ultra liberals

[rabbitfufu]

To all of you that want to radically change this country. First the name Washington is to be removed from all books, monuments, states, etc. Second do the same for Thomas Jefferson . Ben Franklin, etc. in fact pilgrims are to wiped out our history, in fact just erase 200 plus years of our past. you might as well remove most churches from our lives. Lets just bomb all of this county and let the survivors do a better job of making a country.

[dc_guy_75]

And if Gay marriage is accepted, people will be marrying dogs, right?

You're a loser. And no, I don't just say that to attack you or be mean-spirited. You are a literal loser. People like you have been losing the culture war in the Western world for over the past half century. Sometimes, you claw a few inches back, only to lose miles of ground immediately after. The world is steadily, and eagerly, looking to leave people like you behind.

Fuck you, and all Trump supporters.

[Stavros]

To all of you that want to radically change this country. First the name Washington is to be removed from all books, monuments, states, etc. Second do the same for Thomas Jefferson . Ben Franklin, etc. in fact pilgrims are to wiped out our history, in fact just erase 200 plus years of our past. you might as well remove most churches from our lives. Lets just bomb all of this county and let the survivors do a better job of making a country.

Why call the people asking questions about history and its monuments, 'ultra liberals'? Is it not bad enough that there is a lack of critical thinking taking place with, on the one hand, instant judgments of men who owned slaves, and on the other the defence of Confederate terrorists who attacked the USA, murdered American men, women and children, and burned down their homes and their businesses? I don't see how any American claiming to be a 'Patriot' can defend the people who attacked the US.

I am not opposed to the questions, but what are the answers? Washington and Jefferson are revered for their politics not their estates, just as Mao Zedong in China is revered for re-establishing China's independence from foreign imperialists, not the catastrophic deaths of millions in the Great Leap Forward, or the Great People's Cultural Revolution. Here in the UK, Churchill is revered as a wartime leader, not because of the mess he made of the economy in the 1920s, or his obnoxious views of the Empire's Black or Brown subjects. I have revered the music of JS Bach and Wagner for most of my life, yet I am aware that some regard the St John Passion as an anti-semitic oratorio and that his affiliation with the Jew hating Luther cannot be undone -as for Wagner, some might say I ought to be ashamed of myself. But I don't judge the music of either man by their offensive politics, but as music and theatre.

As for slavery, well, when we can all live without money, we will no longer be slaves of Capitalism. Should we abolish money in order to be free?

Boris Johnson has said removing statues of historical figures is an attempt to erase history, but cannot deny the pain and the industice in that history. Maybe we should leave most of them where they are, and debate the pain, and the meaning of justice? We cannot re-live the past, but we can manage the present - but not with incompetent managers like the US President and the Prime Minister of the UK. Welcome to the Age of Whiplash.

[rabbitfufu]

Instead of tearing down the past and trying to erase it is not the answer. The answer is education. Not with school, but with parents, that their job to teach the the youth the truth. If your great grandparents were slaves , yes those were horrible times, but without struggle comes good. Those parents should be telling their children that their grand parents were HEROS for putting with the unspeakable heritage of theirs. Our nation survived because of their backs, without them the USA would be another 3rd world country. The statues are reminders of the past and NEVER let mankind do it to others again. Please use the past as a teaching tool, that our parents should be telling their kids ,not the horrible textbooks that are slanted. I'm not trying to be mean but our past is full of horror. The pyramids were
build by slaves. Rome built by slaves. WE all learn from our mistakes. Most of us us have crosses in our homes as a reminder of sacrifice a man made. Let us keep the statues as a reminder of our mistakes.

[Stavros]

The statues are reminders of the past and NEVER let mankind do it to others again.

I think the problem is that when some statues were erected, notably the statues of Confederate 'heroes', they were not reminders of the past but an atttempt to rescue it; they came to praise Ceasar rather than bury him. One has to ask when these statues were put up, and why. This is where the debate ought to be, but I think the Civil War presents a unique problem for the USA. For example, I loathe Winston Churchill because of his politics, his views on race and religion, for his relentless promotion of himself. Do I want the statue of him outside Parliament removed? No, and I think it is infantile to daub it with slogans. Should the statue of Clive of India outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office be removed? Yes, because even in his own day Clive was vilified as a crook. He was not, and is not an admirable figure (as Darymple has pointed out in the thread I opened on the Empire).

Statues and monuments can provoke debate, but what if their purpose is to re-write history rather then open it to scrutiny by an enquiring mind? It is the folly of erecting statues to men and women that is the weakness: just as Roman Emperors and their wives wanted to take their place alongside the Gods and Goddesses, to become immortal, should we respect the men and women of our age when they are such flawed characters? There is a colossal monument to Abraham Lincoln in DC -does it venerate an achievement, or promote an ideology? The abolition of slavery led directly to segregation, a curse that the US did not seek to end until 100 years after the war that ended slavery. The Lincoln Monument in those years might have been seen as a monument to failure, yet it also inspires those who believe change is possible in the US, even if it moves at a glacial pace. Perhaps change will move more quickly as climate change melts the glaciers faster than at any time in modern history? Don't bet on it.

[trish]

The statues in question were erected in the Jim Crow era to put black people 'in their place'. They were erected to whitewash history, not remember it. Removing them from the public square is to invite everyone back into these public spaces and is a way to start scrapping off the whitewash.