The Southern Swastika

^Go further.

Haul Lenin's sorry ass out of the Kremlin wall and put the bastard in the unmarked hole he so richly deserved.

He was responsible for filling unmarked graves beyond counting.......

So Dayton, do you favor doing that with Lenin's body? If so, why not Forest's?

Because Forest was a staunch and loyal Democrat and a hero to Woodrow Wilson.

^ How many civilians did Nathan Bedford Forest murder?

I'm reasonably sure that Lenin has him beat by a staggeringly huge margin.

no but it's hardly the same thing. The best info I've seen reported implies the original site is where they WANTED to be. When we have that sort of info, shouldn't we honor it?

I agree with the general premise that some are trying to leverage this moment beyond what's reasonable - but in this case, I don't think it goes beyond reasonable.

Indeed. Try selling Vladimir on that.

I do. We're at an impasse.

Not really, since he was buried where his family chose to put him.

So? We move dead folks all the time. We moved George Washington's tomb at least once.

They're planning on reburying Kennewick Man and he's been dead far longer than Forrest and St. Peter combined. I'd happily support extracting St. Peter's remains, without destroying the Basilica, to further scientific research. Do you think that they should have left Richard III in the parking lot where they found him, or are you okay with what they finally did with him?

Regardless of what your religious beliefs might be, you have to acknowledge that neither Forrest or Richard III give two shits about what happens to their mortal remains now.

The support of his extant family was required to disinter the remains.

Is that a yes, or a no?

So? Without knowing the exact circumstances of how his original burial site was chosen and what Forrest's thoughts on the matter were, relocating him a century plus ago might have offended Forrest. (Granted, they probably wouldn't have, but he's dead, so he doesn't get a say.) I'm sure some of my dead relatives would be upset at the idea of them being dug up and examined for scientific purposes, but if someone were to ask me for permission, I'd happily grant it. The dead don't care. And really, neither should we.

I would ask you the same question.

Then, as I said, your whole argument (what he wanted) is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Agreed.

Your opinion. I disagree.

Two blocks from where I'm sitting, right now, is the oldest cemetery in the city, dating back to the 1840's. There is a section with a monument to the Confederate Soldiers that died trying to stop the Union Soldiers from burning the County Courthouse in 1864. Their graves surround that monument. The "Stars and Bars" the 1st National Flag of the Confederate States of America flies on a pole next to that monument and over those graves. I would not be happy with anyone suggesting the removing of that flag, the monument, or those graves. The similar analogy in my mind are the graves of the British forces from the War of 1812. I would have no problem flying the Union Jack over those graves.

Apparently the push to dig him up was from the University of Tennessee which wants to expand onto that piece of land.

Once you start linking a piece of cloth with the deaths of innocent people all bets are off.

I want the Russians ground down, humiliated, and forced (like the Germans were after World War Two) to face the unrepentant, unforgivable actions of their past, and acknowledge and take full responsibility for being blights on the face of humanity.

I had nothing to do with the decision, and don't particularly care one way or the other.

And so is the butthurt over him being moved.

If they don't, then why should we?

Let's tackle this from a different angle, shall we? When Bush declared that we were going to be invading Afghanistan after 9/11, a number of people who had family members die on 9/11 argued against the invasion, saying that their dead relatives were pacifists and never would have supported the US going to war with Afghanistan. I think that you and I would both agree that the US did the right thing by invading Afghanistan (that the effort was later botched, is a different matter), despite what some of the dead might have wanted.

If we adhere to what the dead wanted, or what we think the dead wanted, we're hamstringing ourselves as a society and chaining ourselves to outmoded and ancient ideas. Let's be honest, if you told Forrest on his deathbed that one day there would be a black Democratic President of the US, I doubt if he'd have been happy with the idea. I doubt if he could have stomached the idea of Colin Powell as a Republican President of the US. (And Lincoln probably would have some trouble with the thought as well.) The simple truth is that the world in which Forrest lived in is as dead and buried as he was/is. And none of us can really understand that world because of how things have so dramatically shifted since then.

Yes, absolutely, there are things from the Confederacy which should be preserved just as they existed during the Civil War, other things should be changed, and some things, it shouldn't matter at all.

Tell me, what do you think should have happened with the CSS Hunley and the remains inside her? She was pulled from her watery grave and her crew buried on dry land (given a full military funeral by Confederate reenactors, BTW). Should she have been left to rust on the bottom of the ocean? Or should her crew had their remains dumped back into the sea? Should the crew have been buried beside their family members? Or, as was done, should they have all been buried beside other sailors who served on her? Do you worry that they were buried in the wrong place? Do you worry that the dead's wishes might not have been honored? Or do you not think about it? Why should Forrest be any different?

Lets don't and say we did.

