Scott Adams tells talks about racist statues https://t.co/3bpiyhxZdQ
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) August 15, 2017
He didn't really need his Pope hat for that, because he's not talking about his own moral vision. He's taking a businesslike, corporate view, discussing a branded product called America and noticing the moral opinions of the consumers of the product.
There's also some interesting discussion in there about the internment of persons of Japanese descent during WWII and whether statues of FDR should come down. If I understand Adams's standard correctly, if 20% of Americans are offended — based on serious reasons — then Americans as a group should want to update the American brand and remove the monument, which is just decoration.
ALSO: Pope-hatted Adams makes the moral ruling that the mob's pulling down of a statue of a Confederate soldier is "a moral gray area." There was no violence against persons, only property, and it "comes very close to free speech." It's destructive, but only of "a racist symbol." I'll give this post the "civil disobedience" tag. Adams doesn't use that term, but he briefly acknowledges that the destruction is against the law and that the protesters probably need to be arrested and prosecuted and given a light sentence. In standard civil disobedience thought, the disobeyers accept the legal consequences.
AND: Adams is very funny talking about the notion of gathering America's Confederate statues in a museum: "It would be the world's worst museum." You'd be saying "There's a statue of Robert E. Lee" and then "There's a statue of Robert E. Lee," etc. I'd just note that the sculpture was designed to fit in a park, so how about something outdoors, something like Grūtas Park (AKA "Stalin's World)(discussed in this post of mine from last May (about the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in New Orleans)).
AND: Let me repeat something from that May post, this image "The Sons of Liberty pulling down the statue of George III of the United Kingdom on Bowling Green (New York City), 1776":
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213 comments:
1 – 200 of 213 Newer› Newest»20% is a REALLY low bar to clear for removing "decorations." I can imagine 20% of people wanting to remove the MLK memorial just for spite.
This reminds me of Stalin's Soviet Union -- which constantly airbrushed people who had fallen out of favor from official history. Ours is supposed to be a pluralistic society where each is free to his or her own opinion. Such a society cannot exist if it allows a heckler's veto, which is what allowing a small-but-vocal minority to determine what statues can exist amounts to. The minority should be allowed to demonstrate, but they shouldn't be allowed to tear down.
20% is a pretty low number. I'd bet that we'd have to dynamite at least one face off Mt. Rushmore if we adopt that rule. As well as tear down several monuments and museums in D.C.
...I can imagine 20% of people wanting to remove the MLK memorial just for spite.
I'm sure a far larger number opposed the renaming of streets in honor of MLK. Many more than that in Arizona opposed a holiday in MLK's honor (because it required eliminating separate holidays honoring Washington and Lincoln).
Why stop at statues? Ecrasez l'histoire!
When does brand America get to start banning books? Because, as sad as it is, someone could probably get 20% of Americans to dislike Harry Potter or the Bible and demand it be removed.
Totally disagree on the 20% figure. That's called the totalitarianism of the minority.
First, Yes, it is a fair question as to whether or not a City or State should keep Robert E. Lee statues, roadways or parks.
Second, there is no reason to boycott or vandalize these. Just vote on it, majority wins.
Third, it'd be nice if the modern-day Left would read some history on the topic. It was a brutal war, and many honorable men fought and died to help free the slaves. Some happened to be white, too, can you believe it?
The peace was rocky for the South in Reconstruction -- but part of the healing process in order to reunite the country was to give a few concessions to the defeated South, after burning many of their cities down. One concession was to allow them the dignity to keep a few objects of their pride and heritage -- such as a few statues and parks and roadway signs and a few flags.
Politically, the South took it too far by enacting Jim Crowe laws and oppressing blacks in numerous ways. But, over time, that was handled too by peaceful protests and voting.
Why the Left would like to pick at minor scabs at this time -- after so much progress has been made in the South (really lovely place with good people) is a bit mind-numbing.
But that's who they are, I reckon. Considering that the "Democrat" party actively supported slavery and lost the Civil War, they might want to start with changing the name of their party, before taking down any statues.
I think there's a kind of deliberate, cruel irony in situating the FDR memorial right among the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in DC (they were originally a gift from the city of Tokyo). But we won the war, after all, even if FDR did not live to see it, and that's the whole point of triumphal arches.
Seems to me that every state, city, county, school and road named after Washington or Jefferson should be re-named. They both owned slaves.
Adams has master persuaded himself into the wrong decision. Today it's statues. Tomorrow it will be the NY subway system that no one else in the US wants to keep. The right decision is tolerance.
I would make a big bet that in any given city with statues to Confederates that not 1% of the population could put a name to one. Would bet further that the same percentage would hold for African Americans in the same town.
"Tomorrow it will be the NY subway system that no one else in the US wants to keep."
20% of people could probably be persuaded to just do away with New York in general, but I think that Adams is talking about purely superficial things, or "decorative" things. Even the "what about banning books?" is probably taking his tyranny of the not entirely minority but still minority too far, but it will be the mile taken if an inch is given.
There's a way of getting statues taken down through legal, accepted channels. We use them all the time to renovate parks, government buildings, etc. I see no reason that those channels are too slow to replace these other statues people want gone.
So in Scott Adam's mind we are the land of the branded and home of the best citizen experience.
Color supremacy is to "one-child" as [class] diversity is to "selective-child". Whereas the former is a minority in this country, the latter is a progressive threat throughout.
Left vs Left. Hopefully, the Left will lose.
While I'm generally tolerant of Scott Adams I don't quite consider him an historian of the Left.
Let me pose another business/brand analogy:
Let's say you're selling Wonder Widgets, & 20% of your market says "Wonder Widgets are too expensive. Drop your price & we buy". But, you know from dealing with these customers that they really don't have brand loyalty to Wonder. They're just trying to beat down the price, & if you give in, next time they'll ask for 10% off that price.
Would you drop your price to keep those customers?
The problem with the Left is that if you give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile. Beyond fussing about the Washington and Jefferson memorials (slaveholders!), they will first have some dork researching every name of every building on every college campus -- particularly the Ivy League -- to see which politically incorrect dead white males need to be airbrushed from history.
If these snowflakes think they are really acting on behalf of blacks, they are even more delusional than they seem.
"20% is a REALLY low bar to clear for removing "decorations." I can imagine 20% of people wanting to remove the MLK memorial just for spite."
They would need something more than spite to meet the Adams standard. They's need serious reasons that were about the inconsistency with the brand. I don't see how you'd get that for MLK (or FDR).
Who is being injured by viewing these statues? Why can't they just look away?
Instead of seeing the statues, perhaps what is harming people is the thought that these statues exist in the world. Contemplating the existence of a statue of Jeff Davis or Robert E. Lee must be physically painful. I wonder what sort of unique agony such a person must be in from moment to moment?
Is a person with this type of mental state (perpetual agony) sane enough to participate in rational society? Wasn't this the mental state that caused Al Queda to pull down the Buddhas of Bamiyan?
I agree that 20% is too low. I think 51% would be more tenable.
That said, I wonder if 51% if Americans would support the complete removal of all Confederate symbols from public buildings?
@Althouse
MLK cheated on his wife and was a minister in a church that would almost certainly be considered "homophobic" -- aren't those good enough reasons for the SJWs?
Not only that, but he was in favor of treating people based on their merit, which is clearly a micro-aggression.
Re: richlb:
20% is a REALLY low bar to clear for removing "decorations." I can imagine 20% of people wanting to remove the MLK memorial just for spite.
How could anyone dislike his frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command?
I ask facetiously, but in truth, I actually kind of like the monumental totalitarian aesthetic of the MLK memorial: it blends well with the neo-Roman aesthetic of the Obelisk of Washington, the Temples of Lincoln and Jefferson, and the twinned Triumphal Arches for the Second World War.
