A not very good general vs. a medal of honor winner from an unpopular war? I can't think of a better way to honor Benavidez and show all of the Vietnam War vets how much we appreciate their service to our country.
Huh? What have I missed. I saw it had gone a ton of pages but didn’t bother even trying to catch up. And go look at my original post. I just said my opinion and left it there. Wasn’t trying to start any drama.
You mention VMI. My prominent mater is next door. https://twitter.com/alejoec/status/1138736525091360768?s=21 Apparently that kid ain't toats woke. Washington AND Lee. Its like a Bogo at Publix.
The problem with this whole line of thinking also is there is no end to it. It doesn't stop anywhere, you just have to keep cancelling and cancelling until you no longer offend anyone anymore and we all live a nice sterile existence like human robots in that movie Equilibrium. Fact of the matter (as I see it) is society has become too spineless to cope, so the world has to bend to the will of the individual, so that no one gets offended. For all of recorded history it normally works the other way around. Society has turned into the browbeaten parents that kow-tow to their spoiled child's every demand.
John Stewart takes a swipe at the flag issue (and a little more). It's only tough to be on the wrong side of history once it becomes history.
Here is my take on it as a mid 30's, black male, born and raised in the south, active duty military. I'm sure I'll miss some stuff. What a lot people dont understand about the naming of the military bases is that it was purposefully done (naming after Confederate generals) as a post war effort to bring southerners back into the fold and help with recruiting efforts for the military. I understand it, and personally the names on the bases don't bother me and I'm not in favor of trying to "erase" or whitewash history. But I also don't speak for all black people. I think pulling down statues, renaming streets, etc is probably overkill. I also think the place for those items is better served in a museum, national park, etc. And I don't think any gov't building should ever fly the Confederate flag as a matter of principle. On the Confederate flag, I dont have any admiration for it, but i hear, and try to understand the "heritage" argument, but I havent been able to. When I see that flag, I see a symbol that stood for wanting to keep people who look like me subjugated, considered property, and less than human. People were bought, sold, beaten, raped, castrated, and killed with impunity. As recent a 3-4 generations ago, my family members were slaves. My grandparents that I enjoyed spending so much time with, could talk to their grandparents who would have been owned, and treated as described above. There are branches of my family tree that were killed off due to actions of racists waving that flag. Notice also that I didn't say everyone who views that flag different than me is a racist. But yes, for a lot of your fellow Americans that look like me, that flag waving around means something completely different, and I would hope that my countrymen can empathize with that. For those who are up in arms about staining/erasing their heritage associated with that flag, I would ask this. Where was the outrage, over the course of history, when that flag was hijacked by racists and idiots, used to torment minorities? Your outrage now over the removal, should have been just as loud with using it in that manner. Because if those groups hijacked the stars and bars you'd better believe (in my opinion) Americans would step up and put a stop to it. So, personally, I'm able to carry on with my day just fine when I see the Confederate flag being waved. But when I see it, what I listed above is how I feel and what I think it stands for. I won't spend a penny in a business that flies one. But I'm also not going to demand they take it down. I believe in everyone being able to exercise their rights, even when it's a viewpoint that I dont agree with. Just some of my rambling thought on it.
Excellent points. I have ancestors on both sides. I understand the heritage, and I understand the outrage. The point remains, where was the concern for heritage when is was hijacked for another purpose?
Hey, I probably have some relatives that missed the boat generations before that fought under that red, white and black from the '30s and 40s and no way in hell would I celebrate it or claim my flying it was anything other then stupidity. Different but the exactly same to a lot of people. Saw an old Ukrainian dude beat the f@ck out of some stupid ass neocommunist and tear the Stalin shirt off his back while his old buddies slapped around the stupid communist's friends. This was in an airport in Europe that had very strict security and when they came over to ask what happened, they hauled off the neo communist.