“Fun fact”: Mount Rushmore or Six Grandfathers was a sacred mountain for the Lakota to actively disrespect their beliefs
other “fun” fact: the man who defaced Six Grandfathers, Gutzon Borglum, was a member of the KKK
Gutzon Borglum
I refuse to acknowledge this is a real name.
That’s a gnome NPC in WoW, right?
Much much worse, either villain or very minor supporting character from Harry Potter. Especially that he was member of KKK.
Lincoln also commuted the sentence of 264 other Dakotans that had to be executed the same day. If he didn’t intervene the executions would’ve been 303
So what’s the real dirt on Lincoln? Did he snore or something? :P
Honestly the worst thing Lincoln ever did was choosing Johnson as his VP. Even then, I learned recently that he asked a different (better) guy, Benjamin Butler, to be VP but he turned him down. Had he lived to do Reconstruction, we might have more to critique, certainly he’d have done better than Johnson (not a high bar), but since he died he’s off the hook for figuring that one out.
You could also criticize him for not being committed enough to ending slavery from the start. But really, other than the mass hangings of the Dakotas (which could’ve been worse but was still not great), most criticism of him is just Lost Causers whining about “authoritarianism” by freeing the slaves and expanding the scope and power of the federal government as was necessary to free the slaves.
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I’m not American, so I don’t really know that part of your history.
Edit: he was assassinated for wanting to give black people citizenship is what I’m reading…?
You are correct. The only other thing that Lincoln is criticized for is suspending habeas corpus during the US civil war. I don’t know what the person you’re commenting on is on about. They may be a confederate sympathizer.
Ah! I see now. When you said “it’s telling that while you can’t think of something cartoonishly evil he did off of the top of your head,” I thought you were saying I was ignorant for not being able to think of something cartoonishly evil. My bad, I’m just primed to read hostility on Lemmy I guess.
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That’s the only other thing he was critiqued for? Brother, you must certainly have never opened a book before…
There’s a fascinating historical nonfiction book by Erik Larson that covers the early days of the American civil war.
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War is mostly focused on the soldiers and officers manning Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the site of the first battle of the war. But it also includes lengthy discussions of how Lincoln was vilified for things he never said and blamed for things he didn’t actually do.
The southern states, specifically the landed elite, were very interested in starting a war so they could maintain their wealth and power so they used Lincoln as a scapegoat to rouse the masses
A primer on the American Civil War, as understood by a natural born citizen of the state of North Carolina and a graduate of said public state’s school system.
The United States in the mid-1800s 1. did not yet span the entire width of the continent, this becomes important later and 2. could broadly be divided into two regions: the South, characterized by an agrarian economy featuring large plantations growing cash crops like cotton and tobacco via the labor of chattel slaves, and the North, with a more industrial economy that had abolished slave labor.
In the North, you get a lot of the day’s moralistic movements as they existed at the time. You see a lot of the Christian sects like the shakers, the early roots of the temperance movement, and most relevantly, abolitionism. People who wanted to see slavery abolished at the federal level. This became a popular political cause in the North and you start seeing legislation proposed.
Meanwhile in the South, slaves are where the money comes from, so obviously God says it’s the white man’s inalienable right to own black men.
Turns out there was pretty equal representation in congress about it; about the same number of Northern to Southern states, so nothing got done. Except remember earlier I said we didn’t span the continent yet? Well that was a project under active development at the time. Territory was being purchased or conquered, and new territories were drafting constitutions and applying for statehood. And what if more pro-abolition states than anti-abolition states joined the union?
We get a temporary pause with a compromise that states would be admitted in pairs, one free state in the North and one slave state in the South. You can still see the line they drew, the perfectly straight northern border of Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. That’s why that’s like that. Notice it stops at Nevada. That’s about how far that went before war were declared.
Southern states decided to secede from the union, forming their own nation called the Confederate States of America. The South raised an army to repel what they now saw as a foreign invasion, the North deployed their army to put down what they saw as a treasonous rebellion.
During the conflict, the North passed increasingly abolitionist policy, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order signed by president Abraham Lincoln in 1863 which declared all slaves everywhere in the nation free, and the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery except as punishment for a crime (this has present day ramifications) was ratified.
On April 14, 1865, actor and confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln via gunshot to the back of the head while the President was enjoying a play at Ford’s theater. His motive, quoting directly from Wikipedia:
On April 11, Booth attended Lincoln’s last speech, in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for emancipated slaves;[18] Booth said, “That means nigger citizenship. … That is the last speech he will ever give.”[19]
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I think he was a shitty husband? From memory he didn’t cope well after one of his sons died in the civil war and took it out in his personal life. He was also horribly depressed. Not that mental health was something people even considered at that time, so it’s not like seeing a therapist was on the cards.
Yeah. Cherry-picking can be used for good AND evil.
