Destruction and theft of cultural heritage

[Crunch]

Deliberate destruction and theft of cultural heritage has been conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since 2014 in Iraq, Syria, and to a lesser extent in Libya. The destruction targets various places of worship under ISIL control and ancient historical artifacts. In Iraq, between the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and February 2015, ISIL has plundered and destroyed at least 28 historical religious buildings. Valuable items from some buildings were looted in order to smuggle and sell them to finance ISIS activities.

ISIL uses a unit called the Kata'ib Taswiyya (settlement battalions) to select targets for demolition.  UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova branded the ISIS activities in this respect as "a form of cultural cleansing" ...

Why were they doing this?

Part of that effort [eradicating any hint of non-muslim culture] requires a rewriting of history: Earlier this week, news outlets reported that ISIS ransacked and burned the Mosul Public Library, destroying more than 8,000 ancient and rare books and manuscripts.

“This destruction marks a new phase in the cultural cleansing perpetrated in regions controlled by armed extremists in Iraq,” Irina Bokova, director-general of the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said in a statement Tuesday. “It adds to the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people.”

The tactic is unofficially called “cultural genocide,” a term that David Nersessian, assistant dean of global programs at Boston University School of Management, has used to describe attacks on an ethnic or religious group’s wider institutions – including its languages, traditional practices and ways, religious institutions and objects, and clergy members, academics, and intellectuals.

This is rightly seen as a violation of human rights:

The UN’s “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” validates the rights of any group to maintain, observe, and protect its culture and traditions.

Back to more current events:

In the aftermath of Charlottesville, the Left has returned to one of its favorite pastimes: tearing down statues and defacing public property. Instead of making a grown-up argument that Confederate war monuments shouldn’t be funded by taxpayer dollars, Leftists have simply determined that it’s fine to tear down statues they don’t like, without even engaging in a serious historical or political debate.

In 2015, the students at the University of Missouri demanded the removal of a Jefferson statue. Two years ago, on CNN, anchor Ashleigh Banfield suggested the Jefferson Memorial in Washington might have to go.

The Lincoln Memorial was vandalized overnight Tuesday by a vandal or vandals wielding red spray paint, the National Park Service said.

The NPS said they discovered graffiti on the iconic Foggy Bottom, D.C. memorial around 4:30 a.m. ET.

The graffiti appeared to spell "F*** Law" and was scrawled on a pillar in front of the sculpture of Lincoln.

Deputies took Thompson, a member of the far-left Workers World Party and a student at N.C. Central University, into custody Tuesday shortly after she appeared at a press conference with other protesters.

“The people decided to take matters into our own hands and remove the statue,” Thompson told reporters. “We are tired of waiting on politicians who could have voted to remove the white supremacist statues years ago, but they failed to act. So we acted.”

[Mynnion]

I agree there needs to be a reasoned discussion on this.  I strongly believe that these statues/monuments should not be destroyed but instead should either be moved to a location  deemed more appropriate (based on the desires of those who actually reside locally) or should have plaques added stating the specific history surrounding the individual represented. 

I do not believe that non-local citizens should have any say in which action occurs.  If a community chooses to remove a statue and does not want to relocate it then it should probably be moved to a historical site dedicated to the associated history.  Our history is not always pretty but trying to hide the ugly is an affront to those most harmed by that ugly.

[D.W.]

All reasoned discussions should start by comparing someone to ISIS.   

[Mynnion]

Generally I would agree with you but when I heard about the removal and possible destruction of some of the Confederate symbols the destruction of Palmyra came to mind. 

I did a little research on the Lee statue and it wasn't erected until 1924 right about the time the KKK was experiencing a resurgence and Jim Crow laws were taking off.  In this case the "cultural heritage" probably had more to do with making a racist statement than with actually honoring Lee who was opposed to Confederate war statues.

Many other statues fit the same bill.  Even so I oppose their destruction and believe they should be preserved as a reminder of an ulgy part of our history.

[Pete at Home]

Crunch, I resist your equation of state-subsidized propaganda and dissemination of a Big Lie as "culture" of the sorts that ISIS is destroying.  I think a better analogy would be the Berlin Wall and the myriad statues of Lenin that are ironically but quite effectively being rescued by private enterprise from the junkyard of former Soviet states.

Surely the distinguishing fact that ISIS murders those that resist, cannot be lost on you.

[Pete at Home]

Crunch, I'm all for discussion, though. I've argued here for over a decade that Confederate and white supremacist icons like John C Calhoun Jefferson Davis and Confederate memorials Confederate flags in public places should be taxed by the federal government as the only Equitable and reasonable way of paying slavery reparations

[Fenring]

It's indisputable that statues such as Lee's are a part of Southern heritage and history. Whether or not one likes that heritage or what it meant at the time, it should be clear enough that eliminating the cultural presence of that which a majority currently dislikes is pretty tyrannical. Can you imagine if someone suggested removing a Jewish monument on the grounds that they dislike the tenets of Judaism? There would be an outcry that would never stop. It would be called anti-Semitic and oppressive, and that's not because the majority particularly subscribes to Judaism but because it would be properly seen as persecution of a group that reveres certain things - rightly or wrongly. It would be considered immaterial whether or not the things Jews revere are popularly considered to be good or tasteful, that wouldn't even enter into the discussion. But because the Jews are by and large considered a minority and have been oppressed in the past it would be considered simply out of bounds to suggest oppressing them further, effectively. When it comes to white people and their potentially good or bad icons, they aren't considered out of bounds because, as the argument goes, targeting them is punching up and is therefore cannot be considered to be oppressive by definition. As I mentioned earlier, I sympathize with the sentiment of "we will not be removed", which potentially means that regardless of newspeak definitions it might very well feel to them like persecution by removing their revered heroes from the public space. You can like their icons or hate them, but they're theirs.

