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I have never understood the mentality of tearing down statues, that are more just historical reminders than some kind of a thing for a group to rally around. Between preserving history and tearing it down, I will always vote for preserving it. And it is crucial for any society to remember history.
I fully agree, and that's how I feel about monuments in every country. Far too many things have been lost throughout history as a result of new rulers coming in and trying to get rid of the old.
Conservatives are notorious for rioting. In Mississippi in 1962, they rioted at the University of Mississippi, in an attempt to prevent a Black student from enrolling. They burned police and military vehicles, killed two civilians, injured 160 federal agents and 40 national guardsmen and federal soldiers, and left the campus in a shambles. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...SNMPSIQ6mB4GOd
"Conservatives" have burned down entire African American communities and committed unspeakable atrocities in white riots throughout the South. One example:
The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, aka The Tulsa Race Riot
.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/o...re-graves.html
Sadly, you are mistaken, as those were not conservatives, rather they were racist Democrats.
Regardless, while I like to engage you on this subject, it is implied we should not. Ultimately the debate over Columbus should be voted on, or decided among our elected representatives.
They will not always do what we as individuals or even what 51% of us think they should (i.e. defunding and/or abolishing the police), but no one should take to the streets to riot and create mayhem. We can choose to elect or throw them out of office, but that is the lawful way.
I have never understood the mentality of tearing down statues, that are more just historical reminders than some kind of a thing for a group to rally around. Between preserving history and tearing it down, I will always vote for preserving it. And it is crucial for any society to remember history.
Do we need statues of Hitler to remember him by? And I'm not saying Columbus is Hitler...just that your argument doesn't hold that a statue is crucial to remembering history. I also don't need a statue to remember Edison or Einstein. ...they probably don't even have any statues!
Whether they stay up or come down should require input from everyone effected, not a decision made by a mob or a politician or a committee on their own whims.
Look at it this way, you don't have to like the guy and you don't even have to buy into the idea that he 'discovered America' but you DO need to understand that paying tribute to Columbus was done to stop international strife and appease Italy after a group of Italian men were hung in the largest mass lynching in US history. You know about appeasements right? We are offering them up on a platter right now other identity groups, some of who were also hung, so unless you want to disavow everything happening today you can't disavow Columbus without being a massive hypocrite.
So are we acting more or less evolved (than previous generations) by destroying art and public/private property?
Maybe the generations before us knew about Columbus, and didn't feel compelled to act like criminals themselves.
Ever think of that.
Yes, works of art commissioned and paid for with either public and/or private funds. You don't think someone just went to the local Walmart, bought one off the shelf, and put it in the public square all on their own, right?
Money was raised, and paid to an artist/sculptor to create it.
Even using your absurd example, if there was artwork, sculptures, literature, films, etc. in the public domain, it can be removed and/or sold based on the vote of the people, not the destructive desires of the criminal mob.
As to me saying red people, everyone commonly says white people and black people without raising an eyebrow.
Not as common but still as descriptive is to say brown people. There are naturally a few more, such as yellow people and yes, red people.
You might prefer to be PC, calling them hyphenated-Americans, but I doubt you feel that "white people" should be called European-Americans, do you?
Either be consistent or don't be critical, as you do not have the right to tell others how to think, when you yourself are inconsistent in your speech police rules.
I'd also note that keeping or removing Columbus statues has been debated in the past, and in some cases they have been removed, legally.
But the marxist mob does not want to abide by democracy, rather they have the useful idiots to do their dirty work.
All with a antithetical agenda to damage and eventually destroy our constitutional republic. The Columbus issue is just a means to and end with them.
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1. In my life I've traveled around this country a lot. And I like history, so I rather enjoy the statues. There's a statue (or at least there was) of Columbus, for example, out in front of Union Station in D.C. It sits there, people walk right past it every day, and with the exception of tourists who want a good photo, virtually no one gives a flying fart about it. Columbus was once an important figure to Americans based on completely erroneous things taught in elementary school. Maybe it's time for a sunset law on some of these statues, because an awfully lot of them have virtually no meaning to Americans today. Why are you so afraid of changing something?
2. My example is not absurd. You just don't like it. You think contemplating a statue of Hitler in America is absurd? I'll bet the the German American Bund -- a German-American pro-Nazi organization dating to 1936 -- which worked to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany would have very much liked to have erected a statue to Hitler. Had they raised the funds and hired a sculptor...does that mean we have to accept it in public places?
3. Vote on this? To begin with, we don't vote on every topic in our form of government. But the reason you want to vote on statues is because you are in the white majority, which will always win. And to be honest, if you lost the vote, you'd still be furious. And I'll ask you a different question -- how much money are you personally willing to put up to maintain the Columbus statues and defend them? If it has to come out of your pocket...how much will you contribute?
4. Obviously you don't care about how other people are referred to in terms of skin tone. But I'll bet you'd be pretty sensitive if you were walking down a street in D.C. and a group of Black men walked along with you and kept calling you whitey.
5. What exactly is so terrible about being politically correct. There was a time when Italians complained an awfully lot about slurs they were called. And remember how much Polish people just loved all those Pollock jokes? I know how the Irish liked being called ethnic names...heard about that from my grandparents. And we got over that era. Except for people with different skin color. They seem to still be fare game to people like you. How about showing them the same kind of dignity that we finally gave to the Italians, Poles, Irish, and other "white" cultures?
