Removing Confederate Monuments and Renaming Confederate-Named Military Bases

[repoman]

I thought we have an understanding of ethics that's built on centuries of thought and philosophical enquiry, universities, law, empathy, etc.

What percentage of the population in the West would support slavery, banning homosexuality or stoning for adultery? Very few people would, I'd wager.

80% of Republicans and a majority of white southerners would and do support monuments built to celebrate slavery, the continued intimidation of an entire race, and treat as heroes those who killed US soldiers to preserve the enslavement of others, all thing that are anti-thetical to democracy and core principles of civilized empathetic society. They also support efforts designed to ensure that blacks are impeded from participating in democracy. That's more than enough to negate any legitimacy of their democratic opinion on the matter of these monuments or any matter related to race.

Where are you on Monticello and statues of Jefferson?

 

[DBT]

Finally getting it? You missed the point from the start. It was always about the process and the means of determining the fate of public monuments. How many ways do I need to repeat that?

But these things are as much public monuments as a cesspool is a water garden.

Some are definately objectionable, some may be marginal while other monuments that have been defaced or damaged because they happened to in the path of the mob.

The point is not that that some statues or monuments should not be removed, but the process by which it is achieved: peaceful demonstration and civil disobedience rather than rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction.

That's all.

 

[DBT]

It wasn't single handed, but it was effective. According to studies, peaceful protest and civil disobedience being more effective than violence.

I'm surprised that some on this forum advocate violence on the streets.

To be clear, destroying statues is not "violence". Also, you seem to have the notion that democracy and violence are distinct methods. Whether an act is violence is completely unaffected by whether it is democratically sanctioned. And many non-democratic acts are not violent. Although these confed monuments were not created via democratic methods, even if they had been, their creation and preservation would still far closer to acts of violence than tearing them down, which is actually an act to end the continual violence the monuments enact against the people toward whom the builders and the subjects of the statues directed countless forms of violence for centuries, methods which the honored subjects killed to defend.

To violate is violence. Violence comes in many forms. I actually meant the overall mood and behaviour of the crowd, looting and indiscriminate destruction was a part of it.

 

[Rhea]

If it's determined that statues should be relocated or destroyed, I have no objection. It should be clear that the issue lies not in that it should be done or should not be done, but how it is decided, and if decided, how it is to be done.

The issue is the process by which decisions are made.

“If it’s determined.” That is so very passive.

DBT - it has been determined by a fairly clear majority, that the statues are a form of ongoing oppression and threat and should be removed. “It was determined” by most Americans. That is being held up by a samll number of people who have a source of power to continue the oppression and a motive for doing so.

So, since “it has been determined” that the statues should be relocated or destroyed, the people who determined it are doing the correct next step. Relocating and destroying. And the racist assholes who want to keep rubbing their white supremacist ideology in the face of the rest of the population “have been determined” to not have a pedestal to stand on.


The people have determined. The systemically racist southern governments love your support. But alas, it is not enough to stop the will of the people.

 

[Rhea]

I don't advocate "violence in the streets" for its own sake. But there is, in this case, already violence in the streets. That is exactly what all these folks are protesting. And while you are more upset about some toppled statues than about the loss of human lives, that isn't where the public mindset is at.

Quoted for amplification.
The statues are (non-violently) being pulled down to protest violence against people that is not being stopped.

Many of us care about those lives and want to end the government wink-and-nod that these statues represent.
The lives matter more than the statues. And the statues are part of the problem.

 

[Rhea]

Finally getting it? You missed the point from the start. It was always about the process and the means of determining the fate of public monuments. How many ways do I need to repeat that?

DBT why do you not understand that THESE ARE NOT PUBLIC MONUMENTS?

They were not erected by the public!
They were erected by small groups of people with a heinous agenda.

These.
Are.
not.
Public.
Monuments.

 

[Metaphor]

“If it’s determined.” That is so very passive.

DBT - it has been determined by a fairly clear majority, ...

The people have determined. The systemically racist southern governments love your support. But alas, it is not enough to stop the will of the people.

Did you poll the population to ask them if they support the tearing down of statues by mob rule?

How did you come to the understanding that a 'fairly clear majority' supports it?

 

[DBT]

Finally getting it? You missed the point from the start. It was always about the process and the means of determining the fate of public monuments. How many ways do I need to repeat that?

DBT why do you not understand that THESE ARE NOT PUBLIC MONUMENTS?

They were not erected by the public!
They were erected by small groups of people with a heinous agenda.

These.
Are.
not.
Public.
Monuments.

How many public buildings or monuments are erected by the public? The project is proposed by a committee, group sentiment, etc, and approved by local councils or governments. You or I can't just decide to erect a statue of Einstein in the plaza without permission.

Once approved by local councils or government, the project goes ahead and a,monument is erected in a public space, a park, plaza or whatever...at which point it becomes a public monument.

That doesn't mean that it's not appropriate or in not in bad taste. It may well be completely inappropriate.

And when I said it's fate should be 'determined,' I meant assessed and decided.

