Now the alt-left is going after Columbus ...

[Derec]

I just disovered Sawyerville. The native population used to call it Toronto, but I found it yesterday and decided that I was the first one there.

North American Indians had thriving metropolises pre-Columbus? Or what is the point of your analogy?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Colombus didn't discover America, the natives before him discovered America. "Colombus discovered America" is just a eurocentric interpretation. I know you don't like or understand words like "eurocentric", though, Derec.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I have problem with people who feel entitled to vandalize historic monuments.

That's kinda funny.

There are people who think it's cool to lynch certain actual living human beings, and to defend the right to own and lynch human beings, and raised statues to venerate the people who defended the cause, and the right to own/lynch, and want to reorganize the country so they can own or at least happily lynch people they think shouldn't be considered Americans, but let's get het up about the vandalism.

 

[Derec]

Colombus didn't discover America, the natives before him discovered America.

If they came to America themselves, then they are hardly "native", are they. Siberian-Americans, please.

Also, Columbus discovered America for Europe. After Columbus, Europe knew that there was a hitherto unknown landmass between Asia and Europe/Africa. And that's what it means to discover something. Not necessarily that one is the absolutely first

 

[Derec]

There are people who think it's cool to lynch certain actual living human beings,

Like who? And when? These lynchings are many decades in the past, and were never that widespread compared to garden variety murders. But black radicals try to pretend that every black person who commits suicide by hanging has been "lynched", but that does not make it so.

and to defend the right to own and lynch human beings, and raised statues to venerate the people who defended the cause, and the right to own/lynch, and want to reorganize the country so they can own or at least happily lynch people they think shouldn't be considered Americans, but let's get het up about the vandalism.

This is the classic fallacy of relative privation. Just because slavery and lynching were worse than vandalism, does not mean we should ignore vandalism.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Like who? And when? These lynchings are many decades in the past,

Kinda meaningless in face of the fact I'm not complaining about lynchings. I'm talking about the people who WANT to lynch, who APPROVE of lynchings. That's a current thing, but nice try on the deflection.

and were never that widespread compared to garden variety murders. But black radicals try to pretend

Oh, my god! That's so unexpected! Your response is to spin in place and throw blame at blacks!
Because you're not a racist!
And you have a nuanced approach to racial matters!
So original! And SO unlike you!

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I just disovered Sawyerville. The native population used to call it Toronto, but I found it yesterday and decided that I was the first one there.

North American Indians had thriving metropolises pre-Columbus? Or what is the point of your analogy?

Colombus didn't discover America, the natives before him discovered America.

If they came to America themselves, then they are hardly "native", are they. Siberian-Americans, please.

Also, Columbus discovered America for Europe. After Columbus, Europe knew that there was a hitherto unknown landmass between Asia and Europe/Africa. And that's what it means to discover something. Not necessarily that one is the absolutely first

It's still far more impressive to me that people who were merely trying to survive, and did not have the same technology or resources that Colombus did, managed to discover the landmass far before he did. Perhaps we should have monuments to them.

 

[Cobalt]

I do not think he should be venerated, but certainly recognized.

Great. He is recognized. He has a fucking country as his namesake. That seems like more than enough given that he was such a shitty human being.

I have no problem with people not venerating him. I have problem with people who feel entitled to vandalize historic monuments.

You're outraged by a handful of activists defacing a monument. But you're scarcely bothered by the atrocities committed against actual human beings by the man the monument is intended to honor. You might want to have that looked at...

 

[Derec]

Kinda meaningless in face of the fact I'm not complaining about lynchings. I'm talking about the people who WANT to lynch, who APPROVE of lynchings.

And who are those people? I do not know of any?

That's a current thing, but nice try on the deflection.

Is it? But even if there were such people, how does that mean that we should ignore vandalism?

Oh, my god! That's so unexpected! Your response is to spin in place and throw blame at blacks!

I am not throwing "blame at blacks", but at black radicals. And you are the one who brought up lynchings in the first place. Now you have an issue with me responding to your nonsense.

Because you're not a racist!

I am not racist. Saying that black radicals are falsely claiming suicides of black people are "lynchings" is not racist. It's a statement of fact. A case like that happened last year in Atlanta. A troubled gay black young man hanged himself in Piedmont Park. The activists were immediately sure that it was a "lynching" by the "KKK". They even invented completely fictional KKK meeting at Piedmont Park the previous day, complete with fictional KKK flyers. and even after it turned out it was a suicide, many still insisted it was a lynching.

