# Revolutionary \[War\] Statue Destroyed **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 26, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761 "2017-08-26T21:12:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/21 "2017-08-26T23:36:31Z")
OMG. The assertion that because we are rethinking Confederate statues we are ensuring mob behavior regarding statues is simply ludicrous. Much more relevant would be how we handle, you know, defacing or destroying statues through criminal sanction, don’t you think? I find the arguments raised by so many on behalf of keeping Confederate statuary so pitifully weak, and so laughably illogical as to make me wonder what particularly it is about keeping such statues that is so important to them, that they feel the need to engage in such behavior. ---
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/22 "2017-08-26T23:56:11Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > It’s funny that those who warn that placating a mob won’t satisfy the mob are vindicated when slippery slope worries once again manifest themselves. Some vandal took it upon himself, herself, \_\_\_\_self and destroyed a statue representing a man from the Revolutionary War era. Again, this isn’t about the civil war or slavery or anything notable. This is an attack on civil and democratic self governance. It’s an attempt to build a climate where if you aggrieved or offended or outraged you can round up a shrill group and destroy things. Exactly. Don’t forget about [that other time](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/nyregion/toppled-statue-of-king-george-iii-to-ride-again.html) when people tore down a Revolutionary War era statue. Didn’t those fools know about the slippery slope? Why were they trying to erase history? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/23 "2017-08-27T00:36:12Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > It’s funny that those who warn that placating a mob won’t satisfy the mob are vindicated when slippery slope worries once again manifest themselves. Some vandal took it upon himself, herself, \_\_\_\_self and destroyed a statue representing a man from the Revolutionary War era. Again, this isn’t about the civil war or slavery or anything notable. This is an attack on civil and democratic self governance. It’s an attempt to build a climate where if you aggrieved or offended or outraged you can round up a shrill group and destroy things. So what? Vandals _have_ attacked several Civil War statues in recent months. However, I do not recall any serious organization that has promoted the idea of vandalism. A number of groups have called for the removal of Confederate images from public lands where they were (nearly universally) erected for the express purpose of supporting the mythology of the Lost Cause with its attendant belief that the suppression of black people was a good thing. The groups calling for those removals have generally expressed the idea that the statues should be placed in museums, not vandalized. The few occasions when vandalism has occurred has not been met with open support from the groups calling for the removal of such statues. If it is fair to say that groups calling for the removal of Confederate statues are responsible, in some way, for the vandalism, then it follows that groups calling for the removal of aliens or Muslims are responsible, in some way, for vandalism of mosques and the attacks, (sometimes murderous) on Muslims, and on Sikhs and others whom the uninformed cannot distinguish from Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/24 "2017-08-27T01:09:11Z")
Fake news. How do we know William Crawford even \*had \*a head? Were you there? Were you? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/25 "2017-08-27T01:42:57Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Events haven’t unfolded. I don’t give a fuck about random acts of vandalism. They signify zero. It’s always simple: monuments to traitors perpetuating slavery don’t belong on American soil. Period. Full stop. No sophistry, no tortuous reasoning, no semantic games, no equivocation. They should never have been allowed, and they shouldn’t be allowed. > > Is that fucking head out of sand clear enough? No. Not really. Because you wouldn’t be limiting destruction to civil war statues. You’d also have to get rid of treasonous slave owners like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as well. And random acts of vandalism aren’t random. That’s like saying random acts of driving a car into people is random. It’s not random. These acts, the vandalism and the violence, are inspired by wretched political ideals. With regards to not allowed, who are you to regulate what people can say or carve out of stone? What other forms of non-violent expression do you wish to purge? Furthermore, it’s pretty funny how pointing out that slippery slopes do indeed exist and should be considered is met with mouth foaming hyperbole. Your outrage and some of the other posts in this thread denigrating the idea that this is related are rhetorical deflections. Read some of these threads on controversial subjects such as free speech, you’ll see a lot of advocacy, disguised as hope and wishes, of criminal activity. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/26 "2017-08-27T02:07:57Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > No. Not really. > > Because you wouldn’t be limiting destruction to civil war statues. You’d also have to get rid of treasonous slave owners like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as well. No you wouldn’t. Getting rid of statue A doesn’t mean we have to get rid of statue B. Statues have always been removed in various societies, for reasons of convenience, politics, or ideology. Removing one doesn’t mean that we have to remove all of them. We can say these should be removed, and these other ones over here should stay. Unless you’re arguing that statues must never ever be removed for any reason. But I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/27 "2017-08-27T02:09:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > No you wouldn’t. Getting rid of statue A doesn’t mean we have to get rid of statue B. Statues have always been removed in various societies, for reasons of convenience, politics, or ideology. Removing one doesn’t mean that we have to remove all of them. We can say these should be removed, and these other ones over here should stay. > > Unless you’re arguing that statues must never ever be removed for any reason. But I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. How about you read the post I quoted? He offered a set of criteria, I mentioned statues that met that criteria. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/28 "2017-08-27T02:11:21Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How about you read the post I quoted? He offered a set of criteria, I mentioned statues that met that criteria. “Perpetuating slavery” very obviously meant “fighting to perpetuate slavery” in that context. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/29 "2017-08-27T02:11:29Z")
