SBOE wants to Eliminate Heroic from Description of Alamo Defenders (Austin: home, live in)

[huckster]

This is exactly what is going on now. Over what happened so long ago. Some simply won't let go.

Originally Posted by sinsativ

How about, so we can make everybody happy, and be PC. Each person from now own believes history the way they want to. No books, no teaching. Since we in USA have to make everyone feel comfortable, then lets just forget the books, what happened, and everyone can speak "History" the way that makes them feel happy. Nobody's feelings get hurt about something that happened to a relative from over a century or two ago.

[b00tl3G]

Originally Posted by huckster

Nah , nah. I disagree with y'all vehemently. Well as vehemently as I can electronically and as vehemently
as Bo and them will let me be.
There ain't nothing wrong with Old Irish Tom I say. I would defend unto the death. Just kidding.
No he comes from the north and like many yanks is a good hearted soul but tells it like it is and
locals do not like the so called Texas mystique trampled all over with such great gusto.
Did you not read where he likes and is a southsider, how everyone is approachable and friendly?
Likes San Antonio? A great vibe it has? He loves it here.
I am a local too, do not forget. This is what is and unless you guys can come here with a concrete counter-
argument with facts, bristling with facts, to defend or prove wrong Irish Tom's assertions; this is what is and what happened. Irish seems to have done some research as only an outsider who is enthusiastic about our local history would do. Exemplary of this is Phil Collins, from England, but bought into the entire coon skin cap- Disney Davy Crockett thing as a child in Britain. Fascination ensued in little Phil Collins and it had nothing to do with the daughters of the Republic.

The guy accumulated so many Alamo artifacts, well you know the story. I believe he had bought Davy's authentic coonskin hat even. This Collins guy is so rich, I had no idea until his huge donation was made. A great,great gift from the Brit.
Anyway this rock star-historian has put" Change in the air tonight" ( no pun intended) so to speak,for San Antonio. With this what is to me a great change- in downtown will take place. A true representation, of things as they once were here so long ago, this will be. This is the biggest thing since Hemisfair and will add to the city coffers as Hemisfair did. I know , I know. It will change downtown and all will want to see the completely restored Alamo.
That surely was a great, great song by Phil Collins the Brit. Fantastic really.

Texas history books have more misinformation about Texas history than does Disney. In fact we are notorious for it in national book circles. Arizona is the same way, but they are changing the books the kids in Arizona read in school to be more factual concerning ethnicity in particular. To the great dismay of conservative Arizonians there too.
They will be more representative of the truth now. Really.

Does nobody appreciate the importance of preserving our founding mythos? Ya'll act as though these ideas, romanticized as they may be, are not essential to holding together this tribe we call 'Texan'.
This sort of thing will lead to the elimination of any appreciable differences between us and the rest of the globalized world when all is said and done.
Remember the Alamo...as we have been.

[TexasRedneck]

Originally Posted by b00tl3G

This sort of thing will lead to the elimination of any appreciable differences between us and the rest of the globalized world when all is said and done.
Remember the Alamo...as we have been.

Which is exactly what certain folks want done. This isn't about "historical accuracy" - it's about "Taking Texas down a few notches."

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by TexasRedneck

Which is exactly what certain folks want done. This isn't about "historical accuracy" - it's about "Taking Texas down a few notches."

Is Texas so weak then that it’s threatened by historical truth?

You commit the logical fallacy of appeal to motive, a version of the ad hominem fallacy. Rather than argue the thesis you seek to discredit it by discrediting the person proposing it. This is a common and unimaginative rhetorical trick used when one is unable to marshall facts in support of a position.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

The term heroic is a subjective one and has no place in an objective study of the event. Do you want kids to be taught or indoctrinated? If indoctrinated fine, but let’s be honest about it then. And indoctrination being a political act is subject to the changing of political winds. So don’t cry if Mexican-Americans gain political power and want the rebellion to be taught from the Mexican point of view rather than the Texian one. Maybe you’re safer arguing for objectivity.

Note that the defenders of the Alamo were caught by the Mexicans with their pants down and forced to defend the place because they couldn’t flee and were offered no terms by the Mexicans who considered the defenders rebels at best and pirates at worst (especially in the case of American mercenaries and adventurers like the New Orleans Greys and Alabama Red Rovers). So they were stuck. At the time of the assault several surrendered and quite a few were killed outside the fort while trying to flee.

No doubt some of the defenders acted in a heroic fashion of course. Much depends on ones definition of heroic. Maybe just being there made them heroes. It’s subjective.

Any of them could have left if they wanted. Several came in and out during the siege.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

East Texas was no wasteland and soon became rich cotton country with a high percentage of the population enslaved.

