Violence in Charlottesville

[Montmorency]

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".

Neo-Confederate lies exist today and come from living people such as yourself. The wrongs perpetrated by the Confederacy were perpetuated by a vicious 150-year insurgency. All these exist today and need to be opposed and corrected.

We will only have peace once Neo-Confederates accept it in their minds.

[Husar]

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.

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.

Read the Proclamation. Unconditional pardon is not ambiguous. You are being intentionally misleading in some ridiculous effort to create an alternate fact.

You are obviously ignorant on purpose.

So most of us now get the part about the legal pardon actually working as advertised.

I don't need the approval of the clueless.

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.

You still don't get it, Chelsea Manning is a hero.

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.

You still don't get it, they betryed their country, that makes them traitors. You cannot undo the past. The only one who talked about hatred here regarding these traitors are you. They can be traitors, forgiven and still not worthy of a statue all at the same time. That you can't wrap your head around this fact is your own problem.

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".

Yes, listen to Grant, support the OWG!

[Agent Miles]

Pan, you sure got me there. What Seamus posted.

Seamus, I already posted about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution awarding protection from undue persecution. It is unlawful to defame a living person. Spreading a lie about a dead person has never resulted in a successful prosecution of the liar.

Monty your posts have missed the mark every time. I post the Presidentiasl Proclamation and you denied that it is a pardon. I present an explanation of the unconditional pardon and you post an excerpt from the conditional pardon explanantion. You give another explanation from a DOJ description of a President pardoning a criminal, which doesn't apply to the Proclamation. Finally you just contend that I don't know English or that a traitor is always a traitor. Now I'm a "Neo-Confederate". I was a soldier in the U.S. Army sworn to uphold the Constitution with my life for 21 years. That document protects all the citizens to include pardoned Confederates and even total lying POS. Try presenting evidence for what you claim. That's how honest discussions are done.

Husar, fine. I'm an ignorant, clueless hater in your mind. All of you now know that the soldiers were pardoned and protected from persecution just like the other citizens. You can't be sued for defaming the dead. It's just pathetic and discusting.

Now if you'll excuse me, I mistakenly thought I was speaking to the grown-ups.

[Kralizec]

Relevant link:
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/...14th-amendment

(about Jefferson Davis)
He was charged with treason after the Civil War, and his defense team claimed that the 14th Amendment already punished Davis by preventing him from holding public office in the future and that further prosecution and punishment would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

With a deadlock in district court, the Davis case would head automatically to the Supreme Court. But President Andrew Johnson issued a general pardon on Christmas Day in December 1868 for all those who fought for the Confederacy, provided that anyone eligible applied for one.

It was actually Johnson's fourth amnesty provision for Confederates, and it restored civil and property rights and provided immunity from treason charges. But it didn't allow former Confederate officials to vote or hold office. In 1872, the Amnesty Act was amended to allow almost all former Confederates, expect for several hundred former high-ranking officials (such as Davis), to hold public office and vote. So while Davis became eligible for a general pardon, he didn’t have full citizenship rights if he wanted to hold elected federal office.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...Seamus, I already posted about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution awarding protection from undue persecution. It is unlawful to defame a living person. Spreading a lie about a dead person has never resulted in a successful prosecution of the liar....

True of course. I was just musing that it would be a lovely test case that would address the concept you and I have been batting about. I think the sweeping nature of the Presidential Pardon would, indeed, render such a suit actionable on grounds of slander despite the truthful nature of the defamatory utterance. I'm not fully versed in the law, though, so I admit I might be incorrect.

[Husar]

Husar, fine. I'm an ignorant, clueless hater in your mind. All of you now know that the soldiers were pardoned and protected from persecution just like the other citizens. You can't be sued for defaming the dead. It's just pathetic and discusting.

I didn't call you a hater, it's almost as though you're unable to read or comprehend what I write. The whole defaming thing completely misses the point. You would apparently force your daughter to go out with her rapist if he got pardoned (let's assume the governor or president were his friend) because if she refused on the grounds that he's a rapist she'd be defaming this now blameless man, right? Even better, he should sue your daughter and he'd have the constitution on his side!

