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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 17:55:41 GMT -5
Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 19, 2010 17:55:41 GMT -5
I guess heroes are people who stand up, in some way, for things you believe in. If they stand up for things you don't believe in, they aren't heroes to you. Maybe that's why we sometimes refer to someone as "my hero." Physical courage or daring is not the same thing, although we might admire that too, even if shown in support of something we deplore. It's not that easy a concept to pin down.
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 17:57:52 GMT -5
Post by Herb on Apr 19, 2010 17:57:52 GMT -5
I suspect that the Alamo defenders' reputation over the years has profited from Santa Anna's dismal historical press. He seems to have been quite a nasty individual, especially when it came to massacring the Goliad garrison which had surrendered. But he's also castigated for allowing no quarter to the Alamo defenders. Yet, didn't Travis threaten to put the Anahuac garrison to the sword if they didn't surrender to his twenty soldiers in 1835? Jesse The technical term at the time was a "surrender at discretion". Since the Civil War it's more often called an unconditional surrender, the very same terms we offered the Axis in WWII. It's not the term(s) that determines the morality it's the actions of the victor after the surrender!
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 18:16:59 GMT -5
Post by Herb on Apr 19, 2010 18:16:59 GMT -5
...what Santa Anna was going to impose on the Texians that was worth fighting to the death over? Was he going to evict them? Jesse Well, that's another topic, but it just wasn't Texians. After Santa Anna disposed Farias, canceled Farias' reforms and overturned the 1824 Constitution the following happened: The state of Zacatecas revolted in 1835. The state of Cohuila Y Tejas revolted in 1835 (both parts). Farias organized (in New Orleans) and led an invasion of the state of Tampulias (Tampico) in cooperation with Texas in 1835. The state of Yucatan revolted in 1836. The state of New Mexico revolted in 1837. The state of Occidental (Sonora) revolted in 1837. It seems like a lot more Mexicans than Anglo-Texians were upset with Santa Anna's antifederalist policies. Maybe just maybe it did have something to do with opposition to centralism. That said there were people, like Houston whose primary goal was to seperate Texas from Mexico, long before the fighting broke out.
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 18:45:26 GMT -5
Post by Jim Boylston on Apr 19, 2010 18:45:26 GMT -5
I think the question is, "what exactly were the ramifications of overturning the constitution of 1824?" What real world differences would the action have made in the lives of Texians?
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 18:46:33 GMT -5
Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 19, 2010 18:46:33 GMT -5
That's a good summary, Herb, and great perspective on the Texas revolt. If there weren't a serious issue with centrism, none of the Tejanos would have joined the cause.
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 20:05:39 GMT -5
Post by sloanrodgers on Apr 19, 2010 20:05:39 GMT -5
Cripes!!! What an explosive discussion since its inception this morning. At first I thought it had been running for a few weeks and I had missed it. Well, I guess everyone has heroes, which makes this subject universal to all. I do think the expressed definitions of a hero have been a bit narrow at times. I think some have hit the nail on the head by implying that it's a matter of cultural and generational perspective. Obviously a hero to one person might be a villian to another and you would be hard-pressed to change either side's view. In this modern age, people find heroes embodied in more than just deserving soldiers and other people that exhibit outstanding acts of bravery and heroism. Some find the trait in literary characters, comic super heroes and video games. I once saw great bravery (or maybe it was just instinct) in a kingbird bombastically defending its nest from a hawk. The tiny bird was flying circles about the poor raptor, dodging the hawk's beak and talons, then landed on his neck and pecked his noggin. That brave kingbird was my hero that day and I even wrote a poem for him. I guess it all depends on who you are as a person as you define the hero and others merely agree with your judgement. One Brave Bird www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2693673/Kingbird-attacks-hawk-after-it-strayed-into-its-territory-with-a-snake.html* Link added.
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 20:53:03 GMT -5
Post by Jim Boylston on Apr 19, 2010 20:53:03 GMT -5
That's a good summary, Herb, and great perspective on the Texas revolt. If there weren't a serious issue with centrism, none of the Tejanos would have joined the cause. Maybe. But there were still a lot of factors at play. To some of the settlers, all the talk of centrism and federalism might have been just so much boilerplate. Some may have been motivated primarily by the efforts of the Mexican government to disarm them (Gonzales) and had little interest in the politics behind any of it. I wonder how many colonists were really observing the 1824 constitution to the letter. How many had converted to Catholicism? How many were in Mexico illegally? Santa Anna was concerned about illegal immigration because he knew the US had designs on Texas. Americans flooding the area posed a security risk. Were his concerns justifiable? A few years later, under the Polk presidency, he had an invasion on his hands. I'm not arguing that Santa Anna wasn't despotic. Just musing if his cause was just. Since our definitions of "hero" are so diverse and subjective it's unlikely we'll reach any consensus on what constitutes a "just cause!" Jim
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 21:26:52 GMT -5
Post by Kevin Young on Apr 19, 2010 21:26:52 GMT -5
That's a good summary, Herb, and great perspective on the Texas revolt. If there weren't a serious issue with centrism, none of the Tejanos would have joined the cause. Political Instability may have been an issue: 15 presidents since 1824? We should remember that the laws of April 6 1830 were done under President Anastasio Bustamante that Stephen F. Austin was arrested by orders of President Jose Gomez Farias (even though Farias supported the cancellation of the 1830 Law).
