Removing Confederate Monuments and Renaming Confederate-Named Military Bases

[DBT]

If a majority of people wanted to enslave a minority, it would happen. If people had wanted to do it for decades, it would happen. It would happen even if it were unconstitutional--that's what revolutions are.

You said it should happen, not it would happen. One of them is a factual claim, the other a moral judgment. Do you stand by your moral judgment?

I meant that it should happen if there is a valid reason for it to be done. I don't doubt that there are some monuments that should go. The issue is the means by which it is achieved. I said that numerous time and in several ways. If I type an inappropriate word here or there, that's just an error in composition.

 

[Jokodo]

If a majority of people wanted to enslave a minority, it would happen. If people had wanted to do it for decades, it would happen. It would happen even if it were unconstitutional--that's what revolutions are.

You said it should happen, not it would happen. One of them is a factual claim, the other a moral judgment. Do you stand by your moral judgment?

I meant that it should happen if there is a valid reason for it to be done. I don't doubt that there are some monuments that should go. The issue is the means by which it is achieved. I said that numerous time and in several ways. If I type an inappropriate word here or there, that's just an error in composition.

Are you and Metaphor the same person?

 

[DBT]

I meant that it should happen if there is a valid reason for it to be done. I don't doubt that there are some monuments that should go. The issue is the means by which it is achieved. I said that numerous time and in several ways. If I type an inappropriate word here or there, that's just an error in composition.

Are you and Metaphor the same person?

We hold a similar view on the issue, it appears. Arguing against rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction of public monuments. Which is not to say that some should not be removed, only how to determine what goes and what stays. In other words, how to go about it.

 

[Metaphor]

If a majority of people wanted to enslave a minority, it would happen. If people had wanted to do it for decades, it would happen. It would happen even if it were unconstitutional--that's what revolutions are.

You said it should happen, not it would happen. One of them is a factual claim, the other a moral judgment. Do you stand by your moral judgment?

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

 

[Jokodo]

If a majority of people wanted to enslave a minority, it would happen. If people had wanted to do it for decades, it would happen. It would happen even if it were unconstitutional--that's what revolutions are.

You said it should happen, not it would happen. One of them is a factual claim, the other a moral judgment. Do you stand by your moral judgment?

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

You're evading my question.

If a majority of 50%+ 1 vote want to enslave the other 50%, should it happen? Not would it happen, but should it happen. You did say that "if the majority think a particular statue should stay, then it should stay" (your emphasis). This is the logic you used to justify keeping statues the sole purpose of which is to rub into African Americans' faces the fact that a significant and influential segment of society still believes they should be slaves. What I'm asking is whether the same logic can be used to justify slavery, in your moral universe - and if not, what the fucking difference is?

 

[Jokodo]

I meant that it should happen if there is a valid reason for it to be done. I don't doubt that there are some monuments that should go. The issue is the means by which it is achieved. I said that numerous time and in several ways. If I type an inappropriate word here or there, that's just an error in composition.

Are you and Metaphor the same person?

We hold a similar view on the issue, it appears. Arguing against rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction of public monuments. Which is not to say that some should not be removed, only how to determine what goes and what stays. In other words, how to go about it.

Yes, you also seem to think that the sensitivities of hardcore racists who don't want it rubbed in their face that their opinion that blacks should be slaves - and want everybody to pay for the upkeep of public symbols to represent that position - no longer attain a majority should count at least as much as the sensitivities of black people who don't want to be forced to pay for symbols of their own oppression.

We got that.

I'm raising a particular question pertinent to a particular claim Metaphor made, though.

 

[DBT]

We hold a similar view on the issue, it appears. Arguing against rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction of public monuments. Which is not to say that some should not be removed, only how to determine what goes and what stays. In other words, how to go about it.

Yes, you also seem to think that the sensitivities of hardcore racists who don't want it rubbed in their face that their opinion that blacks should be slaves - and want everybody to pay for the upkeep of public symbols to represent that position - no longer attain a majority should count at least as much as the sensitivities of black people who don't want to be forced to pay for symbols of their own oppression.

We got that.

I'm raising a particular question pertinent to a particular claim Metaphor made, though.

Your assumptions about what I think and say is mistaken. I have made it clear that this issue is about peaceful resolution rather than rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction, that I support the former.

The question is, why are some on this forum supporting violence?

 

[Rhea]

I think it’s quaint that you are so comfortable in the opinion that in America a racist minority can’t hold legislative ground against the will of the people.

It’s like you don’t understand the electoral college, gerrymandering and the influential power of the very rich.

It’s cute.