Don't we remember the incident recently with the Baphomet statue?

http://time.com/3972713/detroit-satanic-statue-baphomet/

If that can be put up in this cultural climate it seems hypocritical to simultaneously take down other statues that are disliked by some. The point of the Satanists seems to have been that if some people can have statues in public areas then it's discriminatory to pick and choose which are acceptable and which aren't based on popular sentiment about which are unsavory and which are cool.

[Mynnion]

In other associated news Baltimore quietly removed four statues last night.

[TheDrake]

Boston is contemplating the removal of a marker that commemorates boys held as POWs at a fort in Boston Harbor. I have no joy for confederate statues in a place of honor in the center of town, much as I disliked a state house sporting the stars and bars.

Those men lived and died almost certainly without a say in starting the war, leading the war, or ending the war.

The entire purpose of the island is a ferry stop, and the fort. The fort is a historic landmark. The only reason to go there is to contemplate that history, and it takes 45 minutes by boat to get there from the city.

That's just getting ridiculous.

[TheDeamon]

Boston is contemplating the removal of a marker that commemorates boys held as POWs at a fort in Boston Harbor. I have no joy for confederate statues in a place of honor in the center of town, much as I disliked a state house sporting the stars and bars.

Those men lived and died almost certainly without a say in starting the war, leading the war, or ending the war.

The entire purpose of the island is a ferry stop, and the fort. The fort is a historic landmark. The only reason to go there is to contemplate that history, and it takes 45 minutes by boat to get there from the city.

That's just getting ridiculous.

Considering how POW's were treated in that Era, I'd say they probably deserve more than just a marker, to be honest. The Ghetto's that the Jew's were placed in during WW2 could seem downright pleasant compared to the conditions POWs encountered during the Civil War, on both sides.

[Crunch]

In other associated news Baltimore quietly removed four statues last night.

and this headline: Vigilante protesters start DIGGING UP body of Confederate general and KKK leader Nathan Forrest from his grave

A group of protesters who want the body of an alleged Ku Klux Klan leader removed from their city have broken the soil over the grave.
The campaigners claim it has taken officials in Memphis, Tennessee, too long to exhume Nathan Bedford Forrest - who was a lieutenant general in the Confederate States Army.

They also want the statue of the soldier on a horse on the burial site to be removed. The rebel cavalryman, who died in 1877, has been buried in the city's Health Sciences Park since 1904.

No word yet on how they plan to desecrate the body once exhumed.

[Crunch]

All reasoned discussions should start by comparing someone to ISIS.   

When it comes to cultural genocide, who would you like to start with?

[JoshCrow]

It's indisputable that statues such as Lee's are a part of Southern heritage and history. Whether or not one likes that heritage or what it meant at the time, it should be clear enough that eliminating the cultural presence of that which a majority currently dislikes is pretty tyrannical. Can you imagine if someone suggested removing a Jewish monument on the grounds that they dislike the tenets of Judaism?

Would you say the same if the discussion was about taking down a statue of Hitler in some corner of Germany? It fits all the descriptors you've used - part of heritage and history, revered by a small segment of the population, disliked by the majority, etc.

Let me suggest to you that specifically public symbolism is a category in which the social mores of the population are actually relevant. Because symbols convey meanings, unless they convey something the general population agrees should be conveyed then they aren't actually fulfilling their primary reason for existing. Remember, these are public! That they inspire a few is not enough - they must be accepted by the people or they are essentially a misrepresentation of the values of the people in their midst.

[TheDrake]

Poor analogy to Germany on account of the genocide, I think South Africa works better:

President Mandela did not support the destruction of monuments, but rather the building of new ones, and the incorporation of existing monuments into an inclusive vision for the future of our society.

This inclusive vision can only be achieved through constructive dialogue that recognizes the pain of our past, and a creative re-imagining of our public spaces and monuments.
 
We would do well to remember the words of former Chief Justice Pius Langa in his 2006 speech on transformative constitutionalism:
 
“There is no right way to deal with the immense violation that was apartheid. But, as a society, we must keep alive the hope that we can move beyond our past. That requires both a remembering and a forgetting. We must remember what it is that brought us here. But at the same time we must forget the hate and anger that fuelled some of our activities if we are to avoid returning to the same cycle of violence and oppression.”

But they started having the same conversations a couple of years ago, including vandalism, relocation, and destruction of monuments and statues from the cclonial and apartheid periods.