I understand the point, but as an exercise, try to find four historical figures without glaring character defects. Eventually, I figure we’ll all be either judged or forgotten in time.
These are a little more than character defects… theres lots of historical figures who didn’t rape and murder.
We only learn about the ones with defects, because they are the most interesting. Most people in history were fine.
One historic figure who had no known defects: Alan Turing
Its telling that your example is someone explicitly kept out of the public eye during his life. Basically any account of Turing is from personal friends or his professional work. He was a generally good person and great scientist that helped defeat the nazis, but he’s only celebrated by progressives for his persecution as a gay man.
I struggle to find any major social cause he publicly championed or records of his views on controversial topics. I’d like to be wrong, but it’s easy to not have a mixed record as a private citizen. Nobody was grilling him to free slaves or asking his opinion on systemic injustice.
Einstein is a contemporary comparable. He was a great scientist, opposed the nazis, and by most accounts a decent guy. He was even had to flee his homeland to escape persecution as a jew. Clearly lots of parallels. The main difference being he was an idol in his own day so we have way more first hand accounts.
Turns out he was a socialist with varying views on communism, had shifting support for zionism and wrote rascist shit in his travel diaries. You could probably find a quote like Roosevelt’s and slap it on a picture of him, that doesn’t sum up his life.
I can tell you that Turing is not only celebrated because he was gay. That man is one of the fathers of computer science as we know it today. His Turin machines are the basis for a lot of theoretical computer science
Again, that is an incredible technical achievement but it’s not inherently good or bad. A ton of problems today come from the proliferation of tech, maybe we’d be better off if he studied something else. Coming from someone who studied and can professionally appreciate his work: it’s not exactly discovering lifesaving vaccines.
He’s a relatable role model, especially for people who can are unfairly persecuted today. But that’s not the same as being a notable figure playing a role on the historical stage.
Edit: I’m not mad about down votes, but disappointed nobody has provided any argument all.
Is there any evidence that he tried to use his discovery to advance the wellbeing of the human race? Does his estate do any public outreach against the atrocities of the information age? I genuinely cannot find that. Even Alfred Nobel is still doing penance for inventing a new way to blow up rocks, and he’s been dead for nearly 130 years.
Taken alone, creating the theoretical model for modern computer science is as laudable as inventing the internal combustion engine. Both are the innocuous roots that directly sprout to massive problems in our modern world. Not sure why that in particular needs celebration?
I’m not certain many people even know he was gay. I’ve never heard of this. Interesting info tho- thanks.
Despite his contributions, he was forced to undergo chemical castration because of his sexuality, so it’s a pretty big deal.
Yeah every political leader have little oopsies like being called “town destroyer” by the people which land they invaded and towns they destroyed. They also were proud of it, used it to invade even more land, and their grandpas were also called that because it’s their family and nation thing to do for generations.
Who here hasn’t made dentures from unwillingly donated teeth?
Obama bombed a wedding of civilians not to mention hid Afghanistan casualty reports, was a part of the death of half a million Iraqi casualties, was part of the Syrian hell that targeted mainly children with fatalities at 191,000 by 2014, then there was Yemen and saber rattling on Iran and full support of Israel. Carter sadly oversaw the East Timor genocide at 25% of the population or 170,000 killed.
You might want to rephrase that as the East Timor genocide started while Carter was in office. Carter played no role in that genocide. The Indonesian government was responsible for it. It is odd that you are blaming Carter at all.
I’m not rephrasing shit because you’re incapable of reading.
Hey internet… the shitty bot account doesn’t know how to look info up on Carter and East Timor. Can you please do it for it?
Jimmy Carter’s administration faced significant criticism for its handling of the East Timor situation during Indonesia’s occupation. Despite Carter’s reputation as a champion of human rights, his presidency saw a continuation and even expansion of military support to Indonesia while it committed atrocities in East Timor[1][2].
In 1977-1978, as Indonesia engaged in wholesale destruction of East Timor through massive bombardment and forced relocation of populations, the Carter Administration increased the flow of military equipment to Indonesia[1]. This included supplying OV-10 Broncos, planes designed for counterinsurgency operations, which were used in ferocious attacks that devastated East Timor[1][2].
The administration’s response to the crisis was particularly troubling:
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U.S. officials, including Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, misled Congress about the situation in East Timor, downplaying the severity of the conflict[2].
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When the CIA reported that Indonesia was running out of weapons due to the intensity of its bombardment, the Carter administration responded by increasing military sales to Indonesia in 1978[2].
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The administration provided ground attack fighters like OV-10 Broncos, A-4s, and F-5s, knowing they would be used against East Timor’s civilian population[2].
Carter later expressed regret for his lack of intervention, admitting in a 2007 interview that he was not as thoroughly briefed about the situation in East Timor as he should have been[2]. However, this does not negate the fact that his administration’s policies contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of East Timorese during his years in office[1][3].