Sorry but your logic is running along the lines of the supposed good deeds of dishonored men serving as testimony to their greatness. Hitler built many beautiful libraries, schools, government buildings and sports arenas. He lifted many Germans from a first world war based poverty, he did some very nice things--But. How many times will you decide to ignore the fact that Columbus, Lee, and other American "heroes" aren't really heroes at all? And, they WERE condemned mightily in their time. Reading any truthful history will quickly allow for a better view of those we have honored in the past.
Yes he did but everything else he did was horrible to the rest of the world. Trying to exterminate an entire religion and ethnic groups horrified the world. He and his officers were brought down and shamed in their own era. Confederate officers did lose the war but they weren’t punished like the Nazi officers. As part of the reconciliation all Confederate veterans were given US veteran status. They were recognized for having fought for their state and country. In that war neither side were saints. There was enough evil done on both sides of that war as well as heroic acts of bravery. If a confederate statue is to be taken down it should be through the legal procedure through the local community where they’re located. Not taken down as an act of vandalism by rioters. In one case that nearly cost a protestor his life.
1. In my life I've traveled around this country a lot. And I like history, so I rather enjoy the statues. There's a statue (or at least there was) of Columbus, for example, out in front of Union Station in D.C. It sits there, people walk right past it every day, and with the exception of tourists who want a good photo, virtually no one gives a flying fart about it. Columbus was once an important figure to Americans based on completely erroneous things taught in elementary school. Maybe it's time for a sunset law on some of these statues, because an awfully lot of them have virtually no meaning to Americans today. Why are you so afraid of changing something?
2. My example is not absurd. You just don't like it. You think contemplating a statue of Hitler in America is absurd? I'll bet the the German American Bund -- a German-American pro-Nazi organization dating to 1936 -- which worked to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany would have very much liked to have erected a statue to Hitler. Had they raised the funds and hired a sculptor...does that mean we have to accept it in public places?
3. Vote on this? To begin with, we don't vote on every topic in our form of government. But the reason you want to vote on statues is because you are in the white majority, which will always win. And to be honest, if you lost the vote, you'd still be furious. And I'll ask you a different question -- how much money are you personally willing to put up to maintain the Columbus statues and defend them? If it has to come out of your pocket...how much will you contribute?
4. Obviously you don't care about how other people are referred to in terms of skin tone. But I'll bet you'd be pretty sensitive if you were walking down a street in D.C. and a group of Black men walked along with you and kept calling you whitey.
5. What exactly is so terrible about being politically correct. There was a time when Italians complained an awfully lot about slurs they were called. And remember how much Polish people just loved all those Pollock jokes? I know how the Irish liked being called ethnic names...heard about that from my grandparents. And we got over that era. Except for people with different skin color. They seem to still be fare game to people like you. How about showing them the same kind of dignity that we finally gave to the Italians, Poles, Irish, and other "white" cultures?
6. "the Marxist mob". Get off that.
Communities have elected officials. Those elected officials were elected to represent their communities. As representatives of their communities they can hear input from their constituents and then hold a public debate over the status of memorials on public property. Those elected officials can then vote on whether or not to remove the memorial in question. If they vote to remove the statue then it can be removed legally and safely. If they vote to keep the memorial then if any of their constituents disagree with the decision then they can attempt to vote them out of office and try again to remove the statue through legal means. Yes it is slow but it is also legal.
But since Columbus never set foot on the North American continent, we need to get rid of the "Columbus discovered America" claim once and for all, and stop celebrating this slave-trader who was never on -our- shores.
He was an explorer - and for that, he should be remembered. But he didn't explore OUR country, so he really doesn't need to be memorialized HERE.
Plus the slave trade thing - eh. Not happy about that, however slavery WAS legal then, human rights were NOT a thing then. It was a different world then. We've progressed since. That's why I feel his statues should be in museums. So we can be reminded of the good, bad, and ugly - and not merely celebrate and glorify a guy who has nothing to do with us at the time.
Communities have elected officials. Those elected officials were elected to represent their communities. As representatives of their communities they can hear input from their constituents and then hold a public debate over the status of memorials on public property. Those elected officials can then vote on whether or not to remove the memorial in question. If they vote to remove the statue then it can be removed legally and safely. If they vote to keep the memorial then if any of their constituents disagree with the decision then they can attempt to vote them out of office and try again to remove the statue through legal means. Yes it is slow but it is also legal.
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got. So prepare yourself for more unrest. Prepare to pay for it in many different ways.
statues are usually reserved for heros . Men who wanted to secede from the union because they didn't want to pay for labor are not heroes, they are traitors. Also, across the south, these evil men have been elevated during the Jim Crow era, in order to ," put blacks in their place." The south rewrote history in order to continue the abuse to blacks.
White men would routinely rape their black house servants, get them pregnant, cast them aside and never claim or take care of their children. This went on into the 50"s .
Black slaves built our white house, the capitol building, tended crops in the south and did all manual labor, were horse whipped for speaking in some cases, flogged if they got caught learning how to read, or if the master was just in a bad mood, ( look up the term, Whipping boy). There's a good argument to be made that across the south into VA. slaves and immigrants built almost all physical aspects of this country, for free. So, yeah, we should take those confederate statues down, they remind us of our dark past, how greed and self adoration turns man into evil beings, and the lengths white men will go to have their cake and eat it to at the expense of other human beings.
It's past time Americans across the south take responsibility and tell the truth in history books, and taking down statues of traitors is a good first step. The south lost the war, why do we continue to let them re-write it?
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