[DonaldD]

Here's some context for the confederate monuments in question.  It would seem that the culture putatively being 'genocided' correlates suspiciously well with periods of anti-black sentiment in the south.

https://www.splcenter.org/20160421/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy

[yossarian22c]

All reasoned discussions should start by comparing someone to ISIS.   

When it comes to cultural genocide, who would you like to start with?

ISIS would be a great place to start some cultural genocide.

[Gaoics79]

I think many of these monuments are fundamentally offensive and should be torn down. I think Josh's comparison to Hitler statues in Germany is an apt one.

However, the question is: 1) Who should do the tearing down and 2) What else are they going to tear down once they get a taste for it?

I do not like the idea of mobs tearing down anyone's statue, end of story. It's illegal, it's violent, and yeah, it's asking for armed confrontration and bloodshed in our streets. The next time some mob of self-entitled SJW types decides to take down a statue on their own time, there could be blood in the streets if certain groups get wind of it. This is what happens when police abdicate their responsibility to uphold law.

I'm particularly disturbed because I think that tearing down the statue of Jefferson Davis and other confederate monuments is the thin of the wedge with this rabble. In Canada we have similar agitators threatening to bring down a statue of Cornwalis in Halifax, who by the way founded the City - all because he called for the scalps of Miqmaq warriors at the time. Suffice it to say, while it doesn't endear him to a modern audience, it wasn't like the Miqmaqs were pacifists either, or above similar acts of barbarity.

And let me repeat, the man founded the City!

So yeah, I don't like self-righteous mobs tearing down statues and I am positive that it won't be long until any number of historical figures are going to receive similar treatment, from Washington (who owned slaves) to Churchill (who propagated colonialism). This isn't the slippery slope with these people - they are already there. They are just targeting the low  hanging fruit right now. When they're finished with the confederate monuments, guaranteed it's not going to stop.

[JoshCrow]

When they're finished with the confederate monuments, guaranteed it's not going to stop.

Maybe, but you and I (and many others) are going to stop agreeing with them, and that's worth something considering the relevance of these symbols is up to us (collectively speaking).

Incidentally, I don't support destroying the works (or having mobs do the removal) - just moving them to a museum is sufficient to change their context from "inappropriate" to, I think, "public service". Some have also suggested relocating them to Confederate cemeteries, which I also like.

[Fenring]

When they're finished with the confederate monuments, guaranteed it's not going to stop.

Maybe, but you and I (and many others) are going to stop agreeing with them, and that's worth something considering the relevance of these symbols is up to us (collectively speaking).

Incidentally, I don't support destroying the works (or having mobs do the removal) - just moving them to a museum is sufficient to change their context from "inappropriate" to, I think, "public service". Some have also suggested relocating them to Confederate cemeteries, which I also like.

That would at least be a fair solution, if still tilted towards majority sentiment winning who gets to show off their prized values. Your Hitler example is apt, but not so much to argue against my point. My point was that if Baphomet has 'every right' to be displayed in public then the game is over in suggesting that moral appropriateness should have anything to do with what gets displayed. You either have to take the position that every group has the right, or that majority values dominate those of minorities. Baphomet could have been banned, right, but then the state/city would have to officially claim it's because Christians have higher 'moral status' in the area that Satanists. It would oblige the city to admit that Christianity has a privileged place at the table, if for no other reason than because it's popular. They didn't take the bait and instead let Baphomet be installed. And you know, it's sort of a joke at this point that literally nothing is worse than Hitler, but if you want to be pedantic about it Hitler's got nothing on THE DEVIL. And that's still up as far as I know. So I don't really buy the Hitler thing. Oh, Hitler probably riles people up more than the devil does at this point, but if we're going to objectively weigh the idea of the devil versus the idea of Hitler, at best Hitler is a subset of how bad the devil is. But the rub here is that putting up Baphomet sticks it to the Christians, which is a fun pastime for many these days, whereas in this case, the people who enjoy Baphomet as a point against Christians would hate to see Hitler, or a Confederate Hero, up. So what it boils down to isn't so much what is decorous, but what happens to be fashionable to hate right now. I don't think the devil is any less hateful than the statues you argue shouldn't be up, but it isn't something that bothers the Antifa crowd so they don't care about it. And that's sort of the issue here for me: the statues that are to be taken down may be bad in some objective way, but they are a problem only to a group that has a very selective taste for what they don't like. And I'm not too keen on their sense of taste at present. I'd just as soon leave up questionable statues just to make them see they don't have the right to declare by fiat what gets done in a town.

And by the way, I actually agree with you that public sentiment should probably weight into what's displayed publicly. But what I'm looking at here is consistency rather than decorum. I would wholeheartedly like to see positive, encouraging messages up in public. However if the game is going to be "everyone's opinion is equally valid" then I'm going to hold them to that, and not be impressed by cherry picking.