Citations: [1] https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/30/jimmy-carter-the-false-savoir/ [2] https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/10/jimmy_carter_indonesia_east_timor_genocide [3] https://inthesetimes.com/article/jimmy-carter-foreign-policy-palestine-legacy [4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2025/1/10/historians-say-jimmy-carters-human-rights-legacy-includes-grim-failures [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_Jimmy_Carter_administration [6] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/indonesia/2019-08-28/us-sought-preserve-close-ties-indonesian-military-it-terrorized-east-timor-runup-1999-independence [7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/08/12/carter-assails-indonesia-over-east-timor-security/b128a1a8-b856-404c-a84a-2202332e6fb5/ [8] https://sporastudios.org/mark/epluribusunum/carter.htm
Im not incapable of reading. Your writing clearly states that Carter was responsible. You claim he oversaw it which is just flatly incorrect.
You think Im a bot because my username contains the word “bot”?
“In 1977-1978, as Indonesia engaged in wholesale destruction of East Timor through massive bombardment and forced relocation of populations”
That REALLY sounds like Indonesia was responsible for the genocide they were committing. Why are you blaming an American president for a war waged by Indonesians due to choices made by the Indonesian government? Do you think Indonesia had no agency in the genocide they perpetrated?
Again it is really weird you are blaming Carter for this.
due to choices made by the Indonesian government
If you knew anything at all about the thing you’re talking about, the democratically elected Indonesian government were some of the ones being targeted in the genocide, by far-right groups who were able to overthrow it due to US backing. Absolutely disgusting to try to blame this on the Indonesians and trying to absolve the US of guilt.
If I go through your post history, what’s the over-under I’ll find you blaming Russia for the rise of the far-right in the US?
The US role in the East Timor genocide is common knowledge. Henry Kissinger is usually blamed for greenlighting and facilitating it, but Carter did not have clean hands.
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I dunno Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, seem to have been personally good people. That’s two recent US presidents. Then I guess I would add some super low hanging fruit like Nelson Mandela, Frederick the Great, John II Komnenos, any of the Five Good Emperors, Cyrus the Great, Ashoka, and one could keep going.
EDIT: To all those pestering me about how US presidents presided over criminal imperialist policies, here is my answer from down below:
OP talked about “glaring character defects”.
These are policy failures and state crimes, arguably attributed to the American state as a whole, and the long term US imperialist policies, rather to the singular person of the president.
You might have noticed that I added Frederick the Great in the list, which tells you exactly what my understanding of the challenge was.
I’m not here to defend US imperialism, don’t @ me.
Without the US, the world would be much more peaceful today, most of the current wars and terrorisms are caused by US interventions, directly and indirectly.
That’s a claim I would LOVE for you to attempt to back up.
Just off the top of my head I would suspect UK, French, and Soviet imperialism to have been as big if not a bigger factor than the USA.
Just count military bases burgerbrain
Obama?? Obama??? The Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya Obama? You must be joking, right?
OP talked about “glaring character defects”.
These are policy failures and state crimes, arguably attributed to the American state as a whole, and the long term US imperialist policies, rather to the singular person of the president.
You might have noticed that I added Frederick the Great in the list, which tells you exactly what my understanding of the challenge was.
Carter supported Pol Pot and Obama was a monster to people in the Middle East, neither can be considered to be “good people.”
I mean we absolutely could call out their flaws too, someone with that much power/responsibility is going to do abhorrent things (drone strikes with Obama being an easy one to bring up). Just like the four on Mount Rushmore these things aren’t what we typically call out because they either were “of the times” or not on the same scale as their accomplishments.
They called Obama the Deporter in Chief. Trump wishes he could get a nickname like that. Carter himself was a nice guy but his below average presidency led to Reagan.
The drone strikes thing is a bad example. If he didn’t touch it, individual combat units could use drones with impunity. He required drone strikes to be approved by his office.
Tell me if you had the choice between sending in boots to kill a guy, or drone strike, would you really ever risk your guys getting shot?
He added red tape, the minimum thing he could do. I’ll agree with criticism that he did the bare minimum, but all these comments about this frame it like he was horny for drones. That’s reductive and misleading.
Your comment is exactly the point I was trying to make. The world is complex and imperfect, so anyone with the power/responsibility of a president is going to do controversial things.
Oh I get it.
Yeah running countries is a series of shitty compromises, unless you are small enough to gain consensus.
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Yes! Buying dentures made from slave teeth is overshadowed by the fact this man did what very few would have done by setting power aside.
Would we get labeled by history as evil because we might have bought a product from China made in a work camp?
Washington was the richest man in the US at the time, and had the most to gain from indigenous eviction. The Iroquios named him “the town destroyer”, for burning down dozens of their cities. He also owned slaves and supported the institution just like most presidents after him (I think 10 presidents in a row were southern slave-holders like himself).
