Missouri Republican demands removal of 'reprehensible' Abraham Lincoln statues if Confederate monuments go
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 3 years ago • 61 commentsBy: Matthew Chapman (Raw Story - Celebrating Years of Independent Journalism)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Abraham Lincoln
This week, the statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia — one of the largest standing monuments to the Confederacy — was taken down from Monument Avenue, a major victory for activists who have long sought to remove white supremacist symbols in the public square.
On Thursday, Republican Missouri state Rep. Tony Lovasco tweeted that people should be "fair and balanced" about "tearing down statues of reprehensible people" — and accompanied this with a picture of the Lincoln Memorial.
Lovasco did not clarify why he considered the father of the Republican Party -- and the president widely credited with saving America from the Civil War and bringing about the end of slavery -- to be "reprehensible," but doubled down in a follow-up tweet, insisting he didn't support the Confederacy either.
It's unfortunate how many people think saying "Lincoln was reprehensible" equals some kind of support for the Confe… https://t.co/Wn8VCgpEz1 — Rep. Tony Lovasco (MO-64) (@Rep. Tony Lovasco (MO-64)) 1631212389.0
The removal of the Lee statue has triggered outrage among many Republicans. Former President Donald Trump himself has weighed in, with a statement that claims America would have won the Afghan war if Lee had been in charge of the military.
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This guy gives the word stupidity a deeper meaning. Shame on Missouri if they re-elect such a dumbass.
It’s no secret that there is a certain contingent of this country who do see Lincoln as a reprehensible historical figure. Apparently Lovasco wants to make it known that he is aligned with that contingent.
I think he was trying to do a "nah nah nah , and so are you..." type thing like 8 year olds do.
You are right. Here in Arkansas President's Day is for honoring...wait for it....George Washington and Daisy Gaston Bates. Ms. Bates was a civil rights activist. Lincoln is not mentioned at all on that day.
I’m sure you’re right. I’m also sure it wasn’t a smart thing to do. Some people are not very adept when it comes to trolling.
But they try so hard. Let's at least give them credit for that
How about we give them raspberries instead?
you can do that, too
Pandora's box has been opened and it begins .... and stupid is as stupid does John .......
It took over 100 years to remove Rob't Lee so... Start holding your breath now.
It didn't take 100 years. People haven't been insisting on it's removal for 100 years.
That's a relatively new thing, the new progressive thing.
Because statues honoring traitors to this country is an old thing.
now fully embraced by trumpsters as of 1/6/21
Because removing statues of a traitor who fought against the United States to maintain slavery equals removing Abe Lincoln, The Great Emancipator?
False equivalencies are false right on their faces...
So, please quit being preposterous and outrageous!
Your comment has precisely no bearing on the one i made.
So stop being so obtuse and overly dramatic.
So no monuments or statues to anyone who fired on an American flag than?
... um no, just traitorous goobers in this discussion.
Just wanted to make your hypocrisy clear.
Thanks for that.
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Why was Lincoln reprehensible? Surely Mr Lovasco can give us some solid reasons
i doubt it
He is probably mad at Lincoln for freeing the slaves.
He's likely always loved his confederate ancestry and forgot he's not a conservative Southern Democrat anymore...
He was a liberal as was the GoP
Is it any wonder that the once Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln is now known merely as the gop?
...gqp
These attempts at rewriting history are always entertaining.
Why are Black Democrats upset about calls to remove statues of Abraham Lincoln? Lincoln was a Republican, wasn't he? Abraham Lincoln's place in any history of the Democratic Party is as an enemy of the party.
Black Democrats want to sweep the Democratic Party's legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation under the rug. Black Democrats want to ignore that the Democratic Party has always argued over what to do to, with, or for the Black population. The history of the Democratic Party is so bad that Black Democrats are trying to appropriate the history of the Republican Party.
