You say that like it’s some scary thing. Arresting, fining, and restoring would send a message that working within the system is the proper method. That’s such a terrifying concept to “own.”
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.
I am no fan of the statue and no fan of the mob action that vandalizes and destroys property and circumvents the public process that is dealing with these reminders of our collective past.
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.
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. 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?
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.
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. The Taliban and Iraq have both destroyed monuments of historical and architectural value because it conflicted with their ideology.
Vandalization and mob action, deny these viewpoints their fair consideration.
Jim Crow and white supremacism, not to mention slavery and treason, should have their fair consideration. Got it.
If these objects really were universally considered to be relics of bygone days when our ancestors practiced primitive beliefs we all now know to be abhorrent, you might have a point. But you’d also have to concede that they belong in museums, not in people’s faces every day. Unfortunately we aren’t there yet.
Well yes. This has been an ongoing public debate and over 110 confederate statues have come down peacefully and lawfully as a result of this, according to Newsweek.
So it really can’t be said that there wasn’t a peaceful and lawful alternative to mob action and vandalism in this instance.
The symbols of the era of white supremacy may not be as evil as slavery, but they are very, very odious.
They did not garner the same response. Pulling down the statue is by no means a Civil War.
Yeah, yeah yeah, keep trying to make that Taliban comparison. This is blowing the Swastika up at the Zeppelinfeld, not blowing up ancient statues of other deities.
The only way this is a valid comparison is if you consider these statues to be the gods of Neo-confederate ancestor worship. In which case the slave loving religion needs to die faster.
If you want to remind yourself of your country’s shameful history, you put up statues of the people harmed by it, or people who fought against it, NOT the people who perpetrated it and fought to continue it.
That’s a great question. I think that’s a bad law,bot for what it stands for, and how it was written.
One could attack it for what it stands for, and could attempt to get it changed, or one could attack the way it was written and attempt to use one of the two exceptions built into the law that allow removal.
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.
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?
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, 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.