And also, its the US, not China, that has slave labor camps. Just because an anti-semitic evangelical christian (adrian zenz) who works for the US government claims that China has forced labor, doesn’t make it so. These claims have been debunked over and over.
No, China has forced labor camps.
The US has prison work camps, but most prisoners don’t have to work if they dont want to, it isn’t forced.
Anything to back that up other than white-supremacist vibes?
Because the majority of Muslim countries disagree with you. The only ones who believe that China has forced labor, are the US and UK, countries that have been bombing Muslim countries for decades.
And also, its the US, not China, that has slave labor camps. Just because an anti-semitic evangelical christian (adrian zenz) who works for the US government claims that China has forced labor, doesn’t make it so. These claims have been debunked over and over.
China has forced labour, according the the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/51/26
I looked that doc, and they source debunked Zenz reports, and WUC. So nothing new.
If the UN fucking rapporteur deems it reliable enough, and if the UN HRC hasn’t found reason to retract this report, then I have zero reason to believe some internet rando that it has been debunked. For all I know, your one liner responses are no different from pro-Zionist hasbara casting doubt on UN reports on Palestine.
Not pictured: the giant, shitty looking pile of rubble under them.
They just blasted chunks off the mountain and left the mess behind
Also not pictured: that the mountain is a spiritual site for the local tribes.
My wife and I found ourselves near Mt. Rushmore by happenstance durin a road trip several years back. We knew the history, but stopped in to see it for ourselves. We found it to be extremely shitty and underwhelming. The natural area behind the monument was incredible, and I absolutely understand why the indigenous people believed this place to be sacred, but the front was small, tacky, and depressing. I wish I could refund our admission and give it to some chill natives at a gas station instead.
You have to pay to be allowed to look at it?
Internet says there’s no admission, so I must have misremembered that part. We did look around the gift shop a bit.
Sadly I wouldn’t have put it past the US.
But yeah gift shops and stuff around it is the tourist norm.
Seems like a good time to link the list of US atrocities
303 natives were convicted and sentenced to death following the Dakota War of 1862. Lincoln actually commuted the sentences of 264 of those natives, allowing the convictions to stand only for those he believed personally engaged in the murder of innocent women and children.
Therefore, the last one is deliberately and intentionally misleading.
The Dakota War came out of a strategic starvation campaign imposed by the Union Army over Sioux Territory. The original tribes had been forced off the productive soil around the Minnesota River and displaced into barren wasteland. Subsequent crop failure and long winter made trading for foodstuffs from their home territories the only means of survival. And the settlers took maximum advantage, deliberately scamming and price gouging the Sioux for the remains of their family wealth. This, after a series of treaties had been casually violated from administration to administration.
The war was quite literally a fight for survival by the Sioux. Lincoln’s largess in hanging only the young men directly involved in the raid did nothing to prevent the Sioux population from continuing its rapid decline, as the surviving elders were left to starve to death in the wilderness and the children were forced into Christian schools notorious for brutalizing and killing the kidnapped youths.
OK, but america had already been established. You have to ask who were the groups that pushed those policies. AoC is part of the machine that invades countries doesn’t mean she advocates for it.
Something stuck out to me in your response and that’s the religious aspect of the oppression.
He didn’t kill ALL the innocent, whose land he stole and whose relatives he murdered. Only those that dated fight back.
Yeah, sounds like Trump.
Bro he literally freed the slaves.
They still have slaves. They are just in prison. That’s my point.
the constitution even condones it. Fucked. Prisoners get paid like 70c an hour or some shit.
That’s still far from as bad.
Oh okay. I didn’t realize “a little” slavery is okay. As a treat if your white I guess.
What. Are you genuinely fucking with me or do you think enslaving a third of the population is the same level of bad as prison labor.
Do you straight up think there’s no difference between before and after the civil war.
No, I don’t think any slavery is okay at all. Do you?
Instead of actually working towards something better, let’s just spend our time arguing over things we can’t change. /S
and hitler was a pretty good painter …
I’m sorry, did you just compare painting TO ENDING SLAVERY*
*some exclusions apply
That’s objectively false. His line work was shit and this meme is inaccurate.
True, he was a horrible painter. I’ve seen better paintings from Alex Jones
Decent architect trying to be a painter
When has art ever been objective?
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It tirns out murdering people for their food, goods, and horses is something the government did not want to encourage
unless you’re a settler, then it’s called “manifest destiny”
The settlers have always been 100% evil
No, they were, very much. Europeans were invaders, taking land that didn’t belong to them by force. The government explicitly encouraged murder and turned a blind eye to any abuses. If you don’t want people to defend their land and avenge the love domes you murder, maybe don’t invade and ethnically cleanse the are to begin with?