What doesn't work well is the Korean War memorial, which is just a random assemblage of statues in a field. The FDR memorial is rather forgettable as well, and I expect the Eisenhower memorial will be more of the same. The Great War memorial is small and dignified, but not especially memorable. While partial to the Cenotaph, I have to say that Vimy Ridge is, from a design perspective, the most striking memorial of the Great War. But something like that would not fit on the National Mall.
"I don't see how you'd get that for MLK (or FDR)."
-- MLK is rightfully considered an American icon both for his vision of an equal society and commitment to non-violence, but FDR's internment camps are solidly racist.
"Why the Left would like to pick at minor scabs at this time -- after so much progress has been made in the South (really lovely place with good people) is a bit mind-numbing."
For one reason - white Southerners now vote Republican and so must be punished.
I don't remember this sort of thing being raised when Jimmy Carter (who has Confederates in the family tree) or Bill Clinton were president.
In fact, "As it turns out, her husband, former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, signed a law which designated a portion of the state flag to commemorate the Confederate States of America. “The blue star above the word “ARKANSAS” is to commemorate the Confederate States of America,” Clinton’s law stated."
But "it's different when we do it."
"I think there's a kind of deliberate, cruel irony in situating the FDR memorial right among the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in DC (they were originally a gift from the city of Tokyo). But we won the war, after all, even if FDR did not live to see it, and that's the whole point of triumphal arches."
Much of the American brand is about winning wars. One of the wars we won was against the Confederacy. Why do we have monuments celebrating the losing side, the Americans who took up arms against America? That's rather crazy other than to express respect for the dead. There's a cemetery just a few blocks from where I live up here in the north where there is a section full of graves of Confederate soldiers. These are well-tended graves in part of a beautiful cemetery. I think these men suffered and died at the place we still call Camp Randall. It's where we play football now, but it was a miserable prison camp.
But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange!
Remember when President Reagan got in trouble for laying a wreath for dead Nazi soldiers?
"They would need something more than spite to meet the Adams standard. They's need serious reasons that were about the inconsistency with the brand. I don't see how you'd get that for MLK (or FDR)."
And I suppose you have given some thought to who would decide which reasons were "serious"? Maybe some people with legal training? Or Pope Adams?
Mostly black group in Dallas form to protect confederate monuments . Gotta love these guys.
mockturtle said...
If these snowflakes think they are really acting on behalf of blacks, they are even more delusional than they seem."
As someone pointed out on another thread, removing every Confederate statue and relic below the Mason-Dixon line will not teach one black child to read or keep one black man out of prison.
I don't see how you'd get that for MLK (or FDR).
Well, they were both racists, MLK a minor one, and FDR a major one.
There's a good argument that FDR himself was solidly racist.
What DKW said @ 12:02
Growing up in Nebraska (not the south and we had no horses in our neighborhood) I would see several lawn jockeys while walking to school. In retrospect they seem pretty weird (some were probably outright racist, but people rarely kept them painted). As people redecorated over the years all of them were of course removed. I think it makes sense to look at some of these old statutes as just bigger versions of the lawn jockeys. Time to redecorate.
Where does it end? At some point there will be demands to remove everything, including the white house and all the Washington monuments.
After all, Abe Lincoln was a Republican.
So.......next up is removing or renaming all the Buildings, freeways, etc named in honor of Grand Dragon Byrd.
How FDR treated Jesse Owens.
Spoiled stupid WHITE Antifa leftist progressives are screaming the loudest. The hack press is listening and willing to help.
Bay Area Guy said...
Mostly black group in Dallas form to protect confederate monuments . Gotta love these guys.
8/15/17, 12:29 PM
Gotta love Texas.
Why should a member of the party of Lincoln be concerned about the destruction of monuments to Democrats? Possibly we are seeing an attempt of white-washing of the history of the Democrats, who proudly fought against racial integration for more than 100 years.
The White Nationalists are not opposed to removing the statues because they are adherents of the Confederate cause. They oppose removing the statues because they believe the people who want to remove them see their removal as a calculated insult to white people, and a step towards their ultimate goal, which is the replacement of white people. And I believe that perception is accurate in most cases. The people who want to remove those statues are motivated by racial animosity. They are "haters".
What percentage of Americans wanted the statues erected?
It is funny how some people will use business logic as a justification for doing something they want done, and then tell us that government is not a business when they want things that don't make financial sense. It's all about what you want emotionally, and then you figure out how to justify it by any mean necessary.
The monuments are past their time if a majority of us think so, but the Taliban should not be our mentors on redecorating. There was no revolution, so the rules of our society still matter. Put the statues back, arrest the vandals, then vote on it, or leave it up to elected officials. Otherwise everything is under mob rule including your stuff.
I'm remembering the controversy at Yale over renaming Calhoun College.
I'm open to the idea that Calhoun was disgusting and we shouldn't honor his memory now. I couldn't help thinking that it's a better historical revenge to keep him in place and let the black students walking through there have the last laugh.
Anyway, they renamed it for RADL Grace Hopper, and some SJW immediately complained that it had to be a white woman.
Jupiter's pretzel logic. Even if it's a good idea, let's not do it because we think that "the other side" wants it for the wrong reasons.
we are seeing an attempt of white-washing of the history of the Democrats, who proudly fought against racial integration for more than 100 years.
They're still fighting integration today. Who do you think is pushing Black student unions, Black dorms and safe spaces?
But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange!
Because that was Lincoln's moral vision to heal the nation, & to make them one people again. It was a small price to pay if you ask me. It was a spirit that led America to give Marshall Plan aid to friend & former foe alike.
By the 1880s, there were multiple veterans reunions at battlefields in which both sides sat down in camaraderie, & celebrated their lives & mourned their dead. These reunions continued until old age took them all. The men who fought & killed each other made their peace with what followed. Who are we to gainsay their moral decision? It was their struggle & they ended it. It is not ours.
Remember when President Reagan got in trouble for laying a wreath for dead Nazi soldiers?
The Confederacy was not Nazi Germany. Not even close, & there's not one reputable historian in this most crowded of historical fields who thinks so.
"While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great laughter.] ...
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." -- A. Lincoln
He's taking a businesslike, corporate view, discussing a branded product called America and noticing the moral opinions of the consumers of the product.
But who owns the brand and is making money off selling it?
The "corporation" angle gives some nice insight into the mindset and larger project behind the current anti-Confederate mania from both the seller and the consumer lens. A nation is a business corporation, and has no other significance beyond that. The lip-service given to "creeds", "rights", etc. is just PR and advertising, to be revised or jettisoned in deference to the bottom line.
It is profoundly globalist and anti-conservative, but not anti-conservative(tm) (which is just a boutique subsidiary of globalist progressivism).
After all, Abe Lincoln was a Republican.
And by today's standards an extreme racist.
But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange!
It’s not strange at all. “Read the whole thing” (as they say):
“Monuments built by humiliated populations are a means of healing. If the United Kingdom decided to remove the statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce at Stirling Castle, I would expect a reaction even more brutal than the mild confrontations last week in New Orleans—and those Scottish battles are 700 years old. Even more to the point: Why do the people of London allow a memorial to William Wallace at the location where he was hanged, drawn, and quartered? It’s not because they admire Mel Gibson’s portrayal in Braveheart. There’s a feeling in many civilizations that rebels—especially when the rebels are related by blood—deserve some measure of respect. The statement being made is not ‘We agree with your cause’ but ‘We forgive.’ This is something that occurs throughout the world, wherever blood has been shed.”
"The people who want to remove those statues are motivated by racial animosity. They are "haters"."
This is obviously true for the majority of protesters. They are not personally offended by the existence of the statues as much as the existence of their fellow Americans who disagree with them. Do you think the protester would go home when all the statues are gone? I don't. Only a well-used guillotine will satisfy their thirst.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
The statues commemorate some heroes of some primarily Southern states. Many people are aghast at the thought of removing the statues just like many Penn State lovers have a conniption over the idea of ridding the campus of Joe Paterno's memory.
