeper moral argument, "Once a traitor, always a traitor!", doesn't really seem moral to me. If the LGBTQ community builds statues to Chelsea Manning, can I tear them all down? Would Manning's statues get a pass because of the famous Liberal Total Hypocracy rule? It's a hypothetical question, because no decent human being would ever actually perform such a despicable, pathetic act. So the moral outrage only seems directed at these statues. The moral arguments I grew up with usually ended with "Live and let live" or "Forgive and forget" but not with "I'm going to get you even if it takes 150 years!". That sounds like vengeance. I don't see moral justice in talking ill of the dead. Undue persecution of the dead who cannot defend themselves also seems devoid of moral justice. In fact, blind hatred of tens of thousands of people that none of you could possibly have ever really known isn't moral, it's just bigotry.

Confederate soldiers became U.S. citizens again and got all the protections awarded our nation's citizens. None of them are traitors. Calling them such violates their rights under the Constitution, although the dead cannot sue you. That's how all those people get away with lying on TV. A supposed moral issue isn't an exception to this.

We as a nation didn't just pardon the Confederates, we forgave them. Two percent of the population had died in the war. Families had been torn apart and ripped to pieces. We didn't want to fight anymore. The nation wanted to heal and move on. Few knew the horror of that war better than U.S. Grant. He speaks to us from his tomb and the four words he chose to say for the rest of eternity are, "LET US HAVE PEACE".

But should Stonewall Jackson's statues be taken down?

[Agent Miles]

Of course not. Do you want to burn books about him next? Every Confederate statue reminds me that when Republicans stand united, we can defeat any Democrat, even Jackson or Lee.

[Pannonian]

Of course not. Do you want to burn books about him next? Every Confederate statue reminds me that when Republicans stand united, we can defeat any Democrat, even Jackson or Lee.

You talked about respecting the families of the Confederates. Jackson's family want his statues taken down. Should their wishes be respected, or should your political stance be respected?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...Confederate soldiers became U.S. citizens again and got all the protections awarded our nation's citizens. None of them are traitors. Calling them such violates their rights under the Constitution, ....

As a amateur student of the Constitution, I will note that no such rights exist in the Constitution. The Constitution says nothing about what one private citizen can rightfully say to another. That would be up to state laws regarding slander. It would be an interesting point of law to test if a duly issued Presidential pardon justified a pardoned ex-traitor lodging a slander suit against someone who called him a "traitor" publicly. Most states hold that it is NOT slander if the statement is substantially true, however insulting. Somebody could call me "fatty" in public and I could not sue for slander, even if every person present thought the person insulting me to be rude and asinine.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You talked about respecting the families of the Confederates. Jackson's family want his statues taken down. Should their wishes be respected, or should your political stance be respected?

Jackson was/is a public figure and as such his relatives/descendants do not have a final say in such things. They are but one more set of voices in the argument, though their ancestry may add a certain poignancy.