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There’s a difference between schools named after the Confederacy and schools named after Abraham Lincoln. The fact that this bears mentioning points to the gen

There’s a difference between schools named after the Confederacy and schools named after Abraham Lincoln. The fact that this bears mentioning points to the general historical ignorance affecting many of these misguided activists, such as those who tore down the statue of Hans Christian Heg in Madison, WI. Heg was a Union soldier and abolitionist who led an anti-slavecatcher militia. He was also a white man, which is presumably why his statue got dragged through the street and beheaded during the height of last summer’s protest violence: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/06/24/madison-protesters-pull-down-forward-hans-christian-heg-statues-attack-senator-sculptures-in-lake/3247948001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/06/24/madison-prote...

cable2600 6y ago
Even the Lincoln statues got pulled down. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tear-down-statues-abraham-lincoln-theodore-roosevelt-n1242913 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tea...
tired-dev 6y ago
Historical ignorance has been the goal of America's right wing for some time; America has such a glut of mass-produced statues of confederate soldiers that I'm actually a bit surprised that more innocent civil war statues haven't been caught in the crossfire. But more to my original point: when people have been subjected to incessant whitewashing of deeply flawed historical figures (Christopher Columbus, for example), I find it unsurprising when they consider things like "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it" in any context to be less-than-venerable.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> There’s a difference between schools named after the Confederacy and schools named after Abraham Lincoln. Given the number of people who make precisely the same complaints that appear in this thread when high schools change their name from "Lee", that difference seems to be lost to many "free speech absolutists".

cable2600 6y ago

Even the Lincoln statues got pulled down. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tear-down-statues-abraham-lincoln-theodore-roosevelt-n1242913 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tea...

tired-dev 6y ago

Historical ignorance has been the goal of America's right wing for some time; America has such a glut of mass-produced statues of confederate soldiers that I'm actually a bit surprised that more innocent civil war statues haven't been caught in the crossfire. But more to my original point: when people have been subjected to incessant whitewashing of deeply flawed historical figures (Christopher Columbus, for example), I find it unsurprising when they consider things like "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it" in any context to be less-than-venerable.

UncleMeat 6y ago

> There’s a difference between schools named after the Confederacy and schools named after Abraham Lincoln. Given the number of people who make precisely the same complaints that appear in this thread when high schools change their name from "Lee", that difference seems to be lost to many "free speech absolutists".