Why are Black voters supporting the Democratic Party that gave the country the Klu Klux Klan? Obviously the Black population do not want to confront the real history of slavery. Black voters want to believe that Abraham Lincoln really was a Democrat in some sort of twisted rewritten history. Maybe that's why people don't listen to the vituperous self-indulgent sanctimony of Black activism. Black social justice warriors don't even know their own history and will defend outrageous lies about that history.
Equating the Democratic Party with racial justice is a ludicrous farce. Democrats defending Abraham Lincoln is an outright lie told badly.
No thinking, intelligent person buys the B.S. you're selling. Misguided, gullible, ignorant people might.
Why should white Democrats have the privilege of ignoring their history of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation? Why do Black social justice warriors completely ignore the history of slavery between 1830 and 1865? Are they afraid they'll upset white Democrats?
How many Democratic Presidents, Vice Presidents, Senators, Representatives, and Governors owned slaves while they were in office? How many Democrats used their elected office to protect their interests in owning slaves?
It's going to be very difficult to produce a comparable list of Republicans.
It's easy Nerm_L just insert the word conservative for Democrats and everything will be just fine.
But if he did that he wouldn't be able to use his weak deflection for right wing conservatives which is to hide behind their new party name. They are fearful of being exposed so they act as if all those racist white religious conservative Democrats in the south who erected confederate monuments, flew the confederate flag, supported segregation and Jim Crow laws were somehow magically replaced by non-racist white religious conservative Republicans who just so happen to protect confederate monuments and fly confederate flags and pretend that segregation and Jim Crow have no lasting effects and that systemic racism is a fantasy.
I love the sophomoric attacks at the 21st century liberals ( Democrats) about slavery, the KKK and Jim Crow.
No political party from 1776 to 1850 attempted to curtail slavery including the Federalists, the anti Masonic Partys, The Democratic-Republicans, the National Republicans and the Kansas Nebraska Act caused the Whigs to
dissolve and basically gave birth to the modern liberal, one issue, anti slavery party of Lincoln.
Defeated Confederates opposing Lincoln had no choice but flock to the old Jackson Democrats.
Did many participate in the KKK. Of course, along with white Republicans protecting the interests of whites first.
Jim Crow flourished from 1865 to 1964.
In 1960 the Civil Rights Act was defeated when every Democrats voted against it.
But in 1964 the bill passed with more Dem votes than GOP votes. The swing in ideology had begun.
Nixon and Vietnam were a bust that hurt the GOP making them more conservative as the Dems became ( slowly )
less racist and less conservative.
The KKK too changed its spots
By 2014 the entire former Confederacy had switched from Democratic to Republican in part because if blacks could
pass JIM Crow tests they were only allowed to register as Republicans.
When I lived in SC in the 90's the black people that I knew admitted that they registered GOP because of "social
pressure" and safety. Retired black military folks slowly began to change that.
I remember seeing the whites only water fountains and a gentleman who took me to the back corner to show me the
'colored fountain' out of sight and, of course, out of order.
Old habits die hard in the South.
Those liberal abolitionists that formed the Republican Party were God fearing Christians who advocated freedom for slaves as a divine right. John Brown would be considered a religious zealot today. Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party wasn't guided by secular humanism.
Those liberal abolitionist Republicans were what we call conservatives today. Temperance, moral conformity to divine will, and God having authority over government were important issues for those liberal abolitionist Republicans.
That phrase is from Split P, but you taught a fine phrase to use when discussing this issue:
Christian Conservatives...they can be either party but in today's atmosphere they almost always vote republican. It fit well for the Democrats 150 years ago and it fits today's Republican party
I call them the small c 'christians'.
Dude, your fixation on black people is a bit... odd. I have said it before and given you the benefit of the doubt but now I just have to think that you are racist against black people.
Fixated? How is it possible to discuss issues that Black activism has made relevant without including Black people?
Mere mortals don't have the privilege of ignoring the issues in hopes they'll just go away as the Democrats in power do. Mere mortals don't have the public treasury to protect their white privilege as the Democrats in power do.