Texas was very lightly populated. There were only about 5,000 Mexicans in the territory. That's why they invited American immigrants.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Filibusters. New Orleans Greys and Alabama Red Rovers are the most famous, most of whom were killed at the Alamo and at Goliad. These were Americans who formed companies in the United States to go fight in Texas during the rebellion. These men weren’t Texians, that is the settlers from the United States who took up land in Texas when under Mexico and who’d pledged loyalty to Mexico. The Mexicans took a different legal attitude towards Texians in revolt and the adventurers from the United States (who were considered freebooters and pirates, and justifiably so) though in practice both types were treated mercilessly.

President Jackson also arranged for “deserters” from the United States Army to join up with the Texian army; these men fought at San Jacinto and after the rebellion was won they returned to the American army. I doubt though that American Regulars were mostly southerners, probably quite a few were Irishmen who’d already been British Regulars. As with the San Patricios.

In 1813 during a revolt against Spain a force of Tejano rebels and American filibusters was destroyed south of San Antonio somewhere near the Medina River by a Spanish army; perhaps as many as 1300 rebels were killed in the biggest battle in Texas history. There’s a historical marker at 281 and FM 2537.

They were at Goliad, not the Alamo.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Not every soldier is a mercenary but those in private companies are. Those who fight in foreign service are. The New Orleans Greys and Alabama Red Rovers met both those conditions. Words have meanings. Don’t fret, you may honor mercenaries; after all, we honor von Steuben.

That you hesitate to come to grips with some realities of Texas history and seek to apply political correctness to the actions of the past is regrettable but natural enough.

So did the Minutemen and other Colonial militias in your definition.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by huckster

Nah , nah. I disagree with y'all vehemently. Well as vehemently as I can electronically and as vehemently
as Bo and them will let me be.
There ain't nothing wrong with Old Irish Tom I say. I would defend unto the death. Just kidding.
No he comes from the north and like many yanks is a good hearted soul but tells it like it is and
locals do not like the so called Texas mystique trampled all over with such great gusto.
Did you not read where he likes and is a southsider, how everyone is approachable and friendly?
Likes San Antonio? A great vibe it has? He loves it here.
I am a local too, do not forget. This is what is and unless you guys can come here with a concrete counter-
argument with facts, bristling with facts, to defend or prove wrong Irish Tom's assertions; this is what is and what happened. Irish seems to have done some research as only an outsider who is enthusiastic about our local history would do. Exemplary of this is Phil Collins, from England, but bought into the entire coon skin cap- Disney Davy Crockett thing as a child in Britain. Fascination ensued in little Phil Collins and it had nothing to do with the daughters of the Republic.

The guy accumulated so many Alamo artifacts, well you know the story. I believe he had bought Davy's authentic coonskin hat even. This Collins guy is so rich, I had no idea until his huge donation was made. A great,great gift from the Brit.
Anyway this rock star-historian has put" Change in the air tonight" ( no pun intended) so to speak,for San Antonio. With this what is to me a great change- in downtown will take place. A true representation, of things as they once were here so long ago, this will be. This is the biggest thing since Hemisfair and will add to the city coffers as Hemisfair did. I know , I know. It will change downtown and all will want to see the completely restored Alamo.
That surely was a great, great song by Phil Collins the Brit. Fantastic really.

Texas history books have more misinformation about Texas history than does Disney. In fact we are notorious for it in national book circles. Arizona is the same way, but they are changing the books the kids in Arizona read in school to be more factual concerning ethnicity in particular. To the great dismay of conservative Arizonians there too.
They will be more representative of the truth now. Really.

The rest of the country has misinformation about Texas. My son's Georgia textbook said the Texians were rebelling because they wanted slavery. Also land. Not a single word about the imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin for presenting a petition, moving the capitol 500 miles away, enforcing the Roman Catholic religion on the populace, shredding the Mexican constitution of 1821 or the massacres in Zacatecas and elsewhere.

[huckster]

Mythologized as these tales may be, they are but a reenactment of what has happened millions of times through the ages since the dawn of time for humankind.
To idealize something is altogether something different. The following is fundamentally what happened at the Blue Hole during a dry spell here in south Texas. This is essentially correct although not politically.
Perhaps it was Davy held the bone or Santa Anna I don't know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wstIBq2H0z8

Originally Posted by b00tl3G

Does nobody appreciate the importance of preserving our founding mythos? Ya'll act as though these ideas, romanticized as they may be, are not essential to holding together this tribe we call 'Texan'.
This sort of thing will lead to the elimination of any appreciable differences between us and the rest of the globalized world when all is said and done.
Remember the Alamo...as we have been.