Outstanding. For the record, I’m hereby calmly and coolly indicating a reasoned preference for removing a particular statue from the town square; and I’ll add that a significant number of voters hereabouts reflected on the matter, to thoughtfully reach the same conclusion; and I’ll then add that elected officials hereabouts bloodlessly pondered the question and eventually relayed an official decision that mirrored how I would’ve philosophically voted in a hypothetical plebiscite.
And if a mob of torch-brandishing white supremacists protest that decision by loudly marching on my town, I guess you’ll agree that we ought to respond by saying, “well, gosh, thanks for making your preferences known; but, strictly speaking, (a) they’re irrelevant, and (b) what you’re doing – which seems to be an attempt at a Heckler’s Veto – should be met with mere resolve as we continue to move forward with our coolly-reasoned statue-removing decision; go talk to octopus, who can doubtlessly explain why we’re in the right and you’re in the wrong and statue after statue should come down.”
Did the Confederate monuments go up in a free nation? Many of them were erected before women could vote, and a huge number of them were erected before black people could vote.
How do you distinguish between a protest, and a mob?
Seems to me that the basics about Thomas Jefferson and Stonewall Jackson go like this:
Thomas Jefferson has been revered for a considerable number of actions that had little if anything to do with slavery. In recent years, his record as a slave owner has gotten more attention, and has resulted, for many of us, in a considerably less glorious overall assessment of the man. His achievements still stand as worthwhile achievements, and they are worthy of honor and respect. But when we consider the man, we should come away with a view that’s more balanced than old folks like me got in our textbooks 50+ years ago. And hagiography is right out.
Stonewall Jackson has been revered almost entirely for his battlefield accomplishments as a Confederate general. Those accomplishments, of course, have everything to do with slavery. Once you count those against him, that’s the ballgame. What’s left to honor, that isn’t overwhelmingly canceled out by his part in the attempt to preserve the perpetual enslavement of people who were born with the wrong skin color?
With Jefferson, it’s a matter of getting the balance right between his admirable achievements and his very unadmirable life as a slave-owning member of the landed gentry. There’s a long conversation that starts there, but that’s enough for now.
With Jackson, there’s no balance to get right. His record is all on the wrong side.
So, it isn’t the protest that bothers you, it’s the method. I am reminded of the controversy surrounding Colin Kaepernick. His protest is not violent in any way, yet he can’t seem to find a job in his chosen career. If he were out cracking skulls in a violent mob? Well, that wouldn’t be okay, either. So just what “tactic”, to use your word, is okay with you? Someone in an earlier thread asked why suddenly these statues were controversial. I’d say it is because people are protesting in more vocal ways. The calm, cool, objections have been ignored for decades.
So, please enlighten me. If the town council erected a statue of Genghis Kahn in the town square, just what am I to do if I wish to protest this move? Or, am I supposed to calmly voice my concerns to the council and then just deal with it? (By the way, my tax dollars went to pay for the tribute to Kahn. Let’s not forget that.)
I wish the right wing would figure this out- the objection to statues of Confederates isn’t about whether they owned slaves, it’s about that they committed treason and took up arms against the United States for the purpose of keeping slavery legal. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, but they did not wage war on the United States and had other contributions in their lives that far outweigh our modern revulsion to their owning slaves. The statue battle isn’t about the subjects owning slaves. Opposition to LBTB rights isn’t about bathrooms. Jim Crow wasn’t about water fountains.
I have no problem with Kaepernick. I also had no problem with Sterling of the Clippers. I am wary of the power of social media and internet amplified public opinion. It’s dangerous. Especially when there are fault lines in society people or nations can exploit to cause division.
Yes. You are supposed to peacefully express your views. All of our tax dollars are spent in ways we don’t feel our optimal. That’s why we are taxed.
And what of those who AREN’T part of those “I’m outraged!” crowd who also think the statue should come down? Should their opinions not be considered, simply due to the actions of a bunch of jagoffs? :dubious:
Okay, the next time I encounter someone from ANTIFA, I’m sending them to your house.
If all it takes is for a single random weirdo to vandalize a monument to make these kind of pronouncements “true”, then they’re truly mundane “laws”. Yes, weirdos will sometimes act weird. Doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to protest or advocate for the removal of monuments that were raised in order to symbolize and celebrate white supremacism, like many or most monuments to Confederate leaders and generals.
It could be, and often has, been considered to be taking the war to the very people responsible for it - making the supercilious rich plantation owners and the social structure that protected slavery pay the price for it directly, rather than by the proxies of the poor men fooled into joining the rebel army. The claim that the “War is hell” guy, his entire army, and the chain command all the way up to the President decided upon it and engaged in it out of sheer blood-lusty retribution is not easy to support.
How soon we forget that he was about to be cut from the Niners for suffering a severe case of the sucks before he made it so much harder for him. Michael Vick could make it back from his dogfighting conviction because he was still a useful player. Kaepernick isn’t, but now he’s got the martyr thing going for him, which is nice.
I don’t see anything wrong with society periodically re-examining what it stands for and what and who it chooses to honor.
And that’s the issue. If you define anyone who is angry about something as wrong, then it’s impossible to fix anything that actually needs fixing. Because anything that actually needs fixing will have a lot of people angry about it.
I have no problem with the students there. They were upset, and they expressed it. That’s what freedom of speech means. I have a problem if you get violent, but that’s different.
When people are angry, that’s a reason to do more, not to do less. Because people get angry about the things that actually matter the most. Things that don’t make people angry are the things that don’t matter at all.
And that’s really fucking scary to me. Do you know what the most ordered form of government is? A top-down dictatorship. Not necessarily a “strong man” ruling all, but order means a lack of freedom. When you involve freedom, things get disordered.
Democracy is inherently messy. And if you value order more than the actual ethical concerns (harm reduction and fairness), then you’re going to want an unfair government that hurts people. And that removes any benefit that Democracy has.
The whole reason why democracy exists is to try and create a more fair and less harmful world. If we put order above that, then we undermine democracy entirely.
You seem to want a society where the people who are upset are silenced. Yes, that is more orderly. But it’s also a less free society, without freedom of speech at all, and thus horrible.
The anger is not the issue. The issue is the violence, destruction, and dishonest rhetoric.
Express all you wish. But leave the bombs, clubs, and knives out of it.
Note I said anarchy or strong man. I obviously, in context and in prior conversations, am very distrustful of concentrated power in the hands of the state. I also am concerned about easily manipulated mobs. We have a representative government with strong protections of personal liberties. However, if public opinion is ever swayed that certain liberties need to be constrained to avoid riling up the mob we will lose a lot of what makes the US so exceptional. And exceptional in a positive sense.
On a side note, I think Cecil’s recent article on American Free Speech is disappointing.