Are we all still so sure that the destruction of monuments cannot result in the destruction of statues to the founding fathers? While I agree that we should remove statues of Lee et.al that were constructed to show resistance against desegregation, how exactly do we choose the “good monuments” to Jackson and Lee and the bad ones, or are there any good ones? Is the media and society even distinguishing between monuments that were put up during Jim Crow and the ones that weren’t? Should they?
There are no guarantees, and there can’t be. No matter what we do, future generations might decide to take down monuments to people we currently revere. This has always been the case, and always will be the case. Monuments have been moved, removed, altered, and destroyed for as long as monuments have existed.
“Slippery slopes are a myth!”
“Just a FYI, people can build stairs!”
Only the naive think that thought policing and the destruction of monuments would be constrained to symbols related to the Confederacy. Just like the Taliban and their desctructive tendencies, appeasement only emboldens them.
I think the answer to this one is found in your cite:
Having said that, TJ in particular bears some closer scrutiny as someone who not only owned slaved, but enslaved his own offspring. One has to wonder what kind of individual would do that.
Choosing to take a statue down is no more “thought policing” than was the decision to erect it in the first place. Both are political statements. Lets try to keep some perspective in our rhetoric here.
Yeah, the people in the recent past who put up those statues put them up as monuments to white supremacy. And I’m not talking metaphorically, I’m talking literally. So do we still believe in white supremacy, yes or no? If we don’t believe in white supremacy anymore, why do we preserve monuments to white supremacy?
If you don’t believe in white supremacy, why does removing a monument to white supremacy cause you so much sorrow? To preserve our history? Where’s the statue of General Sherman in Atlanta? General Sherman was pretty important in the history of Georgia, so why don’t they have a statue of him? And before you mention that General Sherman was fighting against the people of Georgia, just remember that he wasn’t fighting against all of them, only some of them.
Sherman was fighting against all of them. His army engaged in scorched earth warfare: Looting, burning, destroying everything in his path. Everyone suffered with little or no food.
BTW…taking war to the civilians might be considered a war crime.
You seem not to like the Taliban all that much. If someone were to put up a statue venerating the Taliban in this or that town square, would you unhesitatingly defend that statue against all those who step forward to say “yeah, on reflection, maybe we should take that statue down, huh?”
I think he was referring to the Talibans systematic destruction of statuary from pre-Muslim civilizations. Its a real cultural loss to the world.
Who’s next? Do we take down statues of John Paul Jones, who served on slave ships? Now, that would be a slippery sloop!
Uh, yeah; I figured. I’d still like to hear his answer to my question.
Take down JPJ statues because Led Zeppelin sucked. 
Like a fierce Taliban general or something? Not sure what local, state, or national significance that statue would have but it wouldn’t bother me. I think it’d be a waste of space but a statue of a person if done well is interesting and can be thought provoking. Even if it is of a flawed person.
The Sherman statue in Atlanta might actually be a good idea though.
The problem I have with this stuff in general is I think it’s counterproductive to concede these issues to angry mobs.
Just to be clear: I didn’t ask you whether you thought it should go up; I asked whether you’d defend it against folks who want to take it down.
Well, (a) that’s really not much of an answer at all, because it’s useless in telling us how we should respond if people coolly and calmly express a preference for removing this or that statue.
But (b) let’s say you’re on to something, there, and let’s use it as the impetus for a rephrased version of my question: let’s say a mob of angry guys tear down a great many statues you wish had remained in place – and let’s a statue goes up to one of those guys in that mob, complete with an angry look on his face, to celebrate that time he did the very thing that you disapprove of. It is, in fact, a statue of him spitting or pissing or whatever on the face of the now-toppled-and-ruined statue you think should’ve been left alone.
Should that statue be left alone?
Are you guys reading different news stories from the ones in the OP’s link? What I see there is a story about a UVA protest that involved temporarily covering a statue of Jefferson, and another story about VMI’s announcement of its decision to keep a statue of Stonewall Jackson. Where are you getting this “destruction of monuments” motif? You think that the mere fact of some people objecting to a statue automatically counts as “destroying” it? Or must inevitably result in destroying it? What?
:dubious: As I’ve noted before, it’s interesting we didn’t seem to hear this kind of talk out of any of these history-venerating monument-respecting conservatives back when statues of Lenin and Stalin and Saddam Hussein were being torn down right and left.