So, I agree with the commenter above who suggested letting the voters of a city or town or state decide the fate of these statues. That mob last night should have been arrested for felony vandalism and rioting.
But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange!
?
Agree or disagree about the propriety of honoring these people, there's nothing strange about it at all to anyone whose understanding of American history isn't entirely steeped in presentism. What's strange is that an intelligent American would think it strange.
Gahrie said...
"After all, Abe Lincoln was a Republican."
And by today's standards an extreme racist.
I doubt if Lincoln was any less racist than than the people whose statues are being pulled down.
The offended need to persuade the unoffended. It's not hard if you have a point.
As to ideas, the other guy has a right to speak is one of the American ideas. If you haven't got it, you're not an American.
I say honor no man or woman.
These statues only exist to carry someone's reputation and legacy forward into time so a new crop of politicians can leverage it for their own gang.
They only clog a democracy.
How long the Democrats leveraged FDR's image of caring for the little guy - for the every-working-man - right up to the point where suddenly the little guy realized that Hillary and the Democrats didn't give a damn about them.
Willam Wallace and Robert the Bruce not a good example. Scotland was a separate country being invaded by England. The two finally united by kingly inheritance when the virgin queen died without issue.
I make a distinction between confederates and other southerners. I don't believe in whitewashing Wilson or Calhoun, for example. But confederate politicians and generals?
Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
Where does it end? At some point there will be demands to remove everything, including the white house and all the Washington monuments.
After all, Abe Lincoln was a Republican."
Ah, but the ARM School of History says no:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/4/abraham-lincoln-democrat-northeastern-illinois/
We're redecorating the constitution. You can't say hateful things. We decide what's hateful.
If you can't play Adams, he's copied onto youtube, where you also can't play it until youtube reformats the video a couple of hours later.
Rabel: [quote from Second Inaugural]
It's all good, but apparently the "with malice toward none" part had an expiration date.
There is a statue of Lenin in Seattle.
It offends me.
Down it comes.
YoungH @12:16 PM: Bingo.
Blogger Jim at said...
There is a statue of Lenin in Seattle.
It offends me.
Down it comes.
8/15/17, 12:56 PM
A Lenin statue in an American city offends me far more than a statue of Robert E. Lee.
How many people need to be offended for a statue to come down? What is the logical break point? Once this shit starts there is no logical stopping point.
None of these antifas are upset over a statue. This is the on-going butthurt carnival over the election that didn't go their way.
The first name Yale University should have removed is that of Elihu Yale - not only a slaver, but also an opium trader!
The GAR erected far more monuments than the poor southern States/colonies that they drove down and occupied. Their statuary are all over the south. But by 1910 these divisions were healed. The scumbags running a Sorosian political trick hoping to re-divide this Nation sound like creatures from The nasty Roman Empire.
It seems clear that the real intent of the mob is to create division, maybe start an armed conflict becuase they lost an election. Not exactly a "moral argument".
In addition to Yale, Brown University must also change its name. Its founder was a slavetrader. The "Brown Family" owned slaves.
Brown’s founder, the Rev. James Manning, was a slave owner who accepted donations from many slave owners and traders, including the Brown family. The four Brown brothers, a wealthy family from Providence, made their fortune in part by trading slaves.
John — the second born — was the college's treasurer and used slave laborers to construct campus buildings, including University Hall. Eldest brother Moses — supported by family money — freed his slaves and became an abolitionist, as did his nephew, Nicholas Jr., who became the university's namesake.
The fun next part could be burning down Monticello and Mt. Vernon along with their slave quarters. History be damned. This is war on European-Americans.
The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitors, up with the stars
Well I guess this dispute is promoting the study of US history and the major role slavery played.
"Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union."
In addition to Yale and Brown, the University of Colorado must also change its name because "colorado" means "colored".
The biggest issue is the mob rule, not the statues themselves.
"It's all good, but apparently the "with malice toward none" part had an expiration date."
January 20, 2009.
The events of Durham, NC pretty much demonstrated that the time for argument has now passed, having been replaced by the currencies of opportunity, power, and faits accompli.
Angry about Madison, WI? (It no longer matters why; distemper has become its own justification.)Put a match to that bitch, let the authorities present their video footage against you in court, after the fact.
"They only clog a democracy."
The intention of the Framers was not to create an untrammeled democracy. They equated democracy with mob rule. The idea that what the mob wants now is what government should provide -- now -- was anathema to them. But somewhere along the line we allowed "democracy" to become not merely a means of resolving intractable disputes, but a moral imperative. It should surprise no one that in a nation ruled by democracy, thoughts turn to the elimination of opposing voters. How else can your interests be protected, except to be, and remain, a majority?
exiledonmainstreet said...
the ARM School of History says
I see that my name is being taken in vain. Now I know how that other fellow felt.
It is something of a stretch to claim that most of the statues are historical artifacts. Personally I would leave them where they are, but I am conservative. Nonetheless, I recognize the right of the individual communities to decide which public figures they wish to honor.
Re: Althouse:
But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange!
Because they're us. Well, not me personally -- none of my ancestors was even in the New World at the time. But look at the French, with their revolving-door kingdoms, empires, and republics:
In France, some statues have gone through a similar process, sometimes more than once — having been liquefied and remade alternately according to the political situation. Giambologna’s equestrian monument to Henry IV on the Pont Neuf was destroyed in 1792, early in the Revolution. In 1818, however, after the restoration of the monarchy, it was reproduced, some of the metal being provided by a statue of Napoleon that had been on the top of the Vendôme Column.
The bronze Napoleon had taken the place of Louis XIV on horseback, and after its destruction in 1816 it was recreated once in 1840 by Louis Philippe, and again — in a more classical style — by Napoleon III. The whole column was taken down in 1871, during the Paris Commune, then re-erected afterwards (the painter Courbet, who had initially proposed the demolition, was saddled with the bill and had to go into exile in Switzerland).
Today, Borbon, Bonapartist, and Republican statues and monuments all happily coexist. What distinguishes the Civil War in the US is that the Rebellion was mostly about continuing the enslavement of the ancestors of 10-15% percent of today's US population, and the association of the Rebels with slavery has only grown stronger and stronger in the popular imagination as time has gone on. But consider the English Civil War, which involved religious persecution, ethnic cleansing and all the rest, by the Lord Protector and his forces. He and his forces lost. The monarchy was restored. But there is a statue of him in Westminster (though not, I suppose, without controversy.)
@YoungH
"But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange!
Because that was Lincoln's moral vision to heal the nation, & to make them one people again. It was a small price to pay if you ask me. It was a spirit that led America to give Marshall Plan aid to friend & former foe alike.
"
Fine. But you'll find that a lot of confederate memorials went up not right after the war, but during the civil rights movement.
http://theweek.com/speedreads/718507/striking-graphic-reveals-construction-confederate-monuments-peaked-during-jim-crow-civil-rights-eras
A suitable compromise would be to perhaps have memorials commemorating emancipation close to the ones commemorating the people who fought to continue chattel slavery. Some good examples can be found in this post:
https://twitter.com/i/moments/881528170649989125
Someone on Twitter (I've misplaced the name) says local communities cannot legally remove statues because there's a national (federal?) commission that makes those decisions nationwide, balancing relevant factors. I tried to Bing that, and found this article from two years ago about a similar dispute in Leesburg, which declares that what Charlottesville is trying to do is against Virginia state law and quoted the text of the law. Assuming the law hasn't been repealed since 2015, will Gov. McAwful try to get it repealed, or will he just encourage local authorities to defy it like a common demagogue?
History is so unfair.
"By today's standards Abe Lincoln was a racist."
I guess that you would then also say that the Democrats by "today's" standard were abolitionists and that their preventing entry into schools was an early strategy of integration.
