Quote (Thor123422 @ Jun 11 2020 01:07pm)

That is an exceptionally weak argument.

There's plenty of reasons why a country wanting to reunify wouldn't charge traitors with treason

Quote (thundercock @ Jun 11 2020 03:10pm)

Oh, they were charged and many of them FLED to other countries! Many were eventually pardoned though for the sake of unity. However, that doesn't change the fact that they broke their oath to uphold the US Constitution!

Quote (thundercock @ Jun 11 2020 04:05pm)

This is strictly about US military bases and IMO, they should be named after accomplished military leaders. LEAVING the USA should be disqualifying, end of story. That's why we're dividing the conflict into "traitors" and "heroes." If Eisenhower defected to the USSR after WW2, I wouldn't want anything named after him either. I treat the Confederacy in the same way I treat the Nazis, Japs, Soviets, etc. They are foreign enemies.

Would it not be stupid for the British to name military bases after US military leaders during the Revolutionary War? The same concept applies to the leaders of the Confederacy. Again, I don't fault Lee for JOINING the Confederacy as an individual. He was a product of his time. However, in doing so, he violated his oath to the United States.



He was charged with treason, I'm not sure if he was arrested or not.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Jun 11 2020 01:11pm)

Yeah, this is akin to Ghot using the "they weren't found guilty in court" defense

Quote (bogie160 @ Jun 11 2020 03:14pm)

At the end of the day, it's not something I care particularly about.

But it's ridiculous to compare Americans fighting in a Civil War to Soviet communists or Nazis. Our country as it stands was founded during the Civil War, in which the North and South disagreed on direction and fought a vicious war to decide their future. Reconciliation has been the central theme since then, hence why these bases were allowed to be named after Confederates in the first place.

If it's a bad look, get rid of it, but the "traitor" justification is so thin.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Jun 11 2020 04:07pm)

That is an exceptionally weak argument.

There's plenty of reasons why a country wanting to reunify wouldn't charge traitors with treason

Quote (bogie160 @ Jun 11 2020 01:14pm)

At the end of the day, it's not something I care particularly about.

But it's ridiculous to compare Americans fighting in a Civil War to Soviet communists or Nazis. Our country as it stands was founded during the Civil War, in which the North and South disagreed on direction and fought a vicious war to decide their future. Reconciliation has been the central theme since then, hence why these bases were allowed to be named after Confederates in the first place.

If it's a bad look, get rid of it, but the "traitor" justification is so thin.

Quote (thundercock @ Jun 11 2020 04:22pm)

If that's the case, you should step aside and let the cards fall they fall. I imagine that most people feel that way regarding a whole range of issues.

Why is the bold ridiculous? They were a foreign enemy by their own admission. Obviously there is a difference in scale so I suppose we could go with the Mexicans or Spanish for wars in the mid to late 1800s.

Quote (bogie160 @ Jun 11 2020 01:33pm)

It's not how they were regarded at the time, nor afterwards.

It was a war fought between southern states that rejected the authority of a northern dominated federal government, and northern states that championed it.

The United States did not exist in its present form until after the Union victory. It's historical revisionism that takes the Union's reason for war (treason!) at face value. What were they supposed to say? "We're fighting a war of aggression against the South"?

Quote (thundercock @ Jun 11 2020 04:49pm)

Andrew Johnson said that death was not a sufficient punishment for these people. Another quote from him: “treason is the highest crime known in the catalogue of crimes ... treason must be made odious and traitors must be punished.” Obviously, Andrew Johnson doesn't speak for everyone, but given that he was from Tennessee, I find it hard to disagree with his stance.

Like I said, the Lost Cause narrative is fucking pervasive in America. They weren't foreign in the sense that they were a different culture but they were undoubtedly a separate entity and enemies of the United States

What do you mean by "present form?" We didn't have all 50 states until the mid 1900s but at the same time we've had the Constitution since the late 1780s. We've had multiple amendments since the 15th amendment which was a result of the Civil War.