Do you also think Russia v. Ukraine or Israel’s genocide don’t have “evil” vs “good” sides?
Because if you’re invading and murdering innocent people, its a clear cut for most people.
Teddy Roosevelt never said “The only good indian is a dead indian.” That quote is typically associated with Philip Sheridan.
A number of sources claim a similar quote (“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are…") alleged to be from an 1886 speech in New York, but this still goes against how he treated native americans generally and I can’t find the original speech so I’m a bit suspicious of this as well.
That would require the democrats to actually do something
I’m picturing 200 dems walking slowly chanting “we shall overcome” on the way to brunch. George Bush is there. No one tips.
And the major action item is to do some internet videos with whatever video games are popular with those millennial kids these days playing in the background. Shot in Nancy Pelosi’s beautiful home–oh nm, she doesn’t want any dirty YouTube filmographers in her home but W is willing to let them use his ranch and his copy of EA Football Game 20
2425. See if we can get Joe Rogan to make a guest appearance, and we’re sure to recapture the millennial under 30 crowd!Oh good, the corporate sponsorship money arrived, let’s split that up and go home. Don’t forget to set aside the King’s fifth!
Greg Stoker was just making fun of Chuck Schumer yelling “We will win” on the steps of (I think the treasury?) before dipping permanently.
That would require democrats to have fundamentally different goals than Republicans.
Nooo how dare you suggest the Democrats aren’t on our side. You’re gonna make people note VOTEE
My biggest complaint about Lincoln was the people he didn’t hang.
Kinda like how the only thing John Brown did wrong on May 24th, 1856 was stop at 5
That’s four of them. I rather think Carter was a good human being, regardless of whether or not you think he was a good president.
I can’t really agree with that given how he treated Cambodia and supported the Khmer Rouge, as well as other crimes against humanity in the name of “opposing Communism.”
Yeah but if you ignore some of the most heinous atrocities ever perpetrated he’s a nice guy
George W. Bush’s treatment by the media in recent years in a nutshell. Thank goodness for Blowback reminding people of his atrocities.
It’s sad how lacking of recent historical context people have. They always point to Carter and it’s like… frustrating.
Absolutely, the media machine does a great job of “cleansing the records” on US figures.
The truth is that they want to see non-white people killed. They support Carter because he supported groups like the Khmer Rouge and they killed Vietnamese people. It’s just racism at its core
Read “The Jakarta Method”
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
You could look at any country in the world and find leaders that were just as bad and even worse throughout history. I think the takeaway should be that shitty people exist. Some of it is a product of the times, some of it just being awful people. Shitty people have and always will exist.
Edit: With these downvotes it almost seems like y’all thought I was defending them. I absolutely was not defending them. :)
The US Empire is definitely one of the worst States to exist in history, though, consistently.
Can’t deny that. The ratio of good/bad presidents is definitely abysmal.
This is an ml community. Anything that praises the USA or normalizes it (that is, reducing the awfulness) is gonna get down votes.
At least they didn’t carve them into a mountain though?
They absolutely would have if they had the resources to swing it
And then they would have removed them later. Just like all the statues of Adolf Hitler, which no longer exist.
Lmao what the fuck is this take? Somebody tell Egypt to start tearing down the pyramids. There are 1000s of Roman monuments still standing that celebrate specific conquests of slavers. Why are there still statues of shitty imperial colonizers all over Europe?
You only get your blood-monuments torn down when your state is systematically destroyed.
I hate the “it was a different time” excuse for these awful human beings. It falls apart if you do any reading from the time. Plenty of people wrote about how shit these people were AT THE TIME. Our morals haven’t expanded somehow. Our systems of control have changed to be more sustainable. The ruling class learned that slavery was not sustainable. That’s it.
Also, this doesn’t give an excuse for the leaders of today. The slave owners of the past are not “less caring” than the current ruling class is. The current ruling class has just better distanced themselves from direct acts of violence while expanding their ability to perform mass violence. Slavery has evolved into mass incarceration for example. We’ve just normalized our violence into different systems and outsourced a lot of it to the global south.
If you’re a Billionaire today you are the equivalent of a slave owner of the past with significantly more violence and control than a slave owner could ever dream of.
I agree with most of this, but slave owners could dream of a lot of violence.
Also, don’t ignore shipping jobs overseas to where labor might as well be slavery if it technically isn’t.
Plenty of people wrote about how shit these people were AT THE TIME.
This. It’s disheartening to realise that in a hundred years’ time, most people will be excusing Trump and Putin with “that’s just how people were back then”.
There’s almost no national leader that is going to be a “good person”.
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I have never seen anybody on any platform anywhere defend Pol Pot.
I think it’s tremendously funny that you saw a list including Stalin, Putin, and Mao, and your only response was "I’ve never seen anyone defend Pol Pot.