Fernandinande said...
In addition to Yale and Brown, the University of Colorado must also change its name because "colorado" means "colored".
8/15/17, 1:14 PM
"Lynch" is a scary racist name that triggers memories of horrible white supremacist violence in those who are far too young to actually have been alive when blacks were actually lynched.
http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/nation/lynch-removed-from-name-of-two-centennial-schools/463543975
When will Loretta change her last name to something less offensive? Loretta Lollipop would be good.
Re: Nyamujal:
Fine. But you'll find that a lot of confederate memorials went up not right after the war, but during the civil rights movement.
I looked at that graphic expecting to see a pattern like the pattern of flying the rebel battle flag from statehouses (viz. that Southern states started flying the flag and incorporating it into their state flags in the 50's and 60's, when the civil rights movement was gaining traction.) That graphic does not show a pattern like that. Um. At all.
The pace of monument construction starts to pick up around 1895, and reaches its peak in 1911. That's not "during the civil rights movement." If you're really bent on arguing that linkage, you could say that's during the opposite of the civil rights movement, when scientific racism is coming into vogue, and all those anti-miscegenation laws and Jim Crow laws and all that are being passed.
"The fun next part could be burning down Monticello and Mt. Vernon along with their slave quarters."
Or converting Lee's home to a national graveyard!
I don't like monuments to Confederates. All the men of my Irish family line in my great-grandfather's generation fought for the Union. Including my great-grandfather. Several were KIA, all were WIA. I'm very conscious of this aspect of my family history, it was very much a part of my growing up, not surprisingly since I was born just 85 years after the war ended, and given that the Irish don't forget wars and suchlike. But I don't much like the sort of people who want to pull them down. And I'm wary about destroying the artifacts of history. The law of unintended consequences comes into play. Bad shit ensues.
@Oso: "Once this shit starts there is no logical stopping point." Inching toward truth. But there is a logical, or at least historical stopping point: the erasure of history, and the elimination of the ungood, for the sake of creating paradise on earth and a New Person, always ends with guns blazing, guillotines dropping, and gulags expanding.
@Nyamujal,
From the linked article:
Notably, the construction of Confederate monuments peaked in the 1910s and 1920s, when states were enacting Jim Crow laws, and later in the 1950s and 1960s, amid the Civil Rights Movement:
Oh, and when did the statue erecting pause? During the Depression & War!
You know, chains of historical causality are a tricky business. I've got a better model, that explains the facts, all of them even the pause, since Southerners didn't become more racially tolerant during the Depression:
These Southern communities built monuments to their histories when they had the money to do so, e.g. in the Roaring Teens & Twenties, & in now newly "wealthy" Post-war South.
I'm sorry, Lefties really suck at historical causality. It's from the damage inflicted by Marxism, which thought such questions had eazey-peazey answers.
Adams gets a hall pass for this one. Not bad. Better than his absurd, incompetent, unlocked and unloaded, caffeinated rant saying that it was CNN who alerted NoKo that our nuclear arsenal hadn’t really been updated since Trump got the launch codes, fainting as Adams did, that NoKo gets its real security intel from CNN, imagining that NoKo did what Adams did all day long - watch CNN. Not every sperm of Adams is sacred, despite the hat, and many die infertile in the media canal.
I already referenced the George III statue being pulled down and having its lead used to make bullets today, Professor--we decided that the metal from these racist statues should be used to make some kind of weapons with which to beat Nazis. Bats seem popular.
Anyway Adams is right, of course: it's civil disobedience. The Professor is right to see it that way--she's a nice person. When good people destroy property in the name of a good cause it's civil disobedience. When bad people destroy property for any reason it's a hateful act and probably terrorism. The difference, understand, is WHO WHOM.
It's sort of like how when people affiliated with Left-approved groups straight up murder multiple cops, or beat people in the streets, etc, but we're all admonished not to taint those groups with the bad actions of an individual--the groups are GOOD PEOPLE, you see, so those isolated actions shouldn't stain the larger groups or their causes. In the case of bad people, though....well, obviously the Right is wholly responsible for the death of a woman and the injury of many people in Charlottesville. Collective guilt obviously applies when we're talking about bad people.
Oh, by the way--the George III statue being pulled down was in the context of the declaration of independence being read to a group of soldiers, in the midst of an actual war/revolution. I guess we're close enough today for this to count, though, huh?
I have two degrees in History. I do not like the rewriting of History that is going on right now. Remove the statues by all means, but do not destroy them. A museum of would be a proper place for them, a place where the history could be discussed. Someone should tell the destroyers that someday someone may just destroy their statues too.
@Paddy,
Or converting Lee's home to a national graveyard!
Which by the way, has a quite a few Confederate graves & a monument to them.
"By today's standards Abe Lincoln was a racist."
I guess that you would then also say that the Democrats by "today's" standard were abolitionists and that their preventing entry into schools was an early strategy of integration.
?????
Have you read Abe Lincoln's words? Did you ever wonder why the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves not under Lincoln's control and did not free the slaves under his control?
The Democrats have never been abolitionists.... That's why the Republican Party was formed. And don't look now...but Democrats are pushing segregation again...only this time it's Black Democrats pushing segregation.
Here is a interesting article from the Louisville WHAS11 TV about the Louisville, KY statue and the thinking at the time it was built and placed.
"Author and historian Brian Bush uncovered this bit of history, “Reports of confederate soldiers walking down the streets in uniform, talking to other union soldiers. It's just weird.”"
"Bush points to a wild scene on Main Street, “Even though we were neutral, on one side of the street you had someone screaming come join the Union, on the other side of the street saying come join the Confederacy.”"
http://www.whas11.com/news/local/louisvilles-twisted-civil-war-story-the-confederate-statue/205707592
Tearing down statues, monuments, and the White House and then rebuilding them using only progressive labor would be amazing jobs programs.
Ann Althouse said...They would need something more than spite to meet the Adams standard. They's need serious reasons that were about the inconsistency with the brand. I don't see how you'd get that for MLK (or FDR).
Sure, that's understandable...and what do you want to be that whatever reasons they--the wrong kind of people--professed wouldn't be accepted by the nice people anyway?
I mean, if I give any reason for disagreeing that the confederate monuments should come down, you nice people all tell me my REAL reason is because I'm a racist nazi, right? So along those same lines why would any reason from any person not approved by the nice people ever matter?
We "won't tolerate" hateful views, remember? And hateful views just happen to map 1:1 with "views the Left and nice people disagree with." I mean, that's convenient!
Ann Althouse said...But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange!
I guess I thought we agreed a long time ago that we were all on the same side, but ok.
How many monuments to Native American warriors do we have in this country? How many of "us" did the natives kill, Professor? Weird to honor them, huh? Army helicopters take native tribal names and there are tons of other ways our military incorporates the name of historical native American opponents into current names--as a sign of respect. But that's honoring the other side in a war, which is just fucking strange apparently.
The made King George into Musket Balls, except that tail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/nyregion/toppled-statue-of-king-george-iii-to-ride-again.html
Which would we rather have, a complex, pluralist nation, or one where corporate-like "branding" tell us the one proper way to think about things? I can't believe you of all people, Ann Althouse, would fall for such glib reductionism.
OK, I found what I was thinking of (link) on the Twitter feed of a guy named Tim Peck (@timpeck), and I misunderstood it. Apparently the N.C. legislature created a state-wide process (some kind of commission) to decide for the entire state which statues to keep and which to take down, and forbade local governments from deciding for themselves. Nothing Federal about it. I assume mobs are also forbidden to decide by a fortiori reasoning. It seems reasonable to decide that offensively labeled and ugly monuments in Republican areas should come down while older, more tastefully labeled, and more beautiful ones in Democratic areas should stay. Not that reason has much to do with it these days.
