# Silent Sam is down! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2018, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960 "2018-08-21T10:59:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/121 "2018-08-22T16:37:18Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Slavery was an evil so great that it justified breaking the law. > > It is appalling to equate an ugly (both in appearance and what it stands for) statue with the institution of slavery. It is irrational to suggest that they both require the same response. Slavery is way way way way worse than a statue, agreed. The appropriate response to slavery can be violence, even mass violence, even lethal mass violence, even a march through the South where you burn shit down to demoralize the army fighting to maintain slavery. The appropriate response to a statue is to tear it down without hurting anyone. Slavery is way way way worse than a statue. Sherman’s March is way way way worse than tearing down a statue. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/122 "2018-08-22T16:43:05Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The purpose of voter suppression is to limit voter participation. The fact that voter participation is rising during that time and that it is higher than in the rest of the country is evidence that either there is no voter suppression or that it is not working. Remember how I said that a moment’s thought would show you how silly that is? Have you tried? The voter suppression isn’t theoretical. It’s proven in court. You’re like saying, “Ignore what your eyes tell you, obviously nobody built a dam across that river, because it’s flowing harder today than it did last year.” If I see a dam, and I know the water is flowing harder today than it did last year, I have to conclude that another factor has also changed. Maybe it’s been raining a lot more this year? We know voter suppression has occurred. That’s not in doubt. We know precisely how it was managed, and we know it was deliberate. Look it up. If votes have increased (which you still haven’t cited), maybe that means more African Americans are motivated to vote, despite suppression; maybe more AAs have moved to NC; maybe countervailing organizations are driving voters to the polls. Your uncited stats are meaningless. > [@](#): > > In either case it shows that the idea that North Carolina is not a real democracy is foolish. If North Carolina is not a democracy than none of the other states are and neither is our country. Would this make it okay for people to knock down the MLK statue in DC or Lincoln’s? For fuck’s sake it is incredibly difficult for some people to wrap their heads around the idea that process isn’t everything, innit? I baked a cake in the oven, does that mean it’d be okay to stick a kitten in the oven too? No, you don’t get to tear down the MLK statue, for much the same reason you don’t get to stick the kitten in the oven: because that’s a shitty thing to do. And I swear I’ll scream if you ask me who decides what a shitty thing to do is, as though it hasn’t been answered a million times by people who aren’t moral relativists. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/123 "2018-08-22T16:47:09Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Slavery was an evil so great that it justified breaking the law. There were some contemporaries at the time that felt differently. Seemed they even put up a might bit of a fight about it. > [@](#): > > It is appalling to equate an ugly (both in appearance and what it stands for) statue with the institution of slavery. It is irrational to suggest that they both require the same response. As the statue was put up with the intent of it standing for subjugation of a population, it’s not all that that unrelated to the institution of slavery. And, unlike the civil war, tearing down this symbol celebrating bigotry did not result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our countrymen. > [@](#): > > Further, this is not a clear cut moral issue. Many, including Condeleeza Rice feel that we should not destroy our history that we don’t like, or are ashamed of, but should keep it in front of us, as a reminder. That’s nice, and if it were really that hard to remember how horribly we treated people in the past, then we may need the reminders residing in a museum, but tearing down monuments put up for the purpose of glorifying that past is not destroying history. > [@](#): > > The Taliban and Iraq have both destroyed monuments of historical and architectural value because it conflicted with their ideology. And white supremacists killed, raped, enslaved and tortured black people, because it was their ideology. Then they put up statues celebrating that ideology. We are not talking about artifacts from the dawn of human civilization whose origins are lost to the mists of time. We are talking about people who put these up for the purpose of reminding black fold to know their place. We know this. We have their written records of why they did it, their speeches when it was dedicated. > [@](#): > > Vandalization and mob action, deny these viewpoints their fair consideration. The slavery and oppression that these statues that you defend celebrated denied more than a bit of fair consideration of viewpoints. ---
**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 22, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/124 "2018-08-22T17:12:23Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Slavery was legal too. Obviously there was no moral course of action available except to live with it. That’s obviously not true. Many regions eliminated slavery within legal processes. Now I am not saying you should never wage war or rebel. I am saying that a statue in the modern US, regardless of it being of the devil himself is not a sufficient moral injustice to trigger extra-legal remedies. ---
**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 22, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/125 "2018-08-22T17:21:08Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Wanna bet that they won’t? > > I predict a misdemeanor charge or two, a “we decry these unlawful actions” or three, and that statue NEVER goes back up. Who cares? I didn’t say what they will do. I said what they should do. Someones going to end up getting shot when they try this on private property and the state shouldn’t be implicitly encouraging lawlessness. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Of course there isn’t. Slavery wasn’t just legal, it was constitutional. > > A slave escaping from his rightful owners was breaking the law and the constitution, and that is the lowest form of morality imaginable, far far worse than pulling down a statue celebrating it. > > If they wanted freedom, their proper course should have been to vote for it, not just take their own unfettered idea of what the law should be. Slavery is still legal and constitutional. That said, the non punishment form of slavery is one of those circumstances that trump law. If you are arguing from the axiom that each human has intrinsic natural rights that is. Which is an axiom I accept. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Except for the (regressive and undemocratic) NC legislature \*outlawing \*their removal just in time to stop it. So what options are there? Is it regressive because it enacted legislation you disagree with? Is the whole US regressive and undemocratic because we have a republic and a supreme court? > [@Lemur866](#): > > There is no public process for dealing with this reminder of our white supremacist past, because the state legislature of North Carolina passed a law making it illegal to remove monuments to white supremacy. > > There are a lot of people in this thread who are upset that a bunch of people extra-legally knocked over a monument to white supremacy, but they seemingly have no opinion whatsoever that there’s a law making it illegal to remove monuments to white supremacy. The public process is changing the state legislature. That is a public process. It might move slower than you in particular would wish but it’s a far better process than whatever process LHoD is afraid to speak of because he wasn’t addressed with the appropriate obsequiousness. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/126 "2018-08-22T17:42:31Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > That’s obviously not true. It’s called sarcasm. > [@octopus](#): > > Is it regressive because it enacted legislation you disagree with? No, it’s regressive in the very literal sense that they want to drag us back into a time we should have grown out of. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/127 "2018-08-22T17:53:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I can live with myself, because I recognize that the price of an ordered society is the relinquishment of the unfettered right to decide for myself what the law should require, and enforce it myself when governments don’t adopt my views. > > Obviously you don’t. What do you do if you are locked out of the political process? Those who are opposed to you hold power and see to it that your side cannot prevail. ---
**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 22, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/128 "2018-08-22T17:56:09Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > It’s called sarcasm. > > No, it’s regressive in the very literal sense that they want to drag us back into a time we should have grown out of. Ok, since LHoD can’t answer, what mechanism do you propose so society moves in the direction that is acceptable to you? Monarchy? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/129 "2018-08-22T18:01:59Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Ok, since LHoD can’t answer, what mechanism do you propose so society moves in the direction that is acceptable to you? Monarchy? Already discussed, and by LHOD too. End gerrymandering and minority voter suppression. You support democracy, don’t you, even if you don’t like the result, right? ---
**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 22, 2018, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/130 "2018-08-22T18:10:59Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Already discussed, and by LHOD too. End gerrymandering and minority voter suppression. You support democracy, don’t you, even if you don’t like the result, right? I guess those would be good starts. But how did gerrymandering even begin? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/131 "2018-08-22T18:14:35Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Would George Washington have condoned the guerilla warfare that the Vietnamese fought against the French colonial army, or would he have believed that the only ethical response to an occupying colonial military would be to stand against them in formation and fight in open warfare? > > Would Jesus have condoned Pussy Riot’s disruption of a Russian Orthodox Church to protest the corruption of religious leaders, or would he have insisted that the proper response of idealistic youth to religious corruption was to work within the system and try to achieve change through the proper channels? > > Would Thomas Jefferson have condoned the appalling conditions under which modern agricultural workers labor, or would he have insisted that a farmer provide workers with a living wage and living conditions that ensured dignity and a meaningful degree of liberty? Each of those things can be debated separately and their answers need not persuade us about the particulars of this case. But feel free to open a thread about any or all of those if you wish to debate them. > [@](#): > > I mean, sure, you can argue that we shouldn’t listen to King. You can argue that his ideals are outdated. But you’re gonna have an uphill fight if you want to argue that King would have opposed: > a) Righting a racist wrong, > b) Through nonviolent means, > c) After all legal channels have been thoroughly exhausted. > > I refer you to King’s [Letter from a Birmingham Jail](http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html), written after he was arrested yet again for violating a law he considered unjust. These paragraphs in particular apply: > > Sure, he’s not talking here about nonviolently destroying a racist statue–but nowhere in all his writings, as far as I am aware, does he carve out an exception from nonviolent action to say, “Okay, but you really really can’t destroy property, no matter what!” On the contrary, he repeatedly refused to condemn rioting, even when it destroyed property that had a far more tenuous connection to white supremacy. > > If you’re aware of this exception in his works, lemme know. I asked a simple question in a later post: Did MLK ever participate in or condone the destruction of property? I honestly don’t know, but I’m not aware of him having done so. If he did, please cite it. Yes, King advocated breaking laws. You general have to do that when you are practicing Civil Disobedience. But you don’t have to destroy property. If you want to argue that King’s methods are outdated, go ahead. But that will be a tough argument to make as you’d have to show that conditions now are worse than they were during King’s time. The idea that laws are harder to change now than they were in the 1950s is not a credible idea. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/132 "2018-08-22T18:21:50Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > But how did gerrymandering even begin? It began in 1812 when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts. One of the new districts looked like a salamander. Gerrymander is a portmanteau of Gerry and salamander. Interestingly this was to benefit the Democratic-Republican Party which later split to become the parties we have today. Is the above what you really wanted to know? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/133 "2018-08-22T18:26:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I asked a simple question in a later post: Did MLK ever participate in or condone the destruction of property? I honestly don’t know, but I’m not aware of him having done so. If he did, please cite it. I mean, sure. His views seem incredibly obvious to me, but I get that they don’t seem so clear to you. So I Googled “Martin Luther King Property,” and [here’s the first result](http://marklewistaylor.net/blog/amid-complaints-on-property-attacks-by-protestors-remembering-martin-luther-kings-words-1967/). ---
**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 22, 2018, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/134 "2018-08-22T18:28:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I mean, sure. His views seem incredibly obvious to me, but I get that they don’t seem so clear to you. So I Googled “Martin Luther King Property,” and [here’s the first result](http://marklewistaylor.net/blog/amid-complaints-on-property-attacks-by-protestors-remembering-martin-luther-kings-words-1967/). That makes it pretty clear to me - he would have condoned pulling down this statue. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/135 "2018-08-22T18:39:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I asked a simple question in a later post: Did MLK ever participate in or condone the destruction of property? I honestly don’t know, but I’m not aware of him having done so. If he did, please cite it. Yes, King advocated breaking laws. You general have to do that when you are practicing Civil Disobedience. But you don’t have to destroy property. Seems a tough call on this one inasmuch I do not think he exhorted his people to violence but he courted violence. King invited violence knowing the pictures of it would aid his cause. As such he purposely arranged situations where violence was likely to ensue (usually against the protestors) such as Bull Connor sicking attack dogs on protestors. > [@](#): > > We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” > > We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” > > SOURCE: [Letter from a Birmingham Jail](http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html) ~Martin Luther King, Jr. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/136 "2018-08-22T19:00:13Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > The lesson the statue teaches is that the rule of law doesn’t matter. That’s why they erected a statue honoring a traitorous murderer. It’s a little disingenuous to go around whinging when people not only learn the lesson but act upon it. The statue is to honor the war dead. Perhaps you’d like to go into all the Civil war cemeteries and destroy the Confederate grave markers, also? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/137 "2018-08-22T19:04:19Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Of course there isn’t. Slavery wasn’t just legal, it was constitutional. > > A slave escaping from his rightful owners was breaking the law and the constitution, and that is the lowest form of morality imaginable, far far worse than pulling down a statue celebrating it. > > If they wanted freedom, their proper course should have been to vote for it, not just take their own unfettered idea of what the law should be. Jesus, man. This is probably the best thing I’ve seen you post, ever. Ouch. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/138 "2018-08-22T19:04:44Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Of course there isn’t. Slavery wasn’t just legal, it was constitutional. > . Not really. Yes there was the 3/5th compromise, and a ban on importing slaves after 1808. So, it was mentioned, but unlike the various CSA Constitutions, there was nothing implicitly making it Constitutional. Congress could have banned slavery by a simple bill, not a amendment. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/139 "2018-08-22T19:07:33Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Except for the (regressive and undemocratic) NC legislature \*outlawing \*their removal just in time to stop it. So what options are there? They could have taken it down before the law was passed. They didnt choose to. They could have petitioned the State Historical comm. (which they didnt, so much for the supposed “will of the people”). Or they could have said it was a danger, and simply removed it based on that. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960/140 "2018-08-22T19:24:54Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The statue is to honor the war dead. First off, did they do something honorable that I missed? Second, you and I both know that your claim is completely untrue. The purpose of this, and the other confederate statues put up in that era, was to honor white supremacy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-sam-is-down/819960.md?page=8)