Proves my point, there are plenty of leaders that users of this instance think were good people.
And I think it’s funny that you’re blatantly lying about what other people believe, and your response to that is, “Ha! Not every word that comes out of my mouth is a lie, only lots of them!”
Okay, fella - take a few breaths and relax. People are products of their times. The better ones fight for virtues and values they see as better at the time. They see an opportunity others do not and rally people around those.
Others they don’t see and continue wi5h those norms, or they see the wrongs but don’t believe they can rally people around fixing them.
Do not demonize people in the past who do not meet current norms. There will never be anybody who will meet those standards.
Judge them against the standards of their peers.
What if MLK did not support feminists? Would he now be considered scum, thus negating everything good he ever did?
Heck, i don’t know if he had a stance on women’s rights explicitly. Maybe he didn’t. Is he evil if he didn’t?
Do not demonize people in the past who do not meet current norms. There will never be anybody who will meet those standards.
“Nazis were just a product of their time!”
So you believe the entirety of the United States’ existence is an affront to humanity as it’s very foundation is as evil as Nazism, right? Nothing America ever stood for was any better rhan the worst of humanity.
It is telling that you can so lightly equate my comment to waving off Nazism as if across the developed world Nazism was the norm of the time. Yes, most peoples in the European culture were naturally Nazis, and only a few morally sound people were against it. I see your troll… And I set your straw man on fire.
So you believe the entirety of the United States’ existence is an affront to humanity as it’s very foundation is as evil as Nazism, right?
considering that
- it was founded on genocide
- it was built by slavery
- it still has not completely outlawed slavery
- lebensraum was explicitly based on manifest destiny
- it has killed far more people than the nazis ever managed
yes, the usa is an affront to humanity and is on par with the third reich
What if MLK did not support feminists? Would he now be considered scum, thus negating everything good he ever did?
he literally addressed the national organization for women in 1966 and espoused their ideals.
giving a pass to the people from history is problematic because the same ideals of progressiveness that we pride ourselves on today were present in the past and people knew that it existed; they simply weren’t as popular back then as they are now and anyone espousing them back then were treated like tankies of their own time.
giving them a pass only helps to excuse regressivism and anti-progressive sentiment like both the republicans and democrats (respectively) practice today; this is a key reason why we have trump as president today and probably jd vance tomorrow.
Excellent job taking what I wrote and reframing it to make it appear i asserted something I did not.
Reading the room, I can see this forum is filled with people who have an axe to grind and have already decided I am a “part of the problem” because I had the audacity to suggest that we should not demonize the American founders.
Good luck finding a nation that has any redeeming qualities, given that no founders are unimpeachable for anything.
you’re missing the point and no nation’s founder’s character is unassailable.
we give grand canyon sized passes to these specific founders to white wash their truly horrific behaviors (that we know about); but don’t do the same thing for founders that we consider our enemies and that’s indicative of the propaganda that we keep perpetuating when we repeat this whitewashing to each other; as well as the reason why we’re descending into fascism.
no one is immune to propaganda so, yes, you are part of the problem like i am; the only difference is that me along with most of the people commenting on this post are aware of this specific propaganda and you’re not; hopefully unwittingly so.
I find it ironic that you think I am unaware of some propaganda, presumably related to this thread.
I learned about the imperfect personalities of our founders and their peers in elementary school. No passes were given. I also learned that many of the founders sought to explicitly outlaw slavery, but compromised in order to get unity vs. king Charles and a viable nation.
Had they not done that, we would have been divided against an overwhelmingly powerful existential threat and probably would have lost. It is an example of making incremental progress and postponing a conflict until later so that there will be a later.
You are missing my point. “Canceling” historical figures or rewriting history because “bad” is a disservice to everyone. Acknowledging both the good and bad is the better approach. We learn by studying history, identifying the failures and successes precisely to learn from them and hopefully do better.
Our current president is an example of what happens when we don’t learn from history. I don’t know any reasonable person who whitewashed our founders. For those people, you need to look at movements that seek authoritarian control over a population, the people who follow them, and their victims who were denied the necessary education in history and critical thinking.
Additionally, I think most on this thread need to brush up on logical fallacies. Even the best of us forget some of them, but it is endemic in these forums.
your point misses THE point; nothing is being cancelled; and incrementalism only serves to perpetuate our unjust society.
the way you describe authoritarian movements and mass genociders as “imperfect personalities” is an unironic and unaware manifestation of the our blessed homeland meme
you advocate for critical thinking and learning from history without acknowledging that your own country is an authoritarian oligarchical regime that denies its victims the necessary education that would teach the history and critical thinking they need and it has lead the election of an openly authoritarian president who seeks control; as all presidents in the past have done; and it will lead to more.
i don’t know what your education is like, so i don’t know what you learned in elementary school about these founder’s crimes against humanity; but if it’s anything like how most american voters’ education of these men, it’s seriously lacking on this topic.