The Civil War was an exceptional event in the same way that America is THE exceptional nation. The ancestors of Confederate soldiers should get a pass based on this circumstance, should get special -- dare I say exceptional? -- consideration. I still don't like statues to Confederates. But the left is waging a war against history and that makes me very nervous. Not least because they are not acting in good faith. What they really want is to pull down our constitutional order.
Let's demolish the pyramids. And the Acropolis. And the Colesium, especially.
How weird that some of our states and cities are named after people and places in England, whom we defeated in war.
Why ask for any kind of consistency here, anyway? Tear them all down.
It's an infrastructure improvement plan--think of all the space we're opening up.
It's an environmental improvement plan--we can recycle the materials and make new green spaces.
What's not to love? The nice people think it's just bizarre to in any way honor the losing side in a war--a civil war, understand, fought by people who had been and were again members of the United States--but why let those people have any kind of public honors? They lost. Let them have a place to bury their dead if you must, but the nice people don't want to see you actually respecting the racist losers in public, no sir.
How many monuments to Native American warriors do we have in this country? How many of "us" did the natives kill, Professor? Weird to honor them, huh? Army helicopters take native tribal names and there are tons of other ways our military incorporates the name of historical native American opponents into current names--as a sign of respect. But that's honoring the other side in a war, which is just fucking strange apparently.
Awesome
Do people still do Civil War reenactments? I had a professor who participated in them, dressed as a Union soldier. I always thought it an odd, if harmless hobby, running around an old battlefield playing at war. But he, an undoubted liberal, had struck up great friendships with his fellow "soldiers" on both sides, including blacks who pretended to be members of an AA civil war regiment. They all tried to be as "authentic" as possible without, you know, actually shooting each other. The Rebs would dress in butternut rags (gray uniforms were actually scarce; most troops couldn't afford them) and they'd eat hardtack dipped in coffee. After the "battle" they'd all go out to local bars and drink together.
As I said, a rather eccentric pastime. If they still occur, I fully expect antifa and BLM activists to turn up with baseball bats to teach those Rebs that Love Trumps Hate.
Adams is non persuasive.
My ancestry and sympathies are entirely with the North, but I will say: If we can understand things like the Civil War and the Confederacy in their full complexity, we stand a chance of not repeating the mistakes of the past; if we abolish their memory we’re fucked.
A mob isn't a mob when it's made up of good people. It's then a group engaging in civil disobedience.
It's just attacking property anyway--a war memorial, so what's the big deal?
What a great fucking standard you're jumping on board with, nice people. The next time some asshole decides to demolish some statue or marker you like or think has some special meaning, "hey, just some good old fashioned civil disobedience, folks!"
Particularly tough monuments to deface and whitewarsh away will be Washington & Lee University and of course the Taliban's next target: Stone Mountain.
The "Reverend" Al Sharpton has his sights on the Jefferson Memorial. Over my dead body.
I'm sure a far larger number opposed the renaming of streets in honor of MLK.
That would be a mistake. You can always tell where the worst neighborhood in a given city is by looking for that street.
We defeated the Mexicans in the Mexican-American War. It's very odd that we kept Spanish place names like San Francisco and San Diego and San Antonio. On top of it, those are the names of Catholic saints, which violates the separation of church and state. The time has come to change the name of San Francisco to something more progressive. (I'd suggest Sodom, but that's Biblical too.) LGBTQville just doesn't have a nice ring to it, though.
"And I'm wary about destroying the artifacts of history. The law of unintended consequences comes into play. Bad shit ensues."
-- I'd be fine with the idea of "That belongs in a museum."
I'm not fine with "We're breaking it down, damn the laws. Just try and stop us."
They won't stop at confederate statues, you know. Next it will be Washington and Jefferson, then pretty much any white guy. Twenty years from now the only statues allowed will be MLK and Harriet Tubman. Then the MLK statues will come down on account of his philandering, which by then will fall under the definition of rape.
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
― George Orwell
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Fuck it. The nice people would rather join the mob themselves than to risk being called ugly--to risk being lumped in with those racist Nazi scum who in any way deviate from the acceptable Leftist line. Good, fine, tear them down now. Then what?
"It's just issue X, it's not a big deal." "It's just issue Y, some of the people who support that are really gross so the Left has a point."
Nice centrist + cruel neutrality = oh well, it's just some civil disobedience when that mostly-peaceful mob cracked HoodlumDoodlum's skull in the street. He shouldn't have been out there anyway.
I get it.
scott adams does not KNOW what the moral judgement of the "American" people is. He is hearing from a loud minority who do not value this country or its history. Adams thinks we value his opinion. We do not.
Stone Mountain is outside of Atlanta city limits, is it not? I'm thinking any attempt to remove Confederate imagery outside of Democrat-controlled cities might meet with a bit more resistance then the radicals are coming up against in urban areas.
Meaning it might get really ugly.
Funny how the same people who told me it was my moral duty to be tolerant now tell me that tolerance isn't an option, isn't it?
"We cannot tolerate those views." "We cannot tolerate these offensive monuments in our public spaces." "We will not tolerate that hateful organization--that's not who we are as Americans."
Just a little while ago it was tolerance this and tolerance that--those people aren't bothering you, so why would you object to their beliefs or their lifestyle or their public expression of their ideas? America is all about tolerance!
That sure turned on a dime, huh?
" Next it will be Washington and Jefferson, then pretty much any white guy. Twenty years from now the only statues allowed will be MLK and Harriet Tubman. Then the MLK statues will come down on account of his philandering, which by then will fall under the definition of rape."
No, they'll come down and statues of Santa Ana and Zapata and Cesar Chavez will replace them. The Hispanic population will dwarf the black population by then, and I have not noticed that any great love is lost between the two groups, although they generally vote the same.
Scott knew long ago: for instant humor, just add the pope (and his hat).
exiledonmainstreet said...Stone Mountain is outside of Atlanta city limits, is it not? I'm thinking any attempt to remove Confederate imagery outside of Democrat-controlled cities might meet with a bit more resistance then the radicals are coming up against in urban areas.
Stone Mountain park is in the city of Stone Mountain, GA. It's in Dekalb county. The city itself is overwhelmingly African American; Dekalb County (where I live) is about half African American.
There are calls to "remove" the carvings from Stone Mtn. every year. There are plenty now. Adams and Althouse agree--scrub 'em clean. The nice people have spoken.
Bob Loblaw said...
"That would be a mistake. You can always tell where the worst neighborhood in a given city is by looking for that street."
Not true here in Eugene. There aren't any black neighborhoods in Eugene, so they did the next best thing and picked the road that goes past the football stadium. I guess because the football team is mostly black thugs from California. They do commit a fair amount of crime, but usually it is in the dorms and the bars around campus, not at the stadium. Don't shit where you eat.
I've enjoyed reading books about Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson, John Hunt Morgan and others, maybe those books should be burned.
Exiled 12:52
A few years ago some hollywood movie about Abe Lincoln pushed the same lie.
It certainly doesn't fit the hack narrative that Abraham Lincoln is a Republican and Robert KKK Ryrd is a Democrat.
When the narrative doesn't fit, you pound that square peg into the round hole and you make it fit.
And eventually Obama will be replacing Thomas Jefferson on Mount Rushmore.
This is absurd. So we should trash ALL Civil War memorials, everywhere?
The south lost. They were wrong, morally, legally, and militarily. Every which way. Why is anyone with half a brain defending building and maintaining statues and monuments to losers? To romanticize the slave owners? Replace Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis statues with statues of Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln. and put the loser's stautues in museums labelled "losers" so future generations will know what losers look like.
Anyway I guess I should say thanks for the carte blanche to fuck up any public monuments or statues I don't like. It's not something I ever thought about doing, but now that I know I'll get some of that sweet "civil disobedience" frisson from doin' it, game on!
Did you know that, according to Wikipedia, there are several statues of Vladimir Lenin in America?! Vladimir motherfucking Lenin, folks! I'm sure the nice people don't find that at all strange--perfectly understandable, I'm certain.