I'm not saying that. You are:

Yes. Just like the USS Yorktown, RMS Titantic, Bismark, HMS Hood, and countless other ships lost at sea even after their remains are located.

Yabbut, the number of dead bodies don't matter if the war is just.

I feel pretty much the same way about Christian Fundamentalists.

Why? Because the answers make you uncomfortable?

But I didn't claim that was the case. Merely one point of discussion.

Fun Fact: The USS Arizona is decaying and the Navy is trying to figure out how to preserve the ship, but the efforts by conservationists are hampered by the Navy's prohibition from allowing divers to enter the ship. If they would allow the divers to explore the wreck they could better understand it and help preserve it. I've no problems with the Navy leaving the ship down there (after all, we have plenty of similar ships as floating museums), but let the divers do what they need to study the wreck in as much detail as possible. If the Titanic, Bismark (which was scuttled, FYI, and could have been repaired had the Germans been able to escape the Brits) could be raised and brought to shore and turned into museums, I'm all for it. The best way to understand what life was like for people in a certain time period is to preserve as much of the past as you can. And if you can actually touch the things that they touched, see some of the things that they saw, you have a glimmer of an idea of what it must have been like to have lived in that time.

I read everything I could get my grubby little mitts on about Tuckers, but until I was able to crawl around inside of Tucker #1003 (formerly owned by George Motherfucking Lucas) I didn't really understand the cars, and if I could give everyone the same experience I had, I would. Sure, you can see one in a museum, but until you've sat in one, held the parts in your hand, you don't grasp what Preston Tucker's vision must have been like, for what an automobile could be. Nor is a facsimile based on the known data quite the same. There are all kinds of little fiddly bits that go into making an object, any object, that you can't understand until you hold said object in your hand.

To go back to the CSS Hunley, had she not been raised, we'd never have figured out what caused her to sink (a lucky shot from a Union sailor), and we wouldn't have understood just how big the balls were of the men who crewed her on her final mission. IMHO, it is a greater honor to the men who sacrificed their lives in her to bring her to the surface and study every detail of her, than it is to leave her mouldering and forgotten on the bottom of the sea. As someone who worked in a foundry, and has built his own foundry, I can tell you that given the paucity of resources the Confederacy had to work with during the war, the fact that the Hunley was able to sink USS Housatonic is goddamned remarkable. The Hunley shouldn't have been able to exist at all, let alone function. I salute, as a damned Yankee, her crews and her designer, because I understand her, thanks to my personal experience and the discoveries made after she was raised. Had she not been raised, I don't know if I'd have learned anything about her at all. The cause of the Confederacy might have been as repellent as any you might care to name, but the Hunley and her crew deserve nothing but praise for what they attempted and accomplished. It would be a disservice to those who labored so hard for her creation and her operation, to allow them to be forgotten.

not to try to bust up the previous respectful impasse but here's a counter-argument:

THOSE graves are in direct proximity to where they fell in battle and are part of a monument directly honoring that very event - thus their location is part and parcel of the act of honoring their actions.

By contrast Forrest survived the war, fought no battles in Memphis and isn't from Memphis nor is his memorial even on property he occupied at his death. His only relationship to Memphis is as a businessman - thus the location of his grave is NOT part and parcel of properly remembering his actions in battle or otherwise.

isn't that a public park?

that piece of cloth was directly tied to the deaths of a shit-ton of innocent people during the 20th century, nevermind 2015 or the war.

So can you explain why the Hunley used white engines? Was it up-front cost, since white engines could be rented but black ones had to be purchased?

And if there's anything more important than Jebus in TN, its goddamned UT and their football program. That shit's fuckin' important, an' tain't no one from outside of this state can unnerstand that shit! [/UT fan]

FYI, I was born in Ohio and lived there for 18 years. I've lived in TN for 27+ years, and I'll be goddamned if I consider myself a Tennessean, and I say this as someone who firmly believes that the movie Heathers (set in Ohio) is a documentary.

Well, actually it's worse. They didn't pay the Hunley crew any more than Hillary does her campaign interns.

Well, I'll give gturner credit for having a skull that's as hard as carbon. No matter how many negreps I give him or how many times Chardman tells him to die in a fire, he just keeps on trucking off nonsense.

He's like baba, minus coherent thought.

I'm not the billionaire Presidential candidate (all from donations from multi-millionaires, despots, and multinational corporations) who owns five or six mansions yet relies on unpaid labor to fuel her ambition to be the ruler of the planet, which she would sell to any hostile alien species if they paid her enough. Perhaps you should listen to the famous clip of her speaking to a black church as if she was addressing Special Olympians with speech disorders.

And we should treat the South in similar fashion? After all, the Confederacy engaged in unrepentant, unforgivable actions, representing a blight on the face of humanity. Surely what's good for the goose is good for the gander?