San Angelo's Civil War

Thoroughly enjoyed it. As for Georgia native and former Florida congressman and candidate for Texas GOP chair, fix Georgia or Florida before coming here to start messing with Texas. He blames LBJ for policies to level the playing field in a society refusing to play by those rules. Then blames the "mob" for living in poverty. Disgraceful. And this coming from a disgraced Army officer.

I will repeat some of what I've said in the past. (1) American can neither pander to nor appease any specific group as a whole. The justice system works to represent individuals. If America as an entity caved in to a group specifically, there would be no end to calls for justice and reparations, to backlash and whiplash. (2) Ever individual must deal emotionally and psychologically with their own grief and anger. To thrust it upon the unknowing, the unwilling, or the uncaring is defeatist and invites aggression. (3) History is just that...a story, sometimes more fiction that fact, of how a situation came to be. There is no changing it; there is only the possibility of learning from it for everyone. (4.) What is interesting is who is not speaking. For every oppressed or oppressed-feeling person, there is another person who rose above their given situation. "Attitude determines altitude." (5) The names, the monuments, the history of a defeated cause changed the course of life for generations; opportunities were created but not equally. Today there is a great inequity in whose voice gets to be heard and in who is willing to resort to violence to make a point. There are always multiples perspectives to every situation, but when one voice overrides all others and fear of personal expression is generated, then there is inequity. (6) In the case of San Angelo, why is this even important? San Angelo is no different from hundreds of other towns with their Confederate names and the names of well known presidents and military leaders. What about Grierson? What about Madison ? It is hard to find anyone from the Civil War Era who does not have a skeleton in their closet. Shall we just erase them, pretend they were nonexistent? It's time for complainants to pull their socks up, act mature, and move on.

I agree with every word and very well said!

While the piece itself was well done and presented the sides of the argument relatively well, the very discourse is ultimately trivial at best. Monuments and name-sakes are for the dead, not the living. No one in history who has their name attached to stadiums, theaters, academic buildings, highways, bridges, even diseases would be found faultless according to today’s “woke” society. But if “they” truly believed in their guiding principle of moral relativism, then shouldn’t everyone (past or present) get a free pass for merely following their own personal truth? Willfully blind they fail to see the their own hypocrisy. The ramifications of attempting to erase history in whatever form serves no one but those few who desire to assert control over the many; there is no end. Blaming politicians too is wasted breath. Politicians are nothing more than flawed human beings who manipulate, often deviously, to gain advancement for themself. We need less politicians and more true statesman. The perversion is confirmed and complete; the “managed news” has become government policy. The people no longer get “news” but agitation propaganda, progressively moving from distortion to outright lying.

Look around...as the welfare state collapses, we see the emergence of a brute conflict between those who desire order and those who don’t. But we would do well not to be distracted by manufactured crises. Crisis is a means of governing. We find ourselves in a world that seems to hold together only through the infinite management of its own collapse. Freedom is no longer a name scrawled on walls, for today it is always followed by the word “security”. This issue is perpetuated by nothing more than the false pretense that we have a right to demand security from being offended.

What part of the word pardoned do these people not understand? Keep on taking it to the extreme, Sam Houston, a slave owner, was a traitor since he led an army in revolt against Mexico, Stephen Austin was was a slavery sympathizer and traitor to Mexico. George Washington led a rebel army against England. And the list goes on. My great grandfather fought with MS infantry at Gettysburg and he was no traitor or slave owner. Most were loyal to their home states. If living in the south is so offensive, why don't you pack up and try Minneapolis for a change?

'Lee led the fight to keep slavery during the Civil War and his image is oppressive to Blacks and other minorities.'

Might want to rephrase this. It's pretty well established that when you include undocumented immigrants, it's just enough for non-hispanic whites to qualify as minorities in San Angelo.

They were revisionists also and removed a lot of history, then removed a lot of lives.
It never ends until the system is overthrown for an extremely oppressive one.
Anybody see that coming?

Anyone who fights or fought against the United States of America is a traitor and an enemy to the same, period. Over 100,000 southern unionists fought to preserve the union. Choices were made. Treachery or patriotism.

Sam Houston was a staunch Unionist. He fought hard to keep Texas in the union and was shunned for it. Yes, he owned slaves from time to time. That's history, cannot be changed. Did he fight to preserve slavery, no. Did he vote to stop the spread of it, yes.

... Americans ... and especially alot of people... let's see... how did you say it...
... oh yeah ... not word for word how you put it but "people here" treat even the Irish poorly or give an 18 year old youngman a "rough" time because his name sounded "Irish"! Well, since you enjoy using the internet to look up information... search up this name ...
Robert William Gary Moore ... most commonly known as just "Gary Moore"
... he's a Northern Irish Musician that was very adored by a plethora of American musicians and fans! You could email him and ask him if he was ever treated differently and rough by the American fans and musicians here in America. I said you could send him an email and ask him but that's not possible because he passed away years ago due to a severe medical condition.

I just don't get it? For some reason you and a few others in the rant section think that everyone or anyone from this area or Texas are racist against anyone that was not born here in America. My thoughts are ... you like the misery of drama.You and a few others on here seem to have an agenda to "Stir the S_ _ t Pot" and keep people stirred up. Anyway... if you have never heard of this awesome musician "Gary Moore " from Northern Ireland.... here is just one of the amazing songs he performed.

https://youtu.be/4O_YMLDvvnw

Enjoy listening to this song and really listen to how talented this man was ... especially his awesome Guitar skills! I hope you do ... and maybe you can realize that just because a person is Irish that most people here in this area are not racist. Have yourself a good Sunday!

Ol' King James did not have a merry old soul. One simply cannot sit around and create this stuff. Hilarious.

The first thought that come to my mind is why was the name of Robert E. Lee chosen in the first place? There SHOULD be a record(s) within the school or SAISD stating such, meeting minutes or something. I am sure that a group of people were selected to come up with a name and they had to justify it. Let’s start there and see what they got wrong and what we have learned since. Also, what (if any) history is taught to the student of RLJH/SAISD? I was raised in Pennsylvania, steeped in history and we learned a great deal about the events and areas around us, took many field trips also, Gettysburg and Independence Hall were regular stops, plus the Smithsonian in DC along with many, many others, mostly of more local importance to history (more to follow).

If the name of Lee is changed, that will be the first domino to fall, any more will be easier to topple. We will also need to relook at many more schools to ensure that the names are “proper” Austin, Bowie, Lamar, Fannin, hmm, who are these people, and why was the school named after them. Are there any plaques or other markers telling the story or reason behind the name on the school? If not, maybe there should be.

Next, as Manny pointed out Thomas Green, Ben Ficklin, P. G. T. Beauregard, John Henninger Reagan, all served the C.S.A. and based on the argument of changing Lee, these all should be changed as well. I wonder how hard and expensive it is to change the name of a county?

This will easily be followed by discussion concerning Fort Concho (and Chadbourne and the rest of the Frontier Forts) all of which housed soldier who killed native American and aided the government in stealing their land. What shall we do about this injustice? Tear down the sites, turn them into grassy parks for people to enjoy? Pasture land for the ones more in the open plains? Oh, we can sell the land to help offset the costs of the name changes!

Who is going to pay for all the costs associated with all this renaming? Us, the taxpayer, that is who.

Simple solution, make the first portion of History every year (and maybe Civics if it is still taught) focused on the people of significance to San Angelo and Texas. I will admit I do not know what is taught in schools today, but what I hear folks talk about it doesn’t sound too good. Have a small area in each building discuss the individual. Heck why not even make it a contest for the students to see how creative or informative they can be. One thing I learned in my college studies, the more involved the student the more they learn, the less involved the less they learn and that is multiplied when learning is online.

"Ain't got time for bullshit. When people show you who they are, believe them".