Anyway I expect you nice people to cheer my civil disobedience if I smash up any of those offensive statues. You will, right? I can count on you--you've got my back. Yeah.
boycat said...Why is anyone with half a brain defending building and maintaining statues and monuments to losers?
Because we're hateful racist bigot Nazis, obviously. That's the only possible answer as you clearly explained. Only an ugly racist bigot Nazi would hold such a view, so the only explanation is that the people who do hold that view do so BECAUSE they're ugly racist Nazi bigots. QED.
You're morally superior to such people, obviously. Has anyone told you that today? In case they all forgot, let me say it: you're just a better person, boycat.
(I forgot to mention: those people, the bad ugly people, also aren't real Americans. Not like you! Real Americans don't honor or respect losers--especially not ugly racist losers, no sir.)
" They were wrong, morally, legally, and militarily. Every which way. Why is anyone with half a brain defending building and maintaining statues and monuments to losers?"
I ask the same thing about the Lenin statue in Seattle.
You have to remember who is funding the brand.
When you think of brand, you think of Madison Ave.
When you think of Madison Ave, you think of New York City.
When you think of New York City, you think of banks.
When you think of banks, you think of...
...the house you used to own.
...the cars you used to build
...the lumber you used to mill
...the farm you used to plow
While the peasants tear down the past, with no regard to the future, the only thing you can know for sure, is the banks will have no use for government.
Put that brand in your pipe...
If we can understand things like the Civil War and the Confederacy in their full complexity, we stand a chance of not repeating the mistakes of the past; if we abolish their memory we’re fucked.
These Confederate memorials are a whitewash of history themselves. If we want to understand the Civil war and the Confederacy (and most of the statues we are discussing have more to do with Jim Crow than the Civil War) in "their full complexity", where are the monuments to the third or so of the population that was enslaved in the Confederacy? Of all the pretty plantations you can visit or have your wedding at, how many are devoted to telling the story of the enslaved people who lived there (answer is one). Retaining these statues in their places of honor is the distortion of history.
"Instead of seeing the statues, perhaps what is harming people is the thought that these statues exist in the world. "
In light of tearing down the statue in Durham, NC, I think that could very well be the point to a large degree. I've read some comments comparing that action to those in Eastern Europe tearing down statues of the Communist era. Lost in the discussions, I think, is any consideration of the oppression represented by those statues, at that point in history. What oppression is represented, in 2017, of a statue of an anonymous Confederate soldier in a monument honoring the area's dead from the Civil War? The anger I saw when that statue came down - with people kicking and spitting on it - seemed a little out of place.
Of course, I might be missing a bigger picture, but ...
Also, born and raised in Michigan, retired Marine - there's only one flag that I salute.
As someone who objected to this on a previous thread, let me just say there is a time and place to pull down statues. After the fall of the Soviet Union, all the statues of Lenin and Stalin got canned. After the war in Iraq, the statues of Saddam Hussein got canned. And yes, Ann's example of the Sons of Liberty pulling down the statue of George III. Why? Because there was a war and this was part of the victors (or active combatants) making their point.
Now the current scenario - a bunch of SJW pussies decide to pull down monuments commemorating a bitter civil war 150 years after the fact because they can now (150 years later) do so safely and with impunity. SJW pussies eradicating monuments designed to address and deal with the bitter after-effects of the worst war in the nation's history from the safety of multiple generations distance. What heroes. What warriors. The rebels and fighters behind the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of Iraq and the American Revolution salute their bravery.
It's history now - 150 years later - and these cowards are no better than the Taliban with the Buddhas. Shame on Althouse and Adams for their support of this bullshit.
Boycat - because our history isn't as simplistic as "winners and losers".
Why weren't these statues of any importance - until now?
The worst thing that ever happened to the south, was the availability of cheap air conditioning.
Before about 1985, no person in their right mind want to live in a hot and humid place. The white people stayed away in droves.
That's no longer the case. The white people are pushing south, and the old South needs to look like the clone towns of the north.
The only problem is, the south is still the south. They still only have one lawyer for every 500 criminals.
Be careful what you wish for.
@Freder,
Of all the pretty plantations you can visit or have your wedding at, how many are devoted to telling the story of the enslaved people who lived there (answer is one). Retaining these statues in their places of honor is the distortion of history.
Devoted? Why "devoted" as the criterion? If the criteria are expanded to include "features presentations on slave life", then the answer becomes "lots" (e.g. colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon).
Not only that, but the historical literature on antebellum slave life is voluminous, with one of the best being by a Marxist (at the time) historian. For anyone who cares to look, the histories are readily available.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, all the statues of Lenin and Stalin got canned.
Even at the height of the Gulags, a third of the citizens of the Soviet Union were not enslaved.
In a democracy, we need to have a discussion about this type of thing. If cities or states are going to be putting up or removing monuments, it should up to them. People should debate and discuss the reasons these statues are up there in the first place and what they mean and what it means to keep them there. Love them or hate them these statues are a part of our history. Just ripping down statues w/o debate is the antithesis of what our country is about. These vandals should be harshly punished for their crimes.
They are not committing acts of civil disobedience. They're not protesting anti-vandalism laws. They're defacing public property.
Plus, the issue goes to not just to statues but naming of buildings and other places, events and eventually to people themselves. Sure, it might seem easy to rip down some confederate's statue, no one likes slavery, but these men all were far more complicated then they are being characterized. Most who get a statue erected in their honor are. And this type of vandalism will only lead to more. And it won't stop.
Are we seriously going to investigate every historical person and judge them by today's standards? Will we rip down the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial because they owned slaves? Where does this stop? Are we going to give up our country because we did some bad things before? We had slavery and Jim crow and mistreated the Indians and fought some morally ambiguous wars?
If we go down this road too far, it won't stop until we've destroyed ourselves and our own history.
@Freder,
Even at the height of the Gulags, a third of the citizens of the Soviet Union were not enslaved.
No, it wasn't a third. The ex-Soviet citizens I've met would say it three thirds.
@Real American,
If we go down this road too far, it won't stop until we've destroyed ourselves and our own history.
Quite intentional. See French Revolution, history of, & Khmer Rouge, Year Zero.
I am generally opposed to a random 150 or so communists making decisions for us. In all circumstances.
Freder Frederson said...These Confederate memorials are a whitewash of history themselves.
The one torn down in Durham was a figure of a single soldier in commemoration the confederate dead from that area. How the hell is that a whitewash? What would it even be whitewashing? That's a new level of stupid.
Beyond that--what are you nice people bitching about? You're winning, they're coming down? Is it just a virtue signaling thing, where you want to make sure everyone understands you're on the correct side of the issue? Or is it that you want to go on record sneering at the inhabitants of some town you don't live in--to make sure everyone understands you're better than those people (more morally correct, smarter, etc) and you never would have allowed such a thing in YOUR town to begin with?
The Lion of Lucerne we were talking about a while back was carved in 1820, not too long before many of these memorials. We ought to pull that down too because, you know, mercenaries. As Markos Moulitsas would say, fuck 'em.
Freder, the Taliban had their reasons too when they dynamited the Buddhas. Everyone who silences speech, burns a book or destroys a century old statue has their reasons. So do you, bless your heart.
Paddy O to tradguy: "The fun next part could be burning down Monticello and Mt. Vernon along with their slave quarters."
Or converting Lee's home to a national graveyard!
That rejoinder doesn't even make any sense. Lee's home was made a national graveyard, so burning down Monticello and Mt. Vernon for representing Things That We Shouldn't Honor has precedent and would be a good thing? Monticello and Mt. Vernon represent what is now a loser's side (hey, maybe you're catching on here, Paddy!) so it's OK to burn them down just like loser Confederates had their property confiscated and turned into a national cemetery? Righteous Paddy O's thirst for vengeance against Bad Loser Americans who practiced slavery and the Nazi Americans who think they shouldn't be memory-holed hasn't yet been slaked, so he thinks burning down Monticello and Mt. Vernon along with their slave quarters is a topping idea?