 

[Rhea]

We should keep up these statues of people who support human bondage, placed there by people that support human bondage, because....


HERITAGE!!

 

[Metaphor]

We should keep up these statues of people who support human bondage, placed there by people that support human bondage, because....


HERITAGE!!

DBT didn't say that. Nobody here said it.

 

[Metaphor]

When I was a child, there was a condemned house in my neighbourhood. A clear majority agreed it was a danger to the public. So, we did what any sane mob would do. We got in there, tore it down manually, screaming and braying, and then sent a letter to the city declaring it didn't have to pay the professional wreckers to do it, you're welcome.

We didn't clean up afterwards, though we did throw some of the debris into the river.
We also had the courage to call out anybody who objected to our hastening of the will of the clear majority. Why do you want children and the homeless to die?

 

[Rhea]

We should keep up these statues of people who support human bondage, placed there by people that support human bondage, because....


HERITAGE!!

DBT didn't say that. Nobody here said it.

He did. He said that because someone put it up, it became a “public monument” - aka a part of the heritage. And must be treated repectfully and given all kinds of chances to stay up and continue to be racist propaganda meant to imply government - public - sanction of the violent ideology of slavery. Because violence is part of the public when it’s in bronze, and should not be treated badly.

Don’t treat the statues of violent racists badly, because they are “public” monuments. And thhey deserve democratic respect. Because that’s more important than the intended message of “public” sanction of human bondage.


I would tear down a nazi flag, too.

 

[Metaphor]

He did. He said that because someone put it up, it became a “public monument” -

They are public monuments. They are in public space and they were funded by public money.

 

[Rhea]

I hear you. I hear you. I got what you think. Check.

 

[laughing dog]

He did. He said that because someone put it up, it became a “public monument” -

They are public monuments. They are in public space and they were funded by public money.

Not necessarily. Is a privately funded statue in a public space necessarily a public monument .

 

[DBT]

We should keep up these statues of people who support human bondage, placed there by people that support human bondage, because....


HERITAGE!!

DBT didn't say that. Nobody here said it.

He did. He said that because someone put it up, it became a “public monument” - aka a part of the heritage. And must be treated repectfully and given all kinds of chances to stay up and continue to be racist propaganda meant to imply government - public - sanction of the violent ideology of slavery. Because violence is part of the public when it’s in bronze, and should not be treated badly.

Don’t treat the statues of violent racists badly, because they are “public” monuments. And thhey deserve democratic respect. Because that’s more important than the intended message of “public” sanction of human bondage.


I would tear down a nazi flag, too.

I certainly did not say that. If you believe I did, show me where. I suspect interpretation at work. Seeing what was not intended.

 

[Rhea]

I certainly did not say that. If you believe I did, show me where. I suspect interpretation at work. Seeing what was not intended.

Or... maybe you are making comments about American culture which has meanings that you don’t understand. That’s a possibility, too.

 

[Metaphor]

He did. He said that because someone put it up, it became a “public monument” -

They are public monuments. They are in public space and they were funded by public money.

Not necessarily. Is a privately funded statue in a public space necessarily a public monument .

If the money was donated by a private citizen or group, but the public (via its representatives in the city) accepted the donation and erected it on public land, it is as much a public monument as a monument funded via the city's general revenue.

If the mob is destroying private property, that too is unacceptable, but I don't think that's the situation we are discussing.

Merely pointing out that public monuments are public does not mean you support the continued display of particular monuments, nor does it mean that you would object to the city deciding to remove it even if you yourself would vote to keep it.

Hell, it doesn't even mean you would never support a mob tearing it down. There's public art in the city I live--some of it is unpopular with some people.

The city commissioned the art. The city put the art on public land. The city continues to implicitly support it by leaving it there.

But if there were an election where the entire city council was elected on the basis of removing a particular artwork, and there was unequivocal support for removing it (say 60% of the city's population) and the city council openly defied its electoral promises and refused to remove it, then I can very well see proper justice in a mob tearing it down, even if I was in the minority who liked the artwork.

But the mob can't decide to tear down everything they don't like just because they are gripped in a destructive fever.

 

[DBT]

I certainly did not say that. If you believe I did, show me where. I suspect interpretation at work. Seeing what was not intended.

Or... maybe you are making comments about American culture which has meanings that you don’t understand. That’s a possibility, too.

That is not the same as what you assumed I said, which I neither said or suggested. The issue from the beginning was how to go about initiating change or reform, removing, relocating or destroying public monuments.

Which, to repeat, does not mean that there are not some that should be relocated or destroyed, only the process by which that is done: peaceful protest and/or civil disobedience.

Which according to studies, provided, is more effective than rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction.

That's all. Why is this so hard to grasp or accept?

 

[Rhea]

That's all. Why is this so hard to grasp or accept?

Why is decades, scores of decades,, even a century of public propaganda to subjugate certain citizens and promote violent and racist ideology combined with voter suppression and political tricks to prevent the voice of the protesters from being heard so hard to grasp?

I do not know.