[Greg Davidson]

Confederate statuary and monuments was part of a political movement not in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but later as a symbol of the Jim Crow regime of using law to suppress the minority population. The second wave was in opposition to the Civil Rights movement. James Loewen's book "Lies Across America" documents the extend of efforts to falsify history in accordance with the segregationist ideology 

As Loewen points out, most Confederate monuments were erected between 1890 and 1920 under the leadership of the United Daughters of the Confederacy as part of a conscious effort to glorify and sanitize the Confederate cause and legitimize the newly installed Jim Crow system. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, “one of the most vicious racists in U.S. history,” as Loewen puts it, was a slave trader, founder of the Ku Klux Klan and commander of troops who massacred black Union soldiers after their surrender at Fort Pillow. Yet there are more statues, markers and busts of Forrest in Tennessee than of any other figure in the state’s history, including President Andrew Jackson. Only one transgression was sufficiently outrageous to disqualify Confederate leaders from the pantheon of heroes. No statue of James Longstreet, a far abler commander than Forrest, graces the Southern countryside, and Gen. James Fleming is omitted from the portrait gallery of famous figures of Arkansas history in Little Rock. Their crime? Both supported black rights during Reconstruction.

https://www.thenation.com/article/our-monumental-mistakes/

[JoshCrow]

They didn't take the bait and instead let Baphomet be installed.

I'm not finding any evidence that this happened as you describe. In fact it looks like the opposite happened: Oklahoma withdrew from replacing a Ten Commandments statue rather than accept Baphomet as well, and the last record I have of the statue is it being placed into storage while waiting for a petition for Arkansas to approve it!

Edit: it looks like they finally has success in Minnesota, but not with Baphomet: http://nypost.com/2017/05/07/satanic-temple-cleared-to-install-monument-for-the-first-time/

[Fenring]

They didn't take the bait and instead let Baphomet be installed.

I'm not finding any evidence that this happened as you describe. In fact it looks like the opposite happened: Oklahoma withdrew from replacing a Ten Commandments statue rather than accept Baphomet as well, and the last record I have of the statue is it being placed into storage while waiting for a petition for Arkansas to approve it!

Edit: it looks like they finally has success in Minnesota, but not with Baphomet: http://nypost.com/2017/05/07/satanic-temple-cleared-to-install-monument-for-the-first-time/

Bloody heck, I thought it was outside but it turns out the Baphomet was installed inside a building in Detroit instead. Well, I basically stand by my point anyhow even though my analogy sort of fails. Good find on the Satanic box or whatever it is.

[scifibum]

<can't resist the low hanging fruit in this thread, digs up password>

Fenring, you should look up the creed - well, it's more of a values statement - of the Detroit Satanic Temple.  You couldn't be more wrong about the morality of their religion.  They don't worship evil, they don't even believe in the devil as a being.   They believe in empathy, justice, and other things like that. 

When you say something like this:

if you want to be pedantic about it Hitler's got nothing on THE DEVIL.

you are arguing from within the context of religions that believe in the devil as a being who is purely/maximally evil.  Not from the context of the Satanists who wanted to erect a statue, whose beliefs are both atheistic and benignly humanistic. 

In this example you've chosen, you're completely wrong.  They don't want to harm anyone; they aren't evil.  Except if you circularly define blasphemy as evil, which is understandable if you're arguing from Christian theology but absurd if you are trying to make a point about civics.  Hitler is evil by the standards of basic human rights enshrined in our constitution.  Baphomet as viewed by the Detroit Satanic Temple is no more evil than a statue of Zeus sponsored by an art appreciation club.

You've made another pretty egregious error in this thread, too:

Can you imagine if someone suggested removing a Jewish monument on the grounds that they dislike the tenets of Judaism? There would be an outcry that would never stop.

1) the Ten Commandments ARE tenets of Judaism, and we've been around the block on that kind of monument already.  It didn't trigger the cataclysm of anti-anti-Semitism that you predicted. 

OK, fine, everybody conceived of those as Christian monuments.  Not because they weren't also representative of Judaism, but because Christians are such a bigger cohort in this country. 

But that still leaves:

2) "Jewish monuments" in public, that aren't also Christian, aren't much of a thing in this country.  Holocaust memorials don't represent Judaism, their purpose is to remind us of the immeasurable evil of the Nazi regime and keep us vigilant against similar evils.   

3) You're comparing symbols of a religious and ethnic identity - which happens to be a protected class in this country - with symbols of historical events that were brought about by the evils of racism and which symbols were largely erected for the purpose of promoting white supremacy, and further, mainly exist in places that continue to shelter and breed racism.   One of these things is not like the other. 

This difference is the same reason you can refuse to hire Nazis but you can't refuse to hire Jews. 

It's a terrible comparison. 

[Fenring]

Scifi,

I know the differences between the Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan, and on this topic it's more involved an issue than I can appropriately dress here. I can summarize quickly by saying I'm skeptical that the Satanic Temple (which is on it's face far more benign than the Church of Satan) is a positive or even neutral force. But that's neither here nor there, because to the average Joe, Baphomet is simply the devil, and there isn't much qualification that will be understood beyond that. Even though *I* know that Baphomet, as an icon, means something rather specific to a few different occult groups, and that it's not identical to the Christian devil, we're talking about public perception here (I think), and in that sense we can just call it "the devil".