What exactly is your point here, Paddy?
P.S. Do you want the Confederate Memorial at Arlington torn down? Those guys were traitors and killed Americans.
A great outdoors location for the confederate statues that are being taken down would be civil war battlefield parks. Of course, many of those parks have statues already and there are aesthetic considerations to adding new statues.
Charlottesville and New Orleans are preserving their confederate statues by removing them from the public square. In 2015, the North Carolina legislature thought it best to take that power away from individual localities. So Durham's statue got destroyed when it could have been preserved by moving it.
Another course would be to sell the confederate statues to private individuals or museums. There would be something immensely satisfying about seeing Jefferson Davis on the auction block. Antifa could bid too.
Democrats want to remove statues of democrat leaders who fought to keep democrat slaves.
It wouldn't be socialism if you didn't try to airbrush history that makes you look bad.
"Monticello and Mt. Vernon represent what is now a loser's side"
No, Washington and Jefferson are still on the winner's side.
Real American said...They are not committing acts of civil disobedience. They're not protesting anti-vandalism laws. They're defacing public property.
You're just wrong, Real American (ironic name): when the GOOD people do it it's civil disobedience. When GOOD people break shit, violate laws, etc, in the name of doing GOOD things then we all have to support them. The rule of law doesn't count in those cases--there's an asterisk you must have missed: does not apply in cases of GOOD people opposing UGLY people.
Even at the height of the Gulags, a third of the citizens of the Soviet Union were not enslaved.
True. A third would be far too low.
Left Bank of the Charles said... So Durham's statue got destroyed when it could have been preserved by moving it.
"If you comply with my demands today it will prevent me from imposing my will on you extrajudicially tomorrow. If you don't, well, that's on you buddy."
Good point.
I wonder if the not so recent spate of left-wing activism and violence is for Democrats to force dissociation from racism, "one-child", and [class] diversity, "selective-child". To concoct a political myth where the Left recognizes individual dignity and intrinsic value of human life. Trump's control of State assets triggered an apoplectic reaction from both the Left and establishment factions.
And my wife grew up in the Soviet Union. It was three-thirds enslaved Freder, but you keep giving your reasons. Sounds like the day they pulled down those statues of Lenin and Stalin must have stung like a bitch, huh?
"As someone pointed out on another thread, removing every Confederate statue and relic below the Mason-Dixon line will not teach one black child to read or keep one black man out of prison."
It will also remove a reminder of the obvious truth that democrats have been the people who have been and always will be the people who exploit black people.
Freder wrote:
"Even at the height of the Gulags, a third of the citizens of the Soviet Union were not enslaved."
As long as they didn't say the wrong things, or complain about food shortages or make inappropriate jokes about Stalin, or have a relative who somehow crossed the secret police.
Yep. There's a leftist's idea of freedom.
"Because there was a war and this was part of the victors (or active combatants) making their point."
Exactly. That is exactly why they are tearing down statues. I notice that boycat thinks they should replace them with statues of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. Ha-ha! Silly boycat! They aren't tearing them down because they were Confederates. They are tearing them down because they were White.
Althouse said, But statues in the public square honoring the other side in a war? Why are we doing that? It's very strange! Boycat said, The south lost. They were wrong, morally, legally, and militarily. Every which way. Why is anyone with half a brain defending building and maintaining statues and monuments to losers?
Abraham Lincoln said, "Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."
Lincoln was so far ahead of his fellow countrymen on this. He recognized that slavery was an American, not Southern, problem. By identifying this greater perspective with "the Almighty" who "has His own purposes," he offered us the way to transcend the tribalism that lay at the root of slavery, racism, and civil war--a way that few still, a hundred fifty years later, seem to want to face.
The statuary of the Civil War reminds us that we Americans originally permitted slavery in the Constitutional compromise, and that we Americans changed our minds about that after four years of brutal conflict in which 600,000 of us died, and many tens of thousands of us were burned out of our homes and cities. To eliminate Confederate statuary--especially in the cause of despicable SJW retribalization of the country (Jefferson Davis would be so proud)--is to whitewash universal American complicity in both slavery and its abolition.
Freder said:
"Of all the pretty plantations you can visit or have your wedding at, how many are devoted to telling the story of the enslaved people who lived there (answer is one)."
Untrue. I visited 3, in South Carolina and Virginia, and at all three, tour guides talked at length about the lives of the slaves who once worked there. That was back in the late '80's and early '90's.
Have you ever actually visited a plantation?
YH, I second your endorsement of Eugene Genovese's work, especially "Roll, Jordan, Roll," which is based on interviews with former slaves which were conducted in the 1930's. He's a bit too nuanced for today's left, however.
In addition to the sadness re fewer racist statues, I wonder if there's some sorta whiney dude thing goin' on re the love of statues of racist dudes. Emphasis on 'dude.'
Not only are these loser racist dudes losing their racist forbearers' statues, their honored racist forbearers that are memorialized seem to be dudes.
Sure, I don't doubt that there are plenty of racist gals who don't want to lose their racist dude statues. But, at least America's progress is empowering them over time, even as it restrains the influence of their racism. The racist dudes are double losers cause it's gettin' harder to abuse minorities AND gals!!
That was very well put, Marty Keller. Truly.
It doesn't matter, though--you're on the wrong side of this issue. Your failure to sufficiently denounce the continued existence of these monuments means you're a hateful racist Nazi bigot. Your opinions, thoughts, and arguments--no matter how eloquent--just don't matter.
I'm sorry, but you're not a good person. The mob has spoken.
"These Confederate memorials are a whitewash of history themselves. If we want to understand the Civil war and the Confederacy (and most of the statues we are discussing have more to do with Jim Crow than the Civil War) in "their full complexity", where are the monuments to the third or so of the population that was enslaved in the Confederacy?"
Must be a cold day in Hell. Freder and I agree.
"... where are the monuments to the third or so of the population that was enslaved in the Confederacy?"
I think boycat explained that. They were "losers".
3rdGradePB_GoodPerson said...The racist dudes are double losers cause it's gettin' harder to abuse minorities AND gals!!
Wrong, moron. It's easier than ever to abuse gals--just move to Europe or Detroit, put the ladies in stylish black bags, and tell everybody your religion requires their submission to your wishes (and your beatings, etc). Marry a few of them if you want, spread the abuse around! Easy.
There are all sorts of thoughtful and eloquent comments on this thread, notably Marty Keller's.
And then there is PB's.
Freeman Hunt said...Must be a cold day in Hell. Freder and I agree.
Of course you do! You're both good people.
The Durham statue commemorating the nameless NC men who fought and died, "our boys in gray," is a whitewash of history. Clearly. The good people in that area got together and tore it down, then kicked it, danced around, etc. What losers those dead were--and what losers anyone who has any problem with all of that are! You're no loser, though: you're a good person.
Hoodlum, are you under the impression that I support deciding on one's own to tear down monuments in public spaces? Let me disabuse you of that notion. I don't.
HD has convinced me. Such suffering the racist-statue lovers have suffered.
It's a crime against humanity!
A war crime!
Call the Hague.
And, replace the racist statue. Stat!!
Why don't Germans have statues of Hitler?
Surely, plenty of their folks where Nazis.
Freeman Hunt said...Hoodlum, are you under the impression that I support deciding on one's own to tear down monuments in public spaces? Let me disabuse you of that notion. I don't.
Sure you do: vox populi vox Dei! Oh, you're a law-and-order type good person, I understand, but you're right there with the mob, and Freder, and 3rdGradeWhoever in understanding that they've got to come down. We can quibble a bit about how--through something as boring as a legally correct process endorsed by citizen voters, blah blah blah, or through exciting direct action...but that's just arguing means and we're all about ends.