So - Revolutionary slave owners’ statues can stay, but Confederate slave owners’ statues must go? Because that is essentially what’s being argued. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/30 "2017-08-27T02:18:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So - Revolutionary slave owners’ statues can stay, but Confederate slave owners’ statues must go? > > Because that is essentially what’s being argued. Fought against US soldiers in order to perpetuate slavery? I think statues intended to symbolize and honor such actions should come down (with a few possible exceptions, like battlefield monument parks, which were not erected in order to symbolize white supremacist ideals, as most other confederate monuments and statues were). Fought against England in order to be independent? Then I’m not in favor of bringing down the statues meant to honor such actions. These are very easy distinctions to make. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/31 "2017-08-27T02:22:41Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Fought against US soldiers in order to perpetuate slavery? I think statues intended to symbolize and honor such actions should come down (with a few possible exceptions, like battlefield monument parks, which were not erected in order to symbolize white supremacist ideals, as most other confederate monuments and statues were). > > Fought against England in order to be independent? Then I’m not in favor of bringing down the statues meant to honor such actions. > > These are very easy distinctions to make. But from the perspective of the slaves, they were enslaved all the same. If George Washington beat his wife, was she a less-beaten victim than the wife of Jefferson Davis (if Davis was a wife-beater?) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/32 "2017-08-27T02:22:50Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Fought against US soldiers in order to perpetuate slavery? I think statues intended to symbolize and honor such actions should come down (with a few possible exceptions, like battlefield monument parks, which were not erected in order to symbolize white supremacist ideals, as most other confederate monuments and statues were). > > Fought against England in order to be independent? Then I’m not in favor of bringing down the statues meant to honor such actions. > > These are very easy distinctions to make. Indeed, easy, and historians can also make the distinction, and they are the ones with more knowledge on this. > **[Historians say Trump went afoul in lumping Robert E. Lee with founding fathers](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/historians-say-trump-went-afoul-lumping-robert-e-lee-founding-fathers)** > > Is it really so far-fetched to put Robert E. Lee in the same category as George Washington, as President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday? Many historians say yes. > [@](#): > > Is it really so far-fetched to put Robert E. Lee in the same category as George Washington, as President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday? > > Many historians say yes. > > “It’s a ridiculous conflation,” said Professor Alice Fahs of the University of California, Irvine. “He’s not a founding father, and it’s as though Trump thinks he is. It’s really astonishing. It’s amazing.” > [@](#): > > For some, monuments to those founding fathers “force us to contemplate the centrality of slavery to the making of the nation,” said Gregory Downs, a history professor at the University of California, Davis who studies the impact of the Civil War on the United States. But he also said the difference between the nation’s first president, George Washington, and then man who sought to secede from the nation, Robert E. Lee, isn’t complicated. > > “It is obvious that traitors in arms to the nation are not equivalent to those who created it,” he said. > > Adding to the complexity of the debate, many Lee memorials were erected long after the Civil War as part of an effort to rehabilitate Lee’s reputation and denigrate his victorious opponent Ulysses S. Grant, who fought to preserve the nation and later defended black civil rights as president. > > In that sense the memorials “celebrated two historical crimes,” Downs said. “First, treasonous secession for the purpose of preserving and expanding slavery forever. Second, the violent and fraudulent creation of Jim Crow segregation.” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/33 "2017-08-27T02:26:42Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > But from the perspective of the slaves, they were enslaved all the same. > If George Washington beat his wife, was she a less-beaten victim than the wife of Jefferson Davis (if Davis was a wife-beater?) If you’re arguing that the statue of Washington should come down, feel free to make your case. I’ll listen. I think statues that were put up, for the most part, to represent the fight for slavery and white supremacy, and to symbolize resistance to black civil rights, should come down. If you think some other group of statues should also come down, make your case. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/34 "2017-08-27T02:40:45Z")
Just want to clarify the policy here. If James Fields had swerved at the last second and run into a statue, then it would have been okay to criticize him? ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/35 "2017-08-27T03:04:07Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > [The perfect solution](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--3Sl54-h8--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/fqfc8ctjzgjsvio9hipu.png) to treason monuments. Treason monuments are being redefined as any monument to any white man. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/36 "2017-08-27T03:05:42Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > Treason monuments are being redefined as any monument to any white man. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/37 "2017-08-27T03:07:42Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So - Revolutionary slave owners’ statues can stay, but Confederate slave owners’ statues must go? > > Because that is essentially what’s being argued. Is “supported slavery” the only thing you view of George Washington? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/38 "2017-08-27T05:53:33Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If you’re arguing that the statue of Washington should come down, feel free to make your case. I’ll listen. I think statues that were put up, for the most part, to represent the fight for slavery and white supremacy, and to symbolize resistance to black civil rights, should come down. If you think some other group of statues should also come down, make your case. If everyone were like you, iiandyiiii, we wouldn’t need law or debate. You are reasonable and you work on self improvement. The world isn’t that way. You were in the Navy. Why do nations need navies? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/39 "2017-08-27T05:59:37Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You were in the Navy. Why do nations need navies? What the fuck…? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761/40 "2017-08-27T06:51:45Z")
Well, if you don’t have a navy, who are you gonna build statues of? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revolutionary-war-statue-destroyed/794761.md?page=3)