Lots of “what-ifs” to dismiss people highlighting historical genocidal slavers.
Okay. There were staunch abolitionists across the US and especially in the UK. Many of whom were operating on the basis of equality, i.e. not the American belief that black people are a subspecies that were sent from heaven to serve whites, like all the leaders of the US though before the 1900s.
So by your own method, Washington was a disgusting human being, one would argue a demon.
There are people today rightly pointing out the looting of the global South by the global North, and yet nobody in the north is volunteering to give it all back. What disgusting human beings, if they had any decency they’d give it back and ritually kill themselves
That line only works when most of the global north aren’t more poor than those in the south.
Most people in the western world do want to remove the stolen wealth and return it, since they’ve never seen it either.
??? Do they really though? I rarely see the sentiment that literally all ill-gotten gains forming the foundation of their nation’s power and stability should be returned (and definitely not from people benefitting). Mostly it’s just tossing a few cultural artifacts, some meager reparations, and cutting back on some luxury like chocolate because it makes them feel bad. That’s the same as freeing a few slaves after you profit off them for your whole life (and we established that makes you a demon).
Or are you arguing about injustices in classes? If everyone being exploited by the rich agreed to dismantle that system it would be done by now. Doesn’t matter if you’re poor, you participate in the problem.
You probably just want your exploitation to be marginally less than the guys on the bottom, you don’t care about the core issue. Therefore being opposed to the compete dismantling of our current economic system is regressive and 90% of earth’s population are demons
My dude I’m dual citizen Chinese and us, stealing from the rich and building the fundamentals of society equally is kinda my jam, even if someone did fuck up and make me a us citizen by default.
The American working class, despite making far more than their peers in the global South, are usually more poor than their peers in the global South. Home ownership is a myth and favelas are banned here; you’ll not only never retire but even if you manage to get to retirement age all your money is going to go to medical care. You might have a car but you need it to live since there’s more distance between your house and the only grocery store than there is between most villages in poor countries. Hell all the wealth the US stole still has more people living near open sewage lines than any country in South America. Shit even the cops are more corrupt than those in the south but you can’t even bribe them since they’re paid so much by the rich to protect their property.
The American poor are happy to give up the wealth their country stole, because they never saw any of it.
You must hang with a pretty progressive crowd, which is exactly my point. You could pick 10 of the poorest quartile of Americans and I’d bet the house that every single one wants to redistribute that money to themselves.
They’ve probably never left their state, let alone visited another country. You don’t have to benefit from an injust system to want to perpetuate it.
Why do you think ending USAID resonates with the poor? Why would someone struggling to pay rent volunteer a huge chunk of their nation’s wealth to go halfway across the world?
61% of Americans explicitly don’t want to increase foreign aid, which is a much less controversial topic than actual reparations.
In 200 years, after theoretical major reparations, would it be unfair to call 61%+ of Americans people of their time? Or are they all demons for participating in a regressive system?
Getting back to George W., total abolition was a severe minority position at the time. Even up to the divisive start of the Civil War, estimates are well under 10% support for northern voters and functionally 0% for southerners. Add in the 18% of the population in slavery, and a random sampling would get you in the low 20% supporting total abolition.
Washington was a third generation slave owner, and by all accounts he died supporting the gradual abolition of the slavery via ending slave trade. Not exactly a paradigm of virtue but it made him a tiny bit progressive relative to most of his peers.
We can’t retroactively apply our modern moral framework just because there are a handful of historical peers who were more progressive. Save the fire and brimstone for the people that actively deserve it.
For example Mark Twain built his career around being a racist funnyman, and held genuinely regressive views for the time. He doesn’t get half as much shit because his face isn’t carved on a mountain. He literally fought in the Civil War for the slavers. Why do we care more about Washington’s dentures?
Perhaps I’m not seeing the sarcasm in this. The level of hatred one has to have for a whole population to genuinely want them all killed in disgrace reminds me of something that happened in recent history several times… hmm… what could that be? Cambodia, Serbia, Germany… hmm.
Mighty high horse there. Got a mirror? Consider using it.
Really? You think because people existed who held our view of what is right means all who did not have an epiphany, and whole-heartedly agree, are horrible subhuman beings?
That humans are human?
Yeah, I’m willing to draw the line in the sand there. Equality in the face of nobility (i.e. class vs race based discrimination) is more fair and equal than the view espoused by our founding fathers. But all caste systems have always been bad. Universally. And no matter the culture or time period with this idea, you’ll find a loud minority or a large majority of people that disagree with the caste system in place.
Because that’s how they work, a minority can only benefit, and are the only ones that need it to work, so the less stratified they are the more people are against it but are rendered powerless by the system in place.