The end result is the correct one. It's doubly correct, since it's both good itself and is the product of good people taking good action themselves. (Anyone who disagrees is obviously not a good person--we should start keeping a list.)
Tear it down, tear them all down; the good people have spoken.
HD said, It doesn't matter, though--you're on the wrong side of this issue. Your failure to sufficiently denounce the continued existence of these monuments means you're a hateful racist Nazi bigot. Your opinions, thoughts, and arguments--no matter how eloquent--just don't matter. I'm sorry, but you're not a good person. The mob has spoken.
The mob is just the most primitive version of the tribe, which by its nature cannot permit individualism, for the autonomous individual demonstrates by his very existence the irrelevancy of the tribe.
The SJW retribalizers are acting from the very same primitive fears that grips alt-righters. Both need enemy Others to keep themselves together to secure their existence in an increasingly chaotic world. Lincoln understood this, and that the antidote was "a new birth of freedom" centered in universal principles--words which can never resonate with tribalizers.
"We can quibble a bit about how--through something as boring as a legally correct process endorsed by citizen voters, blah blah blah, or through exciting direct action...but that's just arguing means and we're all about ends."
You may want to check on the process in Charlottesville.
The law/order and process thing is exactly what happened via local control of local gov.
But, outsider racists had to move in and fuss such that folks were killed.
"Replace Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis statues with statues of Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln. and put the loser's stautues in museums labelled "losers" so future generations will know what losers look like."
Come on down and go for it. Bring your pussy with you.
Hoodlum, no use in arguing with PB. He doesn't read. He doesn't know history.
It's like arguing with one of those bimbos Jay Leno used to interview who thought Abe Lincoln fought the Iraqis in the Revolutionary War.
No sense in trying to debate with an ignoramus.
note how anti-semitism, white supremacy, and laissez faire capitalism are appearing more and more joined-at-the-hip. this is the ideology of american fascism, alongside the'law and order' of the thin blue line. it’s capitalist white supremacy reasserting itself in times of economic crisis.
resist it.
Likewise we should tear down the National Holocaust Museum. Fuckin' losers.
One of these days some of those old Confederate statues, like the one done by Henry Shrady in Charlottesville, will end up in private collections or museums which will charge high admission fees. The "people" will complain that ordinary people can never see the artifacts of early 20th century artists because people like Scott Adams persuaded people that the statues were mere decoration and could be destroyed. BTW, the city of Charlottesville did decide to sell their sculpture, which seems reasonable to me. Their park, their sculpture, their choice.
But, outsider racists had to move in and fuss such that folks were killed.
Legally permitted protest that the cops allowed armed violent "antifa" to invade = move in and fuss such that folks were killed. Perfect.
Charlottesville wants to take down their statue, let them take down their statue. I don't object--I don't live in Charlottesville. Seems like it ought to be permissible, though, to disagree with that decision...but obviously we can't have that! Only a bad person would disagree, a racist bigot Nazi bad person, and we simply "can't tolerate" such people.
Anyway, Durham's not Charlottesville, but the end result is the same, so I understand why you'd confuse the two.
On the other hand, I could see replacing the Stone Mountain boys with last year's Atlanta Falcons.
exiledonmainstreet said...
"There are all sorts of thoughtful and eloquent comments on this thread, notably Marty Keller's."
Thoughtful and eloquent it may be, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. Am I to understand that we "Americans" decided to have a little debate about slavery, and we felt it would be more persuasive if cannons were employed? And correctly so, for after four years of argument by cannonade, we had "changed our minds". Also changed more than a few of our bodies.
Bilge. What the Civil War was about was New England, and in particular Massachusetts, wresting control of the new nation from Southerners, and in particular Virginia. It was about power, and the slavery issue, while important to many, was merely a tool to those who mattered most. A weapon of war. As Lincoln made clear, he hated slavery, but would have allowed it to continue if it would end the war and save the Union. And he hoped to send the freed slaves to Africa.
And the same is true of this latest struggle. It is about power, and the fine sentiments are nonsense. What this is about is blaming white people uniquely for an institution that has been part of every civilization that ever was, and which white people were in fact the first to question. The reason for pressing this blood libel is to shame white people into allowing our own destruction. And many of us do seem to be persuaded.
The weapons you legitimize today when used against the bad people you don't like will be used tomorrow against the good people you do like.
It'll be a bitter one, but I'll laugh and laugh. Enjoy the civil disobedience to come, good people.
I'm honored to have my comments labeled "bilge" by no less a luminary than Jupiter. I'm sure his version of history is superior to mine, and to that expounded by Lincoln in my comment. Thanks, Jupe!
@VicariV,
note how anti-semitism, white supremacy, and laissez faire capitalism are appearing more and more joined-at-the-hip. this is the ideology of american fascism,
I'm sorry, that's 1930's Cominterm bullshit understanding of both Italian Fascism & German National Socialism.
You want to know what they were about, as opposed to what historically ignorant Lefties tell you their about? Read their documents:
Italian Fascism.
National Socialism.
Wait....after we tear down all the confederate statues, then we can white-wash the Civil War from history, but can we still make claims for reparations?
Marty Keller said...I'm honored to have my comments labeled "bilge" by no less a luminary than Jupiter. I'm sure his version of history is superior to mine, and to that expounded by Lincoln in my comment. Thanks, Jupe!
You're right about the past, he's right about the present. We're, all three of us, bad people, though, so it's best to ignore us anyway.
Marty Keller said...
"I'm honored to have my comments labeled "bilge" by no less a luminary than Jupiter. I'm sure his version of history is superior to mine, and to that expounded by Lincoln in my comment. Thanks, Jupe!"
It was a pleasure. But. While I am not in agreement with Lincoln's depiction of the war as a divine visitation, I would not call his version of events "bilge". It was your sappy supposition that the effect of four years of bloody struggle was to "change our minds" that I found objectionable. To kill a man is not to convert him.
I guess a statue is better than the arrangement of boulders in Hartford Connecticut known as "Andres Stone Field" by minimalist artist Carl Andre. at a cost of 75000.
Jupe, Lincoln suggested that "we the people" in our collective identity as Americans, and not any particular one of us, were responsible for permitting slavery. The Civil War and the XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth amendments were the events by which "we the people" collectively rescinded that permission and implemented full citizenship for all of us.
Indeed, "to kill a man is not to convert him." But I was not referring to a man, but like Lincoln rather to Americans in our single collective nationality.
Perhaps I am not as eloquent as you, what with your now calling my bilge "sappy." But I promise to work on it.
Marty,
I suppose that if you conceive Americans to have a "single collective nationality", with also a mind, susceptible to change, then one way to change it is to kill off a substantial fraction of those with the wrong point of view. Certainly, that was the approach Lincoln took. And I don't think he regarded the sin of slavery as one in which all Americans were equally complicit. "It may seem strange that any men should dare ...". But I think he also regarded slavery as an error into which the Union had strayed, and from which it was by his hand now delivered.
It can well be argued that the decision to accept slavery into the Constitution was an error, or at best a shameful compromise, made under the duress of one war and left to fester until a second war should correct it. But the Amendments you cite were enacted by a Congress which could hardly be taken to be representative of a "single collective nationality". The Rebel States were excluded, or represented by "exile" delegations.
I think that the one who truly "changed America's mind" was Martin Luther King. Without recourse to cannon, he made us think, and examine our conduct by the light of our conscience. And we were not pleased with what we saw, and resolved to do better. But that hasn't turned out quite so well as people hoped.
"note how anti-semitism, white supremacy, and laissez faire capitalism are appearing more and more joined-at-the-hip. this is the ideology of american fascism, alongside the'law and order' of the thin blue line"
You seem awfully young to be spouting such well-aged Soviet boilerplate.
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