And again, you are the one who brought up lynchings.

And you have a nuanced approach to racial matters!
So original! And SO unlike you!

At least 65,536 shades more nuanced than you!

- - - Updated - - -

Great. He is recognized. He has a fucking country as his namesake. That seems like more than enough given that he was such a shitty human being.

Fair enough. That still does not justify alt-leftists defacing monuments.

You're outraged by a handful of activists defacing a monument. But you're scarcely bothered by the atrocities committed against actual human beings by the man the monument is intended to honor. You might want to have that looked at...

Because that was more than 500 years in the past. During the time when such atrocities were very commonplace.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Because that was more than 500 years in the past. During the time when such atrocities were very commonplace.

Next time don't complain about "cultural relativism", then.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And who are those people? I do not know of any?

That's a current thing, but nice try on the deflection.

Is it? But even if there were such people, how does that mean that we should ignore vandalism?

Never said we should ignore vandalism.
I just found and still find your focus funny.

Oh, my god! That's so unexpected! Your response is to spin in place and throw blame at blacks!

I am not throwing "blame at blacks", but at black radicals.

SUCH an important distinction, Derec. But you simply MUST bring the discussion around to how blacks are in the wrong.

I guess this is because you can't use a slide whistle in text...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I find a bit of humor in vandalizing a statue of a guy that never stepped on American mainland soil.

Vandalism is bad. While some people are misguided and seem to think Trump being President justifies this, others may very well just want to do bad shit and use this as cover. Neither is acceptable, and we must work hard to condemn such acts. We live in a nation that will allow for these statues to be taken down, lawfully. And certainly, Christopher Columbus statues should be far back on the list of 'shit that pisses us off'.

The US is in a weird time. The economy is actually not too bad, though we continue transitioning from a manufacturing economy to a services economy. We aren't at war. Yet, a lot of people are really pissed off. Of course, only the right-wingers are okay to be pissed off because ACA and Democrats not being marched to the gallows.

 

[PyramidHead]

We aren't at war

How do you define being at war, and why doesn't Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and/or Syria fit the definition?

 

[repoman]

I agree with Derec that Columbus discovered America, or at least launched the ago of European exploation it. The word doesn't quite fit though. Fully explain what he did (before he started raping and killing) and pick the word you want. At any rate, it was bound to happen in a short time even if Columbus didn't go.

Because Columbus was considered a bad and immoral guy by some solid comtemperary witnesses, that should give added weight to his consideraton and respect given to him. How much did his assholery set the tone for further explorers? If he was a kind hearted man whose crew was also kind, how would history be different?

If Columbus was a nice guy, I think that many would not support taking his statue down as strongly. Some would, and you people need to get a life.

 

[PyramidHead]

We don't have to revere every part of our heritage. This is just a normal part of the cultural change that happens in any country. Some things in our history end up monumentalized as statues for public veneration, while the rest is recorded in the history books. In every stage of country's development there will be people who wish to hurry along the progress and those who aren't ready to move yet. The terms that most accurately reflect this divide, as far as I have seen, are 'progressive' and 'conservative'. No need to bring in 'alt' anything. If part of what you want to conserve is the racist, nationalistic streak that motivated some of our founders, you are a conservative who is also a racist and a nationalist, not an alt-anything. If the progress you want to make involves vandalizing property and circumventing the existing process for having monuments removed, you're a progressive who doesn't have enough patience. Those are the sides of this argument: one side is wrong because their entire worldview is wrong, the other is wrong because they are too hasty. They are not equally wrong, nor are they wrong in ways that place them at some kind of moral stalemate. The racist conservatives are worse than the impatient progressives.

 

[LordKiran]

I agree with Derec that Columbus discovered America, or at least launched the ago of European exploation it. The word doesn't quite fit though. Fully explain what he did (before he started raping and killing) and pick the word you want. At any rate, it was bound to happen in a short time even if Columbus didn't go.

Because Columbus was considered a bad and immoral guy by some solid comtemperary witnesses, that should give added weight to his consideraton and respect given to him. How much did his assholery set the tone for further explorers? If he was a kind hearted man whose crew was also kind, how would history be different?