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Heros?
Apr 19, 2010 23:20:14 GMT -5
Post by Hiram on Apr 19, 2010 23:20:14 GMT -5
We should also recall that most of the articles of the 6 April 1830 law were later repealed, ironically under the administration of Santa Anna.
In addition, the state of Coahuila y Tejas passed a law of colonization in 1834. Labeling post-1830 colonists as illegal immigrants can become a bit sticky with these facts in mind.
The NOGs and other U.S.-organized units were illegal in the eyes of the Mexican government, based on the Tornel decree, but then again, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was labeled illegal by Franco's government when it fought the Fascists in Spain during the Civil War.
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Heros?
Apr 20, 2010 6:09:05 GMT -5
Post by garyzaboly on Apr 20, 2010 6:09:05 GMT -5
Travis and his garrison fought under a Mexican-patterned tricolor, and not without good reason. In January Colonel Neill had written that 3/4 of the native San Antonians would opt for independence from Mexico as long as the town could be held against Centralist attack (the remaining one-quarter, he noted, were uncommitted). Most Anglo Texians were still hoping for military help from the "liberals" of Mexico as late as February. So the two-starred tricolor served two main purposes: as a slap in Santa Anna's face for his crushing of state's rights, and as a reminder to him that not every man in the revolt was an American "pirate," that even Tejanos were up in arms (as many were). Besides, it was probably the only big flag he had.
As for recognizing heroes, the argument can be over-intellectualized. It's true gauge is sense-related, emotional: like pornography, you know it when you see it.
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Heros?
Apr 20, 2010 7:01:00 GMT -5
Post by Kevin Young on Apr 20, 2010 7:01:00 GMT -5
We should also recall that most of the articles of the 6 April 1830 law were later repealed, ironically under the administration of Santa Anna.
In addition, the state of Coahuila y Tejas passed a law of colonization in 1834. Labeling post-1830 colonists as illegal immigrants can become a bit sticky with these facts in mind.
The NOGs and other U.S.-organized units were illegal in the eyes of the Mexican government, based on the Tornel decree, but then again, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was labeled illegal by Franco's government when it fought the Fascists in Spain during the Civil War.
Also remember that the Tornel Decree, which was the law that Santa Anna used to give "legal" no quarter, was repealed by the Mexican Congress on 14 April 1836.
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Heros?
Apr 20, 2010 10:09:41 GMT -5
Post by Herb on Apr 20, 2010 10:09:41 GMT -5
That's a good summary, Herb, and great perspective on the Texas revolt. If there weren't a serious issue with centrism, none of the Tejanos would have joined the cause. Maybe. But there were still a lot of factors at play. To some of the settlers, all the talk of centrism and federalism might have been just so much boilerplate. Some may have been motivated primarily by the efforts of the Mexican government to disarm them (Gonzales) and had little interest in the politics behind any of it. I wonder how many colonists were really observing the 1824 constitution to the letter. How many had converted to Catholicism? How many were in Mexico illegally? Santa Anna was concerned about illegal immigration because he knew the US had designs on Texas. Americans flooding the area posed a security risk. Were his concerns justifiable? A few years later, under the Polk presidency, he had an invasion on his hands. I'm not arguing that Santa Anna wasn't despotic. Just musing if his cause was just. Since our definitions of "hero" are so diverse and subjective it's unlikely we'll reach any consensus on what constitutes a "just cause!" Jim Jim, I think you missed the point. As we've often discussed, the causes were many and complex and as diverse as the men who fought. What is a gross oversimplification is today's popular assertion that it was all over slavery and land by a bunch of illegal aliens. While there are elements of truth in that statement it is as false an assertion as the once popular mythology of freedom fighters without a personal agenda (and there are elements of truth in that statement, too). The fact that such a large portion of the country of Mexico revolted against the central government shows that both of these popular assertions totally miss the reality of what was happening. It was far more complex and didn't just involve a bunch of slave loving illegal rednecks that fled from the US.
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Heros?
Apr 20, 2010 10:15:08 GMT -5
Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 20, 2010 10:15:08 GMT -5
I guess a "just cause" is one that you think is just. That can vary all over the place. There are people who regard suicide bombers as heroes.
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Heros?
Apr 20, 2010 10:41:39 GMT -5
Post by Herb on Apr 20, 2010 10:41:39 GMT -5
Most heroes have had very sloppy, all-too-human lives. (That they were so fallible actually makes them all the more fascinating). It's the one MOMENT of heroism that makes them heroes. Travis did die heroically---even the Mexicans admitted that, bad as his cause was, to them. Gary, I really like this. To me I think you hit the nail on the head. To take it further, it seems to me, that we live in a day that we expect everybody - but ourselves - to live perfect lives. Is that perhaps why, as a culture we no longer have heros? Gary, I think you have correctly identified why soldiers actually fight. In general, the fear of letting your "brothers" down will for the most part outweigh your physical fears. However, except for acts of self sacrifice (eg. throwing your self on a grenade) I don't think it quite catches heroism on the battlefield.
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Heros?
Apr 20, 2010 13:13:47 GMT -5
Post by Jim Boylston on Apr 20, 2010 13:13:47 GMT -5
I probably didn't make my point very well. What I was trying to get at is that there were likely a lot of people who were disengaged from the politics of the situation. Their involvement likely started when something affected them on a personal, tangible level.
Jim
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