The purpose in me bringing up Judaism was precisely to raise the point that you reiterated, which is the distinction between protected groups and those that aren't. It's clear that there would be objections to picking on protected groups, whereas picking on a "majority" group such as white Southerners is by this standard an ok action (since it's punching up). So yes, I see the framework there. What I'm saying is that white Southerners who revere Confederate heros may well be a minority at this point, so in effect having the majority dictate whether their icons are ok is being decided by the majority. I also mentioned later on that I do actually believe that it's a good thing to judge what should be in public. But I'm pointing out that the attitude of "hah! Stick it to the racists" seems to be justified by the fact that they're white, rather than the fact that they're wrong. The rightness or wrongness of protected groups wouldn't even enter into the conversation when looking at public icons they believe in. But here we're happy to say the General Lee statue is wrong, therefore should perhaps come down. I'm looking at the big picture. In the microcosm, mind you, I might well be happier knowing racist icons aren't up. But I wouldn't necessarily wish to impose what makes me happy on others who value certain things that have a mixed bag of virtue in them. JoshCrow is right that I really wouldn't be happy at all with a Hitler statue, so I'm trying to distinguish here between what I would like and between recognizing that certain groups are sort of arbitrarily given preferential rights, in a sense. In terms of how intersectionality defines oppressed vs. oppressor, I certainly do think it's arbitrary and largely a function of current tastes in a select group that makes a lot of noise. So in a way it's worse, which is that a minority speaking on behalf of a majority unaffiliated with them, makes a lot of noise and gets its way.

[Crunch]

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A statue of the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery and denied citizenship to African Americans was removed from the grounds of the Maryland State House early Friday morning.

The statue of Roger B. Taney (TAW nee) was lifted away by a crane at about 2 a.m. It was lowered into a truck and driven away to storage. The bronze statue was erected in 1872, just outside the original front door of the State House.

2 AM. Gotta be sneaky it seems.

Abraham Lincoln has joined George Washington on the list of those targeted by Chicagoans in a national debate over Civil War-era monuments.

Alderman Raymond Lopez took to Facebook Wednesday night to decry a defaced statue of the nation’s 16th president in the Englewood neighborhood. The giant bust appears to have been damaged after someone in the 15th Ward sprayed and ignited a flammable liquid.

It doesn't seem to matter who or what, just get them statues down!

VICE Magazine Tweet Calls for Blowing Up Mount Rushmore

Probably gonna need a cannon for that one, how ISIS of them.

On Thursday, one liberal commentator veered off script and lent credibility to President Donald Trump’s warning that the anti-Confederate movement will not stop with southern Civil War generals like Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

“I don’t care if it’s a George Washington statue or a Thomas Jefferson statue, or a Robert E. Lee statue,” commentator Angela Rye said on CNN. “They all need to come down.”

They *all* need to come down. I don't know if "all" includes WW2 or viet nam memorials but when it's cultural genocide time I assume it's all on the table sooner or later.

When they go from confederate era statues to all statues, it's full on cultural genocide. Can anyone guess what culture is being targeted?

[Wayward Son]

I don't see why the statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and other Confederate generals and heroes shouldn't be treated like the monuments to Benedict Arnold.

Praise them for the good they did for our country, but do not honor them for whatever treacherous acts they may have done against it (although teach people about what those acts were).

Seems fair to me.

[Pete at Home]

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A statue of the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery and denied citizenship to African Americans was removed from the grounds of the Maryland State House early Friday morning.

The statue of Roger B. Taney (TAW nee) was lifted away by a crane at about 2 a.m. It was lowered into a truck and driven away to storage. The bronze statue was erected in 1872, just outside the original front door of the State House.

2 AM. Gotta be sneaky it seems.

Abraham Lincoln has joined George Washington on the list of those targeted by Chicagoans in a national debate over Civil War-era monuments.

Alderman Raymond Lopez took to Facebook Wednesday night to decry a defaced statue of the nation’s 16th president in the Englewood neighborhood. The giant bust appears to have been damaged after someone in the 15th Ward sprayed and ignited a flammable liquid.

It doesn't seem to matter who or what, just get them statues down!

VICE Magazine Tweet Calls for Blowing Up Mount Rushmore

Probably gonna need a cannon for that one, how ISIS of them.

On Thursday, one liberal commentator veered off script and lent credibility to President Donald Trump’s warning that the anti-Confederate movement will not stop with southern Civil War generals like Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

“I don’t care if it’s a George Washington statue or a Thomas Jefferson statue, or a Robert E. Lee statue,” commentator Angela Rye said on CNN. “They all need to come down.”

They *all* need to come down. I don't know if "all" includes WW2 or viet nam memorials but when it's cultural genocide time I assume it's all on the table sooner or later.

When they go from confederate era statues to all statues, it's full on cultural genocide. Can anyone guess what culture is being targeted?

You have a valid argument that some of the people who are destroying Confederate icons, intend to use the momentum to go on to do some stuff that looks a lot like Isis. That is in fact a lot like Isis in substance. I've been talking about this for years on this forum about cultural genocide and what I call cultural nihilism.

Nevertheless, there are a number of very valid reasons II want federal and state government to put a tie arm's-length the host of quote-unquote memorials which are in fact propaganda and Misrepresentations of History

[Crunch]

Let's take a look at Democrat icon Senator Robert Byrd:

Byrd became a recruiter and leader of his chapter. When it came time to elect the top officer (Exalted Cyclops) in the local Klan unit, Byrd won unanimously.

This was the 1940's, the KKK was a real threat and Byrd was a top leader, recruiting over 150 friends and other to join the Klan.

In December 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo:

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944

Byrd was a member of the wing of the Democratic Party that opposed desegregation and civil rights and he personally logged 14 hours of the 83 day filibuster Democrats tried as the party opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Byrd personally opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

When it comes to racism and keeping black Americans down, there's no bigger example of it than Robert Byrd. He's a poster child for it. There may be people as racist as Byrd in the world but there aren't any that were more racist and fought more tirelessly and effectively in post reconstruction America to keep black people down.

Here's a list of places named after Byrd.. Literally dozens of them. There are multiple statues erected in his honor and bearing his likeness, including at the Virginia state capital and US capital.

When will these statues be removed, his name scrubbed from the buildings?

[TheDeamon]

Well, keep in mind, with this pursuit of purging all ties or "monuments to slavery" means we're going to need to completely remodel the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, numerous other Federal Buildings, and many Universities will likewise need to follow suit.

After all what is Greco-Roman but a celebration of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece? Both civilizations made extensive use of slaves. This cannot be tolerated in this wonderful new world order that AntiFa is bringing about for us. I imagine this means that many ancient historians and philosophers will need to be "scrubbed from history" because of their ties to that despicable practice as well.

[D.W.]

As someone in the architectural field, I support this petition. 

[TheDeamon]

As someone in the architectural field, I support this petition. 

I'm all in favor of it if only because it brutally kills off "Greek life" on college campuses.

[Seriati]

I don't know how I feel about statues being taken down.  There are some good points being made here.  I do know that we should be talking about it and reaching a collective decision and not letting the most violent have their way. 

But can we all agree that this is a trend that has already gone too far?  I mean honestly, an Asian American sports broadcaster named, Robert Lee, being transferred by ESPN off of a football game because it involved UVA?  That's flat up stupid, racist and ridiculous.

I'd also like to see some explanation for calling confederate generals traitors.  It's my understanding, that at the time, the legitimate loyalty of most people living in what is now the United States of America was to their states not to the Union.  It's like calling Americans who support the United States over the UN traitors, or labeling Brits traitors for backing the UK over the EU.  It's bad conceit to apply labels that only make sense in a modern context to evaluate a historical decision.

And if we're going to tear down confederate statues, and any statute of slave owners, what about the statues and monuments to Union generals that deliberately committed what would be widely acknowledged as war crimes today?  Shouldn't their statues come down too?  Shouldn't the revolutionary war memorials come down over the treachery to their lawful - at the time - government in England?

[TheDeamon]

And if we're going to tear down confederate statues, and any statute of slave owners, what about the statues and monuments to Union generals that deliberately committed what would be widely acknowledged as war crimes today?  Shouldn't their statues come down too?  Shouldn't the revolutionary war memorials come down over the treachery to their lawful - at the time - government in England?

The Jefferson Memorial and monuments to George Washington have already been brought up as things that should be removed and/or changed, as both men are widely known to have owned slaves. I guess Washington DC and the State of Washington will need to start taking proposals for new names. 

I'm wondering when they're going to target Woodrow Wilson. He was a very prominent figure within the KKK and other white supremacy movements in his time. Almost a 100% certainty he was more racist than either Washington or Jefferson ever were, even in context, Wilson was "a very bad man." Well, I guess we can't be so certain about Washington, but I don't think Jefferson was particularly racist based on recollections of the few writings of his I've read or otherwise heard about--even with the fact that he owned slaves. 

[TheDrake]

Some university buildings named after Wilson have indeed come into question. They ended it with keeping the name, but removing more celebratory icons, like a mural depicting him having a great time throwing out a baseball at a Senators game.

This to me is an appropriate line. I don't think I'd much like to walk by a giant picture of a smiling racist on my way to class every day.

Nor is it a good idea to completely forget some of the positive things the man did. I think the general idea is to stop celebrating him as a hero.

[D.W.]

Modern artist conspiracy fighting back against fascist budgetary cuts!

[Fenring]

I wonder whether this will remain only about 'racists,' or whether it will come to include anyone seen as a 'fascist' or who did things some group disagrees with. Will liberal towns begin taking down monuments or photos of Republicans because of the evil things they believe, and likewise for the other side?

[NobleHunter]

I don't know how I feel about statues being taken down.  There are some good points being made here.  I do know that we should be talking about it and reaching a collective decision and not letting the most violent have their way. 

But can we all agree that this is a trend that has already gone too far?  I mean honestly, an Asian American sports broadcaster named, Robert Lee, being transferred by ESPN off of a football game because it involved UVA?  That's flat up stupid, racist and ridiculous.

I'd also like to see some explanation for calling confederate generals traitors.  It's my understanding, that at the time, the legitimate loyalty of most people living in what is now the United States of America was to their states not to the Union.  It's like calling Americans who support the United States over the UN traitors, or labeling Brits traitors for backing the UK over the EU.  It's bad conceit to apply labels that only make sense in a modern context to evaluate a historical decision.

And if we're going to tear down confederate statues, and any statute of slave owners, what about the statues and monuments to Union generals that deliberately committed what would be widely acknowledged as war crimes today?  Shouldn't their statues come down too?  Shouldn't the revolutionary war memorials come down over the treachery to their lawful - at the time - government in England?

Some of them were officers in the US army and swore an oath to the Union. For the rest, regardless of where their "legitimate" loyalty lay, they were still free and willing citizens of the United States when they took up arms against it. What do you call them if not traitors?

Americans are not citizens of the UN. The UK is following the rules and laws of the EU as they try to leave which can hardly be treachery.

[Seriati]

Nor is it a good idea to completely forget some of the positive things the man did. I think the general idea is to stop celebrating him as a hero.

Not sure there are legitimately more than a handful of people from history who are not racists, or otherwise guilty of an unacceptable intolerance.  Who'd be left?

Maybe, we could acknowledge that for many of these people good outweighed the bad and that they were products of a very different time.

[TheDrake]

I think for me, it would be your position and your active discrimination, not racism. Of course, I've always though Jefferson was a plagiarist and a whiner, so I'm not sorry to see him go.

But there's a difference between Wilson actively supporting segregation while in a position of power to do it, or Byrd, and someone who was privately racist or who just didn't want black people in their country club.

I don't believe there's a slippery slope from Robert E. Lee to FDR, though one can easily make a case for him too.

Likewise, I don't believe that all the average riflemen in the Confederacy deserve to have a horse-collar of shame automatically placed about their necks.

[rightleft22]

Its all nuts
Apparently in Russia Stalin, the idea of Stalin, is becoming more and more popular.
Be careful what you wish for you just might get it.

[TheDeamon]

Some of them were officers in the US army and swore an oath to the Union. For the rest, regardless of where their "legitimate" loyalty lay, they were still free and willing citizens of the United States when they took up arms against it. What do you call them if not traitors?

Are you SURE about that? I'd put pretty good odds that Lee was "A General in the Army of the Commonwealth of Virginia" who happened to be part of a standing army "on loan" to the United States Government from said Commonwealth of Virginia. That the US Government in turn had placed him in command of other states beyond Virginia doesn't change that his commission was with the Commonwealth of Virginia, and not the Federal Government. But then, I haven't done an in depth dig on this, but I do know that Army units of the time were setup and structured along geographical lines, in wasn't until near the end of the Civil War that the Union started doing away with that practice IIRC.

So if my understanding is correct, and his Oath was to the Commonwealth of Virginia rather than the Union, how again, would he then be a traitor for siding with the State he swore an oath to?

[TheDeamon]

Apparently in Russia Stalin, the idea of Stalin, is becoming more and more popular.
Be careful what you wish for you just might get it.

Stalin was a "strong man" further, he was a "Strong man" who wasn't afraid to take action, going so far as to send millions of people off to gulags to suffer and die in obscurity without concern for how it looked. Something Putin and the Oligarchs in Russia today would love to be able to do.

I still wouldn't be surprised to discover that some of this AntiFa activity is actually being instigated by deep cover Russian operatives buried in various communist and socialistic front groups from the days of the goold ole USSR days. The chaos it could potentially unleash in the US is a win-win for Putin and company either way. If "the snowflakes" somehow win, the United States should emasculate its ability to project power abroad--and thus be unable to interfere in Russian expansionism. If "the snowflakes" simply creates mass choas within the US for a period, the US will be busy with "internal matters" for at least a few weeks, if not months or years, while they try to resolve the problems created. More importantly for Putin though in regards to AntiFa "snowflakes" creating a massive long-term (violent) disruption in the US is it potentially "poisons the well" in regards to entire swaths of "the agenda" such groups identify as being supporters of for years to come... Which translates into a United States that is much more Nationalistic in nature, and inclined to not give much of a ____ about how other nations bother with "internal problems"(specifically in regards to "social issues" which SJW and AntiFa is obsessive compulsive over) or "clear threats to national interests" that may lie outside their borders(again, potentially allowing for Russian expansionism to go unchecked by the US).

[Fenring]

De Tocqueville speaks from an outsider's perspective, having spent years in America studying the system there, and describes the states as being a set of independent nations that have some areas of life governed at the Federal level but are otherwise in charge of themselves. It's hard for a modern American to think of their country in this way, and functionally it seems to not be so much the case any more. But back then (the 1830's and 40's) it seemed clear as day to him that the states weren't municipalities of a single nation but rather a series of nations that employed collective resources to certain specific ends such as national defence, diplomacy, etc. I'm not very knowledgeable in this area from an historical point of view but I've heard enough about that era to understand that the current notion that the U.S. is your country while a state is merely the place within it you happen to live wasn't at all the way things were understood at that time. Assuming this is correct, defending one's state against Federal encroachment could only be called treason by a revisionist definition of the word.

[Seriati]

Some of them were officers in the US army and swore an oath to the Union.  For the rest, regardless of where their "legitimate" loyalty lay, they were still free and willing citizens of the United States when they took up arms against it. What do you call them if not traitors?

It is my understanding that Lee had sworn such an oath.  However, you are looking at this through the modern interpretative lens, where we are citizens of the United States first and barely consider our State relevant.  Lee and the many others (likely even a majority), both North and South, would have seen themselves as citizens of their State first.  Their Citizenship in the US was derivative of their citizenship in their State and would not have survived their State's decision to secede.  This is directly parallel, to a citizen of the UK vis a vis the EU after the Brexit is complete.

In the circumstances of the day, it would have been treachery to remain in the Union when your citizenship was derivative of your state.  Breaching the oath is definitely an issue of honor, but in weighing breaching an oath versus treachery it's not clear that breach is not the better option.  Particularly, when, as with Lee, he openly resigned his commission and departed.

The UK is following the rules and laws of the EU as they try to leave which can hardly be treachery.

Yet, you seem not aware that the issue of whether it was legal to secede was unsettled at the time of the Civil War and it wasn't political agreement or legal arguments that finally decided the issue, it was force of arms.   Reasonable people did disagree as to whether secession was legal.

I mentioned the UN simply because its a clear example of an inter-governmental union of limited power.  At the time we're talking about, it wasn't clear that the Union was actually intended to be much stronger.

[TheDrake]

From a source (I didn't spend time vetting it):

In 1836, he went to West Point, to become an Army officer. He graduated, twelfth in his class in 1840. The oath he swore went like this: "I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States."

This seems fairly unequivocal that he broke that particular oath. Whether he held more stock in any oath he made in Virginia is unclear.

[Crunch]

Here we go.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has declared three of America’s largest Army bases Confederate monuments “with the potential to unleash more turmoil and bloodshed” if activists don’t “take down” the Army bases.

Nice, threats.

The SPLC included Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Benning in Georgia on a list of 1,500 “Confederate monuments” that the SPLC claims could inspire more violence like what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia last month. All three bases are named after Confederate military leaders.

Elementary and middle schools, local streets and even entire towns are included on the SPLC’s list of “Confederate monuments.”

What, you thought it was gonna be just a few statues? Silly, don't you know how thsee things work?

You should be asking, what's next? Once they've torn down the schools and wiped entire towns off the map, where's the next logical target?

[Pete at Home]

Crunch, I never questioned your assertion that the cultural left was going to try to go overboard just as Antifa defines fascism as anything right of Pol Pot.

But if I was willing to sponsor state sponsored revisionist lies as "culture", then how would I be any better than Antifa ?

[Pete at Home]

Seriati, even in 1860, reasonable people understood that conflicts over unsettled law could only be lawfully adjudicated through SCOTUS.  If secession had been lawful, firing on Ft Sumpter was still treason and rebellion. The North was in a holding pattern. The South was overrepresented in SCOTUS.  If the powers that be in the South honestly believed their position to be lawful, then why start shooting before SCOTUS could take the case?

[Pete at Home]

I don't see why the statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and other Confederate generals and heroes shouldn't be treated like the monuments to Benedict Arnold.

Praise them for the good they did for our country, but do not honor them for whatever treacherous acts they may have done against it (although teach people about what those acts were).

Seems fair to me.

Did you not read your own link, or are you actually proposing that George Washington's face and name be stricken from his own monuments?

[Wayward Son]

Seriati, even in 1860, reasonable people understood that conflicts over unsettled law could only be lawfully adjudicated through SCOTUS.  If secession had been lawful, firing on Ft Sumpter was still treason and rebellion. The North was in a holding pattern. The South was overrepresented in SCOTUS.  If the powers that be in the South honestly believed their position to be lawful, then why start shooting before SCOTUS could take the case?

Pete's right.  Ft. Sumpter was attacked, which was an act of war.  The Confederate states then banded together, made incursions into the Union States, and fought Union troops.  They elected their own President and disowned the elected President.  These are acts of war.  Since they were part of the United States, that makes it treachery.

Although the individuals may have seen themselves as loyal to their respective states, they were warring against the United States and the federal government and thus were traitors to the U.S.A.

I don't see why the statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and other Confederate generals and heroes shouldn't be treated like the monuments to Benedict Arnold.

Praise them for the good they did for our country, but do not honor them for whatever treacherous acts they may have done against it (although teach people about what those acts were).

Seems fair to me.

Did you not read your own link, or are you actually proposing that George Washington's face and name be stricken from his own monuments?

Pete, what are you talking about?? 

I never mentioned Washington.  The article doesn't mention Washington.  I mentioned Confederate generals and (military) heroes, who fought against the United States in order to preserve slavery.  Who took up arms and killed people in order to break up the union and keep their slaves.

Washington never took up arms against the United States.  He did the opposite. 

Benedict Arnold fought with Washington for the United States.  He won several important battles.  One could easily argue that he did more for the United States than Lee did.

While some do want these monuments removed because Lee was a slave-owner, that's not my main concern.  I see no reason to keep these monuments because the Confederate States went to war against the United States to preserve slavery.  And for this, their generals and politicians are honored.  I see no reason they should be honored for these actions.

Hey, honor them for what they did for the United States in the locals where they did it.

But no more than Benedict Arnold is honored for his actions.