If Columbus was a nice guy, I think that many would not support taking his statue down as strongly. Some would, and you people need to get a life.

Hitler can be regarded as singularly responsible for ending the European age of imperialism since one of the immediate consequences of WW2 is that an already weakened Europe no longer had the strength or will to maintain its grip on the world at large. With that said, I still wouldn't want his statue on anything I owned.

Really the comparison is apt too, because both can be seen as accompanying bookends to Europe's age of empires.

 

[repoman]

If board users here were Mongolian would you want Genghis Khan statues in Mongolia removed?

An aside is that the moral innovations now are coming from the "crash into a wall" wasteful use of fossil fuels that is freeing up a lot of labor. Our descendants are gonna want to tear down statues of James Watt while they live in a climate hellscape.

Our moral compass is a fucked up as it ever was and it will never get better.

 

[Keith&Co.]

With that said, I still wouldn't want (Hitler's) statue on anything I owned.

Valve stem on a valve to your septic tank?

Or a statue IN the septic tank as a level gage?
"Bad news, it's up to his ankles."
"That's not much."
"We may have installed it upside down...."

 

[skepticalbip]

We don't have to revere every part of our heritage. This is just a normal part of the cultural change that happens in any country. Some things in our history end up monumentalized as statues for public veneration, while the rest is recorded in the history books. In every stage of country's development there will be people who wish to hurry along the progress and those who aren't ready to move yet. The terms that most accurately reflect this divide, as far as I have seen, are 'progressive' and 'conservative'. No need to bring in 'alt' anything. If part of what you want to conserve is the racist, nationalistic streak that motivated some of our founders, you are a conservative who is also a racist and a nationalist, not an alt-anything. If the progress you want to make involves vandalizing property and circumventing the existing process for having monuments removed, you're a progressive who doesn't have enough patience. Those are the sides of this argument: one side is wrong because their entire worldview is wrong, the other is wrong because they are too hasty. They are not equally wrong, nor are they wrong in ways that place them at some kind of moral stalemate. The racist conservatives are worse than the impatient progressives.

The antifa movement is not solely interested in removing "racist monuments". They are driven to forcefully silence anyone who has contrary views to theirs. Milo Yiannopoulos can in no way be called a nazi white supremacist racist and yet that is exactly what antifa labels him. This is their "excuse" for their destruction and physical violence in their Berkeley "demonstration". Their tactic is to label anyone they disagree with politically a racist, nazi, fascist, etc. and, by such labeling, they manage to attract some "useful idiots" to go along with them. It is an attack on free speech.

 

[PyramidHead]

We don't have to revere every part of our heritage. This is just a normal part of the cultural change that happens in any country. Some things in our history end up monumentalized as statues for public veneration, while the rest is recorded in the history books. In every stage of country's development there will be people who wish to hurry along the progress and those who aren't ready to move yet. The terms that most accurately reflect this divide, as far as I have seen, are 'progressive' and 'conservative'. No need to bring in 'alt' anything. If part of what you want to conserve is the racist, nationalistic streak that motivated some of our founders, you are a conservative who is also a racist and a nationalist, not an alt-anything. If the progress you want to make involves vandalizing property and circumventing the existing process for having monuments removed, you're a progressive who doesn't have enough patience. Those are the sides of this argument: one side is wrong because their entire worldview is wrong, the other is wrong because they are too hasty. They are not equally wrong, nor are they wrong in ways that place them at some kind of moral stalemate. The racist conservatives are worse than the impatient progressives.

The antifa movement is not solely interested in removing "racist monuments". They are driven to forcefully silence anyone who has contrary views to theirs. Milo Yiannopoulos can in no way be called a nazi white supremacist racist and yet that is exactly what antifa labels him. This is their "excuse" for their destruction and physical violence in their Berkeley "demonstration". Their tactic is to label anyone they disagree with politically a racist, nazi, fascist, etc. and, by such labeling, they manage to attract some "useful idiots" to go along with then. It is an attack on free speech.

That's nice. I didn't say anything about antifa, though, so I don't see what it has to do with my comment. Nor was the story in the OP related to antifa. The discussion is about statues of people from our history who did horrible things and if we should keep them or remove them, and how we should go about removing them if we do.