this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Fun fact": Mount Rushmore or Six Grandfathers was a sacred mountain for the Lakota to actively disrespect their beliefs

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago

other "fun" fact: the man who defaced Six Grandfathers, Gutzon Borglum, was a member of the KKK

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Not to mention defacing a mountain by putting a bunch of faces on it

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not just a mountain. A mountain holy for native americans

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago

It's a lot more holey now

Defaced then refaced

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The history of Washingtons teeth is uncertain. The evidence that those were slave teeth seems to show that the teeth were purchased.

Internet pictures with words are fucking dumb.

[–] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (8 children)

Washington owned slaves. He was not some moral high ground individual. The only reason why they even got independence from Britain was that Britain wanted to stop the expansion of the territory and the people in the colonies wanted to continue it and kill all the natives.

Edit:

In 1784, Washington paid unnamed “Negroes” for nine teeth. We don’t know the precise circumstances, says Van Horn: “The president’s decision to pay his slaves for their teeth may have been a recognition on his part that teeth were something sacrosanct and personal.” On the other hand, being enslaved meant that any economic exchange was inherently not fair.

He literally took advantage of enslaved people to get their teeth and you consider it as just “bought”. Top tier cracker mindset. I guess that to you it was also fair for him to own his slaves because he “bought” them.

https://daily.jstor.org/were-george-washingtons-teeth-taken-from-enslaved-people/

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[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Bro he literally freed the slaves.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

and hitler was a pretty good painter ...

[–] fantasyocean@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 3 months ago (3 children)

That's objectively false. His line work was shit and this meme is inaccurate.

[–] nestle@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

True, he was a horrible painter. I’ve seen better paintings from Alex Jones

[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net -1 points 3 months ago

When has art ever been objective?

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[–] VeryVito@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] argon@lemmy.today 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] lukstru@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

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

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Cano@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago (5 children)

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

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[–] McCrankyface@midwest.social 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)