 

[Rhea]

We hold a similar view on the issue, it appears. Arguing against rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction of public monuments. Which is not to say that some should not be removed, only how to determine what goes and what stays. In other words, how to go about it.

Yes, you also seem to think that the sensitivities of hardcore racists who don't want it rubbed in their face that their opinion that blacks should be slaves - and want everybody to pay for the upkeep of public symbols to represent that position - no longer attain a majority should count at least as much as the sensitivities of black people who don't want to be forced to pay for symbols of their own oppression.

We got that.

I'm raising a particular question pertinent to a particular claim Metaphor made, though.

Your assumptions about what I think and say is mistaken. I have made it clear that this issue is about peaceful resolution rather than rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction, that I support the former.

The question is, why are some on this forum supporting violence?

Every day that those statues stand supports violence.
Tearing down a statue is not violence. It is destruction, but not violence.

 

[scombrid]

We hold a similar view on the issue, it appears. Arguing against rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction of public monuments. Which is not to say that some should not be removed, only how to determine what goes and what stays. In other words, how to go about it.

Yes, you also seem to think that the sensitivities of hardcore racists who don't want it rubbed in their face that their opinion that blacks should be slaves - and want everybody to pay for the upkeep of public symbols to represent that position - no longer attain a majority should count at least as much as the sensitivities of black people who don't want to be forced to pay for symbols of their own oppression.

We got that.

I'm raising a particular question pertinent to a particular claim Metaphor made, though.

Your assumptions about what I think and say is mistaken. I have made it clear that this issue is about peaceful resolution rather than rioting, looting and indiscriminate destruction, that I support the former.

The question is, why are some on this forum supporting violence?

Why are you ignoring that >99% of the protestors are not engaged in rioting, looting, or indiscriminate destruction? Even if a statue is forcefully removed without state sanction, that is not indiscriminate.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If a majority of people wanted to enslave a minority, it would happen. If people had wanted to do it for decades, it would happen. It would happen even if it were unconstitutional--that's what revolutions are.

You said it should happen, not it would happen. One of them is a factual claim, the other a moral judgment. Do you stand by your moral judgment?

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

If a majority of people vote to re-institute poll taxes and separate-but-equal, should that happen?

Tearing down a monument to oppression is like walking across a bridge and being set upon by police, dogs and water cannon because you are black and fighting for your civil rights. Who's violating who?

 

[Metaphor]

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

You're evading my question.

If a majority of 50%+ 1 vote want to enslave the other 50%, should it happen? Not would it happen, but should it happen. You did say that "if the majority think a particular statue should stay, then it should stay" (your emphasis). This is the logic you used to justify keeping statues the sole purpose of which is to rub into African Americans' faces the fact that a significant and influential segment of society still believes they should be slaves. What I'm asking is whether the same logic can be used to justify slavery, in your moral universe - and if not, what the fucking difference is?

I believe you are wrong when you say the "sole purpose" of statues is to "rub into African Americans' faces...believes they should be slaves". In fact, I think it is slightly unhinged that you think a significant and influential segment of society believes black people should be slaves.

If a majority of people want to keep a statue in a city, then that is sufficient moral justification to keep it, because statues do not enslave people and they are more a matter of taste than anything else.

 

[Metaphor]

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

If a majority of people vote to re-institute poll taxes and separate-but-equal, should that happen?

Tearing down a monument to oppression is like walking across a bridge and being set upon by police, dogs and water cannon because you are black and fighting for your civil rights. Who's violating who?

A statue is not slavery. A statue does not violate anybody's rights.

 

[laughing dog]

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

If a majority of people vote to re-institute poll taxes and separate-but-equal, should that happen?

Tearing down a monument to oppression is like walking across a bridge and being set upon by police, dogs and water cannon because you are black and fighting for your civil rights. Who's violating who?

A statue is not slavery. A statue does not violate anybody's rights.

Yes, democracy has is its limits. But whether a statue violate's anybody's rights depends on the specific structure of rights, not your view of morality. A clearer statement is "A statue does not violate what I think are anybody's rights".

 

[Metaphor]

A statue is not slavery. A statue does not violate anybody's rights.

Yes, democracy has is its limits. But whether a statue violate's anybody's rights depends on the specific structure of rights, not your view of morality. A clearer statement is "A statue does not violate what I think are anybody's rights".

Well sure, but that's implied with any statement about morality and rights.

I reckon the people portrayed in a lot of statues were awful homophobes in their time, but I am not persecuted by seeing those statues.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

You're evading my question.

If a majority of 50%+ 1 vote want to enslave the other 50%, should it happen? Not would it happen, but should it happen. You did say that "if the majority think a particular statue should stay, then it should stay" (your emphasis). This is the logic you used to justify keeping statues the sole purpose of which is to rub into African Americans' faces the fact that a significant and influential segment of society still believes they should be slaves. What I'm asking is whether the same logic can be used to justify slavery, in your moral universe - and if not, what the fucking difference is?

I believe you are wrong when you say the "sole purpose" of statues is to "rub into African Americans' faces...believes they should be slaves".

Curious, what in the heck would you know about that? Are you learned in 19th and 20th century US history? A lot of these statues and symbols are put up in the early 20th century along side the rise of KKK and like movements and in the 1950s, when the Civil Rights movement begins to move forward. Their message was unmistakable.

If a majority of people want to keep a statue in a city, then that is sufficient moral justification to keep it, because statues do not enslave people and they are more a matter of taste than anything else.

These statues glorify those that committed heinous crimes against the US and its constitution. They were symbols erected to remind African Americans where they stood in the South (not to ignore racism in the north) and that any attempt to seek elevated status would not be tolerated. People that didn't abide by this were murdered without any consequence.

 

[Jokodo]

Yes. If a majority of people want a statue to come down, it should happen.

You're evading my question.

If a majority of 50%+ 1 vote want to enslave the other 50%, should it happen? Not would it happen, but should it happen. You did say that "if the majority think a particular statue should stay, then it should stay" (your emphasis). This is the logic you used to justify keeping statues the sole purpose of which is to rub into African Americans' faces the fact that a significant and influential segment of society still believes they should be slaves. What I'm asking is whether the same logic can be used to justify slavery, in your moral universe - and if not, what the fucking difference is?

I believe you are wrong when you say the "sole purpose" of statues is to "rub into African Americans' faces...believes they should be slaves". In fact, I think it is slightly unhinged that you think a significant and influential segment of society believes black people should be slaves.

You really need to read up on the history of confederate monuments then. They were not erected because of aesthetics, or because the generals depicted were such great tacticians and kind to the foot soldiers serving under them. They were erected to show the uppity negroes that reconstruction is over and the Old South is still alive and well, so they better keep their place, or else! And nary any were erected during or immediately after the Civil War - the vast majority between 1890 and 1960, so in some cases 100 years later!

Here's a quote from  List_of_Confederate_monuments_and_memorials:

Confederate monument-building has often been part of widespread campaigns to promote and justify Jim Crow laws in the South. [10][1][11] According to the American Historical Association (AHA), the erection of Confederate monuments during the early twentieth century was "part and parcel of the initiation of legally mandated segregation and widespread disenfranchisement across the South." According to the AHA, memorials to the Confederacy erected during this period "were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life." A later wave of monument building coincided with the civil rights movement, and according to the AHA "these symbols of white supremacy are still being invoked for similar purposes."[12] According to Smithsonian Magazine, "far from simply being markers of historic events and people, as proponents argue, these memorials were created and funded by Jim Crow governments to pay homage to a slave-owning society and to serve as blunt assertions of dominance over African-Americans." [2]


Statue in Monroe County, West Virginia, 2016
According to historian Jane Dailey from the University of Chicago, in many cases, the purpose of the monuments was not to celebrate the past but rather to promote a "white supremacist future".[13] Another historian, Karen L. Cox, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has written that the monuments are "a legacy of the brutally racist Jim Crow era", and that "the whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy".[11]
​

If a majority of people want to keep a statue in a city, then that is sufficient moral justification to keep it, because statues do not enslave people and they are more a matter of taste than anything else.

You still didn't answer my question. If 50% of the population (+ 1 vote) declare in a referendum that they want to enslave the other 50%, does that provide justification to do so?

Yes or no, no evasion, please and thank you.

Can you answer that?

And if your anwer is "no", please be explicit about how the reasoning you used to arrive at a "no" doesn't carry over to the topic of this thread.

 

[Rhea]

I believe you are wrong when you say the "sole purpose" of statues is to "rub into African Americans' faces...believes they should be slaves". In fact, I think it is slightly unhinged that you think a significant and influential segment of society believes black people should be slaves.

If a majority of people want to keep a statue in a city, then that is sufficient moral justification to keep it, because statues do not enslave people and they are more a matter of taste than anything else.

“You believe” something about our culture that we do not believe.

It is well known that the presence of things like these statues serve to establish a propaganda that these traitorous slaveholders were right and sanctioned by the government. It is well known and has been shown in this thread that the erection of these statues was for that purpose - to bolster the white supremacist ideology and lend it sanction. It is well known that the knights of COlombus did the same thing with 10 commandments monuments that they erected at courthouses to lend credence to the idea that this is “a Christian Nation” when it is not.


The presence of those statues serves to create the atmosphere that white supremacy has power in our government.

We get - we totally get, we hear you! - that you think it is important to not offend the statues used to continue the subjugation of black people in America and that you do not feel the same about stopping the subjugation; the actual violence.

It is well known that when people THINK they have public support for their violent actions against people of color that they are more likely to perform violent actions against people fo color. That’s what the statues due - they display public support for violent actions against black people in America. We know this. You have ignored this. And continued to say, “but the statues have rights! And feelings!”

And we notice that you have not said the same for the people that they are used to oppress. That they have rights and feelings. And that something is broken when people argue for the statues more than for the people.


These statues are of traitors and people who promoted violence. They serve to perpetuate that by giving it the cover of acceptance and “public monument” support. They were erected by people who wanted to do exactly that, to perpetuate their permission to continue violence against a certain group.


We hear you. We get that you do not care about the violence against the people as much as you care about the “rights” the statues have to only be removed though a process that is known to disenfranchise the people it is meant to crush underheel.

We hear you advocate on and on! for the rights of the statue.
Luckily for our friends who continued to be affected by the presence of the statues, we care more about our fellow citizens who are suffereing violence that is emboldened by these statues than we care about the statues or the traitors and violent white supremacists who erected them.


You may continue to carry the flag for the violent white supremacists who use the statues to “prove” that they have a right to harm black people in America. They do need the help as their numbers are dwindling and they’re having a harder and harder time holding on to their “heritage.” I’m sure they thank you for your efforts and enthusiasm, and willingness to admonish people for making the change when the government won’t.

But we’ll continue to advocate instead for the PEOPLE not the statues that magnify the voices of the violent.

 

[Metaphor]

Curious, what in the heck would you know about that? Are you learned in 19th and 20th century US history? A lot of these statues and symbols are put up in the early 20th century along side the rise of KKK and like movements and in the 1950s, when the Civil Rights movement begins to move forward. Their message was unmistakable.

Really? So the majority of Americans in the 20th century are morally bankrupt racists who tolerated and celebrated these statues, but at the same time a majority of American clearly want the statues gone? Which is it?

These statues glorify those that committed heinous crimes against the US and its constitution. They were symbols erected to remind African Americans where they stood in the South (not to ignore racism in the north) and that any attempt to seek elevated status would not be tolerated. People that didn't abide by this were murdered without any consequence.

Okay luv. The Emancipation Memorial, paid for voluntarily by former slaves, was erected to remind black people that they were subhuman.

 

[Metaphor]

“You believe” something about our culture that we do not believe.

So you now speak for all Americans?

We get - we totally get, we hear you! - that you think it is important to not offend the statues used to continue the subjugation of black people in America and that you do not feel the same about stopping the subjugation; the actual violence.

You really do not get it.

It is well known that when people THINK they have public support for their violent actions against people of color that they are more likely to perform violent actions against people fo color. That’s what the statues due - they display public support for violent actions against black people in America. We know this. You have ignored this. And continued to say, “but the statues have rights! And feelings!”

Statues don't have rights or feelings. What an absurd thing to imagine.

And we notice that you have not said the same for the people that they are used to oppress. That they have rights and feelings. And that something is broken when people argue for the statues more than for the people.

I'm afraid only your reasoning is broken here.

These statues are of traitors and people who promoted violence. They serve to perpetuate that by giving it the cover of acceptance and “public monument” support. They were erected by people who wanted to do exactly that, to perpetuate their permission to continue violence against a certain group.

So, the Emancipation Memorial was erected by people who wanted to continue violence against a certain group?

We hear you. We get that you do not care about the violence against the people as much as you care about the “rights” the statues have to only be removed though a process that is known to disenfranchise the people it is meant to crush underheel.

Statues don't have rights. This isn't even a strawman. It's febrile fantasy.

We hear you advocate on and on! for the rights of the statue.
Luckily for our friends who continued to be affected by the presence of the statues, we care more about our fellow citizens who are suffereing violence that is emboldened by these statues than we care about the statues or the traitors and violent white supremacists who erected them.

Do you have any evidence of this, or is this emboldening like the patriarchal ether? Everywhere and ever present?

You may continue to carry the flag for the violent white supremacists who use the statues to “prove” that they have a right to harm black people in America. They do need the help as their numbers are dwindling and they’re having a harder and harder time holding on to their “heritage.” I’m sure they thank you for your efforts and enthusiasm, and willingness to admonish people for making the change when the government won’t.

But we’ll continue to advocate instead for the PEOPLE not the statues that magnify the voices of the violent.

More than admonish. The people destroying public property should be subject to criminal sanctions.