Every human that didn’t believe in equality, and by that I just mean that all humans are human, is a bad person.
For fucks sake orangutans got their name because we as a species treated them as human at one point. If we can do that to a fucking monkey there’s no epiphany needed to do it to actual humans.
Your prose belies your ideology, which indicates said ideology depends on defining those who don’t fulfill said ideology as sub-human. So far, most responses have been attempts to indirectly assert that the idea that people who were wrong about some things cannot possibly have been right about anything (and by the way, any who think otherwise are just as horrible).
I am quite aware there is nothing i could possibly say to get anybody to address the actual issue i raised, never mind “win” a debate over it.
That statement does not make any sense. You need to review the concept of ‘logic’. This is another excellent example of twisting a statement to discredit the person who said it rather than addressing the concept put forth by that person.
People are products of their times.
You hear this a lot, but then you and look at “the times” and find arguments in favor of cultural integration dating back thousand of years.
It is true that people are the products of their time, but those times are not as radically distant moral wise as it is usually assumed.
Yeah, nobody at that time knew slavery was wrong. Well, I mean, except for all the slaves, obviously, they knew, but there was no way for them to get their perspective heard because they were cut out of the political process. Who cut them out of the process? Well, uh, well you see…
There were plenty of peers, even UK and European ones, that opposed the US colonial project. Read Losurdo - Liberalism, a counter-history if you want an in-depth look at the debates of the time.
What a horrible, out of touch thing to say in response to this image and all its context
Product of the times isn’t a great way to put it, but you can certainly make the argument that most people have shades of grey morality.
Science can back you up, too, as I teach social psychology and when you dig in, you find that normative human nature is pretty complex but generally very supportive for in-group and mildly empathetic even with strangers. It’s only when you dehumanize a group do you get the worst behavior, and in all four cases you see that, be it slaves or indigenous people.
When you look at those times, it’s people who recognized their humanity that ended up in the just side of history.
You want to find me a head of state that wasn’t or isn’t?
Perfection is the enemy of good.
Perhaps, and I didn’t get a philosophy degree so take this with a grain of salt, but slavery and child rape seem to be even greater enemies of good.
And in what way are America’s presidents unique in these atrocities among world leaders of their era? Other than “America Bad” is trendy right now?
They do genocide and colonialism and slavery and they are settlers
Don’t recall saying that child rape or slavery are unique to anyone, just that they are a worse affront to “good” than “perfection”. I’m against them in all their manifestations. Don’t really care who specifically tbh.
But I’d also go so far as to say that just because “America bad” is trendy, doesn’t mean these child raping slavers are being unfairly targeted. Cuz you know, they did have slaves and diddled kids.
And we’re paying special attention to American slave owning child diddlers who have been dead for 200 years and not British or Canadian or French or German or Russian slave owning child diddlers who have been dead for 200 years because…?
Because settlers are always more evil
We as in me? Didn’t think I was. Even specified that I didn’t care about the specific “who”.
We as in the royal we? I reckon because the post was making a point about not romanticizing past presidents in the face of our current super awful kiddy diddler and you took offense to the specificity?
OP is probably an American, it’s that simple.
Be the change you want to see. Post memes about past politicians from other countries. I will upvote them.
Ok, historically some political leaders felt that raping all brides before their wedding night was a great honor bestowed upon the family. Egyptian royalty had slaves, family members and pets murdered or buried alive with them when they died.
Human history is full of it’s leaders doing shitty and horrendous things… We can either sit here and microanalyze whatever country or set of leaders we want to single out or just recognize that historically everybody in power was a piece of shit, and look for ways to do better and make our leaders do better.
Does anyone here think that the United States and the world is better off with Donald Trump in power as opposed to Kamala Harris? If your answer to that question is " but Kamala supported Israel too hard"… Then my original comment about perfection and goodness is for you.
Lol, omfg, Lemmy is nuts sometimes.
No, I dont think we are better off with the known child rapist Donald Trump. I actually also think it’s quite unlikely that Kamala has raped children or owned slaves.
But I do stand by my claim that child rape and slavery are worse enemies of good than “perfection”. And if your response to that is “child rape is still a relative concept”, then I’m sorry to say you can piss up a rope.
I voted for harm reduction like a sensible person, now can I please be offended over children getting raped or do I need to pass another purity test?
Perfection is the enemy of the good. I don’t know why you are obsessed with child rape…
Well, it was literally mentioned in the post. Unlike… Kamala and Israel.
And you responded to my comment regarding it with random facts trying to soften how terrible it is, historically speaking.
So if we are talking obsessive behavior… Not sure it’s mine that qualifies.
My comment was responding to another comment (which referred to heads of state). I wasn’t responding to the original post. You then responded to my comment which was a sub comment to the post that I guess you really wanted to respond to…Try to keep up.