Again, the Confederacy monuments were there to deny history and a message that the ongoing repression of minorities “was there to stay”, so down they go. The Statues of Jefferson, if you had bothered to read the reply of the president of the university directed to the 40 protesters *:
As pointed before: once context is in place then the founders can be recognized while remembering their contradictions and bad policies of the past. Until the president of the university or other locations see a consensus that the statues should go down, this item is indeed just made important by the people that currently are not willing to accept that they lost indeed.
Twice.
- And really? 40 protesters and we should be scared when there is no agreement by most involved or formal plans to tear down the statue of Jefferson?
piffle.
Upon calm and cool reflection, something else occurs to me: let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you have a point. Let’s also say, for the sake of argument, that a community and its elected officials make the Upon Calm And Cool Reflection choice to remove a statue. And let’s also also say, for the sake of argument, that an angry mob then shows up to insist that the statue should stay in place. GRR! ARGH! ANGRY! MOB!
By your logic, we – well, we can’t concede the issue to an angry mob, can we? Is it your recommendation that, in such a case, such a statue ought to come down like the calm folks just said, lest the angry mob be appeased and emboldened instead?
Can you point to any appeasement granted the Taliban when they destroyed ancient images? Or does the failure to violate a country’s borders to begin an invasive shooting war to protect such images amount to appeasement?
I don’t want the “I’m outraged!” over a statue crowd rewarded in any way.
Did you see those college students who surrounded and berated a professor over an email discussing Halloween costumes? That sort of ridiculousness can’t be rewarded.
It is not about the statues or the Confederate flag or any of that other nonsense. It’s about the tactics to employed in order to influence people to get one’s way. I critique Antifa in the Pit and am called a fascist because the people responding for some reason or another can’t quite admit or comprehend that violence to suppress speech might just be counterproductive.
A particular statue in some location I most likely will never see doesn’t have a direct impact on my life. How conflict and evolving standards are handled in a democracy does have an impact on my life.
But to answer your question, if they illegally tore down a statue and put up a new one they ought to be arrested and the property restored. If the state can’t enforce it’s laws what’s it’s purpose?
If that spitting statue were legally put up I’d have my opinions of it. But I wouldn’t be advocating the vandalizing of it. Of course all this assumes we are living in a country with a legitimate government. But that’s a different discussion that I definitely don’t have time to deal with here.
I don’t know about other history-venerating monument-respecting conservatives and how they feel but I thought and commented to people I was with that the lawlessness and the chaos following the Iraq War 2 was a huge problem and that the US was making a big mistake not establishing order fast. Disbanding the Iraqi Army and tolerating chaos was not good from my point of view.
I didn’t care about the Hussein statue but I didn’t like what the looting, mob violence, etc. represented.
Stalin and Lenin? Did those monuments go up in a free nation? Or were those monuments erected by brutal dictators? You’d think that when a nation can finally have a free vote that that would form the baseline of what’s acceptable.
Would I find it problematic if I went to Moscow or Berlin and saw a statue of Stalin or Hitler? These were terrible and evil men but history is history. I probably see a representation of one of these two people in photo or video form at least once a month. And life somehow manages to go on.
Ok. One fight out of many not lost. There will be hundreds more.
If the political body in control of that particular statue makes a lawful decision then yes they shouldn’t be cowed by a mob. That’s the big lesson to learn. In threads on free speech I don’t give any validity to the Heckler’s Veto. Same thing here.
What people aren’t getting is that when society is changed by the group that can manipulate a mob into being louder and more violent than other groups a precedent is set that the more ruthless and conniving one is the more one is rewarded.
I, for one, prefer an imperfect country with order than an imperfect country with anarchy or strong man rule.
The sentence you quoted could be more clear. We didn’t act against the Taliban when we had the initial opportunity and cause. This ended up with additional costs to the nation. Not acting aggressively in our interests may not be technically appeasement but the sentiment, imo, is similar.
Yes, there probably will be some who want to extend the movement to remove monuments to white supremacy to include individuals who were notably racist or engaged in behavior that is unethical by today’s standard. It could go there, but it doesn’t necessarily have to. There is no contradiction in advocating the removal of a memorial to the confederacy on one hand and against the removal of a monument to, say, Thomas Jefferson or even Woodrow Wilson on the other.
A major problem that exists in American society today is the inability to discuss something without the argument and discussion itself moving toward ridiculous extremes. Slippery slope arguments represent reality in some cases, but certainly not all. If some people emerge who want to remove every monument or memorial to the Founding Fathers, okay, so what? Just out-debate them. Or are we simply no longer confident that this kind of debate can take place in society? Because if that’s the case, this type of problem goes beyond just debating statues.