We're told to confront our history. But that isn't being applied to everyone. Equity, it seems, doesn't include Democrats; they're in a privileged class.
“Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”
~Frederick Douglass
I wonder what the context of those words was.
I am not sure. Have you ever tried reading Assimilation by Frederick Douglas?
The quote is from page 283 of a seemingly endless stream of consciousness rant
which totals 593 pages.
I think it's obvious what the message right wing conservatives are trying to squeeze out of that quote regardless of the context. They want to emphasize the "Do nothing with us" and the "if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall" part of it because it aligns with their existing prejudices. It's silent segregation since it's now out of fashion to vocally support segregation. They dismiss the evidence of systemic inequality, they reject any discussion of reparations, they simply want to ignore black Americans and "do nothing with them" quietly instead of loudly as their religious conservative confederate ancestors did.
Since white religious conservatives can't openly, legally, discriminate against black Americans anymore they have come up with excuses to act as if black Americans don't even exist, no effort on their part to make their communities more diverse, no help for black Americans to overcome the monumental roadblocks that many white religious conservatives still living as well as their ancestors had openly placed before them for centuries, and thus they imagine black Americans can't be being discriminated against by them today. I mean, how can they feel guilty about black American social outcomes if they're actively pretending black Americans don't exist? And they use the quotes of Frederick Douglas and the occasional token black religious conservative to wipe away any uncomfortable guilt they know deep down they should be feeling.
Nobody represented by a statue was a perfect person, but there is always an overriding reason - or set of reasons - why the person was immortalized this way. I think we should always be asking “why was this statue built” and “what does it say to the public?”
Robert E. Lee had many admirable qualities, but I don’t think most people remember him for those. They remember that he fought on the pro-slavery side of a fight. Does it matter why he fought on that side? Not really. Not for a statue.
Abraham Lincoln - whatever faults he might have had - fought on the anti-slavery side. It’s hard to beat that. Does it matter why he fought on that side? Not really. Not for a statue.
We have to face the fact that, over time, the public develops a different sense of historical people. Sometimes, this change in sentiment is fair, but other times it is not. Sometimes the evolution in perception is rooted in enlightenment, but other times, it is rooted in ignorance.
Confederate monuments were erected across the South in the 1950s and 60s to protest Civil Rights...
The majority of those monuments were erected prior to the 1950's
... for the purpose of instilling fear and intimidation in Black people and to promote white supremacy and the evil "Lost Cause" lie.
Yes, I know exactly why Democrats erected them.
And why Republicans today don't want to remove them.
Democrats wish to remove them to distance themselves from their racist past.
They don't like to be reminded of their failures.
That's total bullshit. No Democrat is thinking that at all. Democrats want to remove them because they recognize the hatred and racism they represent, and Republicans want to keep them.
That is pretty funny!
Say, wait a minute! Are you claiming that Democrats have gained some self-awareness and recognize the horrible things they supported?
Congrats!!!
Only to a sick mind.
re you claiming that Democrats have gained some self-awareness and recognize the horrible things they supported?
It is amusing that the Party that claims the white race is guilty and should pay for the sins of their ancestors (even if their ancestors weren't in the country) refuses to accept any responsibility for the actions of their party. If anyone owes reoperations, it is the Democratic Party.
“While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. … I will also add to the remarks I have made (for I am not going to enter at large upon this subject,) that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, [laughter] but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, [roars of laughter] I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. [Continued laughter and applause.” Abraham Lincoln at the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate, held in Charleston, South Carolina
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” This was written by Lincoln in a letter to Horace Greeley, then editor of the New York Tribune in 1862.
Abraham Lincoln also advocated for sending black Americans out of the country as a result of him believing the two races could never coexist.
Yet, Lincoln changed his opinion in many respects and decreed the abolition of slavery.
For a bit of history on the topic, see this link: