• Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        No. No reasonable person would define “very fine people” as those who venerate someone who fought a war for the purpose of maintaining the institution of slavery.

        I have not heard any argument that convinces me that such statues and monuments ought to be kept.

        • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          I’m not debating whether taking down the statue was right or not. My point of contention is that when Trump said very fine people there is no indication he was calling nazis and white supremists very fine people.

          • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
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            5 months ago

            Yeah I understand the argument here: Somehow, mixed in among those white supremacists and nazis were some very fine people who just happened to find common cause with racists and fascists, but remained morally and ethically seperate from the groups they were marching together in the streets with. I find this assertion unconvincing.

            • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              Is your argument that having any view similar to a white supremists or Nazi that makes you a white supremists or Nazi?

              • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
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                5 months ago

                No, I don’t make that claim because it is too general. It seems like a setup for a reductio ad adsurdum argument that I don’t feel like I want to cooperate with.

                I’m saying that if one finds themself marching in the same protest in the same street on the same side as david duke the notorious klansman, then one is not in my opinion a “very fine person”.

                • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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                  5 months ago

                  Guilty by association is a common logical fallacy, it doesn’t matter how you try to narrow down.

                  • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
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                    5 months ago

                    We are not talking about association, we are talking about participation. There is a big difference.

                    Anyway go ahead and explain to me how there were some perfectly normal non-racist people there protesting the removal of a pro-slavery war monument, and that’s who Donald “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country” Trump was talking about.