The Semantics and Pragmatics of “Black Lives Matter”
A few weeks ago, we had our weekly tabling and monthly rally in Georgetown, TX, to remove their Confederate monument. It was a special day, because in Charlottesville, VA, they removed the monuments to Lee and Jackson that had been the focal point of the Unite the Right rally in 2017 — the rally-turned-riot that…
Were Confederate Soldiers Courageous?
That depends on what we mean by ‘courage. If by ‘courage’ or ‘bravery’, you’re trying to refer to a virtue, then they were not. If, by those words, you’re trying to refer to a willingness to face danger and overcome fear, then, sure, but in that case, courage isn’t praiseworthy. Plato and Aristotle wrote about…
Confederate Relativism
Defenders of Confederate monuments and the Confederacy itself regularly say that “we can’t judge people of the past by the standards of today”. They thus take for granted that standards can change over time — that what’s moral at one time might be immoral at another. This view is known as ‘moral relativism’. You can…
iF yOu fOrGeT yOuR hIsToRy, yOu’Ll rEpEaT iT
No matter how predictable these people get, they somehow never stop shocking me. If you had asked me whether a Trumpian mob would, at their first opportunity, plunder our nation’s Capitol, I’d have said, “Sure, that seems in-character”. And still, I’m shocked into disorientation by today’s events. Today (January 6) is the birthday of Charles…
Did the Emancipation Proclamation “Free the Slaves”?
Prior to the 13th amendment, it was agreed on all hands that the federal government had no power to regulate or abolish slavery in the states in which it existed. The Republican party’s agenda was to prevent the introduction of slavery into the territories acquired through the Mexican-American War, to prevent its introduction into new…
Campaign Notes from North Texas
Jeffery and I had to get out at a decent time on Thursday (October 22) to be in Sherman for their 6PM anti-monument rally. I was running late, of course, but I was able to send the .pdf of the pamphlets to a Kinko’s in Sherman and get them printed in just a couple of…
What We’re About, and Why
Hi! I’m Dr. Bryan Register, and I’m a leader in the Texas Reconstruction Project (and in a more local group, De-Confederate Austin). Our task is to educate the public about the history of white supremacy in Texas, especially having to do with slavery and the Civil War, and to remove from public land every device…
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Texas Reconstruction Project 