Now if you'll excuse me, I mistakenly thought I was speaking to the grown-ups.

If you want grown up responses, respond with a logical argument and not something like this:

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.

There's no logical argument to be found in there, but plenty of personal attacks, and here you are crying about how mean everybody else is to you...

[Montmorency]

Monty your posts have missed the mark every time. I post the Presidentiasl Proclamation and you denied that it is a pardon. I present an explanation of the unconditional pardon and you post an excerpt from the conditional pardon explanantion. You give another explanation from a DOJ description of a President pardoning a criminal, which doesn't apply to the Proclamation. Finally you just contend that I don't know English or that a traitor is always a traitor. Now I'm a "Neo-Confederate". I was a soldier in the U.S. Army sworn to uphold the Constitution with my life for 21 years. That document protects all the citizens to include pardoned Confederates and even total lying POS. Try presenting evidence for what you claim. That's how honest discussions are done.

I explained to you have misunderstood every point, that President Johnson's general pardons did not do what you think they did because no pardon can accomplish it. A pardoned criminal is still a criminal, and this can never be altered. Why do you believe something applies to the case of Confederate pardons that does not and cannot apply anywhere else?

Your basic claim is that Confederates are no longer traitors because a pardon removed this status. Your claim is false, because the pardon did not remove this status.

[Sarmatian]

All it does is remove legal consequences of the crime. It doesn't erase the crime. A murdered person doesn't rise from the grave when the murderer is pardoned.

[a completely inoffensive name]

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.

And somehow the right calls liberals smug, holy ****.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Neo-Confederate lies exist today and come from living people such as yourself. The wrongs perpetrated by the Confederacy were perpetuated by a vicious 150-year insurgency. All these exist today and need to be opposed and corrected.

We will only have peace once Neo-Confederates accept it in their minds.

We didn't do it right the first time the Confederates popped up, now the only course is wait for the neo-confederates to feel confident enough to play their hand and finish the job.

My question is, who will be this era's John Brown?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Pan, you sure got me there. What Seamus posted.

Seamus, I already posted about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution awarding protection from undue persecution. It is unlawful to defame a living person. Spreading a lie about a dead person has never resulted in a successful prosecution of the liar.

Monty your posts have missed the mark every time. I post the Presidentiasl Proclamation and you denied that it is a pardon. I present an explanation of the unconditional pardon and you post an excerpt from the conditional pardon explanantion. You give another explanation from a DOJ description of a President pardoning a criminal, which doesn't apply to the Proclamation. Finally you just contend that I don't know English or that a traitor is always a traitor. Now I'm a "Neo-Confederate". I was a soldier in the U.S. Army sworn to uphold the Constitution with my life for 21 years. That document protects all the citizens to include pardoned Confederates and even total lying POS. Try presenting evidence for what you claim. That's how honest discussions are done.

Husar, fine. I'm an ignorant, clueless hater in your mind. All of you now know that the soldiers were pardoned and protected from persecution just like the other citizens. You can't be sued for defaming the dead. It's just pathetic and discusting.

Now if you'll excuse me, I mistakenly thought I was speaking to the grown-ups.

By the way Agent Miles, I did not read any of the walls of text you have posted out of fear that somehow one your mistaken ideas will crawl into my head and lay eggs.
Also because the Federal Department of Justice disagrees with you after a 30 second google search.

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardo...d-instructions

10. Effect of a pardonWhile 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. Therefore, even if you are granted a pardon, you must still disclose your conviction on any form where such information is required, although you may also disclose the fact that you received a pardon. In addition, most civil disabilities attendant upon a federal felony conviction, such as loss of the right to vote and hold state public office, are imposed by state rather than federal law, and also may be removed by state action. Because the federal pardon process is exacting and may be more time-consuming than analogous state procedures, you may wish to consult with the appropriate authorities in the state of your residence regarding the procedures for restoring your state civil rights.

All a pardon does is state that you will not be punished for the crime you are convicted of. It does not remove the conviction.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

And somehow the right calls liberals smug, holy ****.

They do. Doesn't mean their isn't a pot/kettle thing going on