• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

metacristi said:
The wrong way to do it, definitely it should not be done under the pressure of well known intellectual and cultural terrorists.
Click to expand...

The problem is that there is no viable right way to do it. Relevant, rational debate in the public space leads to bureaucratic delay, the usual response to which is to start the relevant, rational debate all over again from the beginning. If there were a right way to do this that worked, we wouldn't have got to where we are now.

Dave
 
Darat said:
You don't explain why we have to hold the act of a single rich bloke - who decided to put up a statue of another rich bloke - as being binding on us for perpetuity.
Click to expand...

You keep on posting variations of this. Have you entertained the thought that history is (or should) bigger than the whims of mobs intent of destruction because they are pissed off and want to do.........just something?

We have seen vandalism of Churchill's statue. Calls for Martin Luther King's statue to be pulled down because he wasn't radical enough. How did people intent on vandalism like this become "us" (your term)? Why should mobs with ropes get their way?

"We" should expect governments to protect historical statues and other artefacts from mobs. If those who don't like certain statues can't use the representative democratic process to get what they want, **** them.
 
lionking said:
You keep on posting variations of this. Have you entertained the thought that history is (or should) bigger than the whims of mobs intent of destruction because they are pissed off and want to do.........just something?...snip...
Click to expand...

None of my comments have had anything to do with "history" apart from I obviously don't think we today have to be bound by the acts of an unrepresentative elite from hundreds of years ago.

I have also said I don't agree with mobs pulling statues down.... Even though that act will be more democratic than the initial act putting the statues up!

lionking said:
We have seen vandalism of Churchill's statue. Calls for Martin Luther King's statue to be pulled down because he wasn't radical enough. How did people intent on vandalism like this become "us" (your term)? Why should mobs with ropes get their way?
Click to expand...

Think of it this way - take yourself back to say 1800, are you part of the "us" that put the statue up? The answer by the way is no - you if lived back then you would have had no say at all in a statue being put up.

And again I don't agree with mobs pulling statues down, I just don't venerate statues and people as you do.

lionking said:
"We" should expect governments to protect historical statues and other artefacts from mobs. If those who don't like certain statues can't use the representative democratic process to get what they want, **** them.
Click to expand...

The tyranny of the majority. Without civil disobedience none of our current rights would exist.
 
Dave Rogers said:
The problem is that there is no viable right way to do it. Relevant, rational debate in the public space leads to bureaucratic delay, the usual response to which is to start the relevant, rational debate all over again from the beginning. If there were a right way to do this that worked, we wouldn't have got to where we are now.
Click to expand...


There is a right way to do it: Pull them down! It's being done already. And next year it will be like the ban on smoking in public places: Very few will miss the right to smoke everywhere even though it bothered a lot of people - and not just the asthmatics. And the few who still feel the craving to be reminded of heroic slaveowners and other racists will have to do so online instead of in public parks.
(Unlike smokers, nobody will feel any actual craving, of course. The eyesores are mere symbols of systemic oppression. Nicotine addiction isn't.)
 
Dave Rogers said:
The problem is that there is no viable right way to do it. Relevant, rational debate in the public space leads to bureaucratic delay, the usual response to which is to start the relevant, rational debate all over again from the beginning. If there were a right way to do this that worked, we wouldn't have got to where we are now.

Dave
Click to expand...


Then let's follow Lenin who was saying basically the same (well definitely the first part). I'm afraid the situation does not need a violent revolution, the 'institutional racism' is a perception carefully cultivated by the 'progressive activists (finally yes the core of postmodernist 'progressive' ideology is deeply flawed).
 
Last edited:
dann said:
There is a right way to do it: Pull them down! It's being done already. And next year it will be like the ban on smoking in public places: Very few will miss the right to smoke everywhere even though it bothered a lot of people - and not just the asthmatics. And the few who still feel the craving to be reminded of heroic slaveowners and other racists will have to do so online instead of in public parks.
(Unlike smokers, nobody will feel any actual craving, of course. The eyesores are mere symbols of systemic oppression. Nicotine addiction isn't.)
Click to expand...

All of this would be fine and dandy if only statues of slave owners were pulled down.

You seem to support destruction of statues by anyone who feels strongly about them. Or is it only those who feel strongly about them in the same way as you? I can see you not worrying about Churchill’s statue being destroyed (“racist”) and maybe Christ’s, but Martin Luther King’s? Florence Nightingale‘s? Emmeline Pankhurst’s? Because I guarantee there are people who would support this. There are already calls for King’s statue to be destroyed.

So how about a list of statues worthy of destruction and those not? Can you draw the line between “a little bit racist, but not bad overall” and “nah, a bit too racist for me”. I can tell you, that line doesn’t exist. So you are just happy to leave it to the mobs? I’m not.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Cool story, bro.

Dave
Click to expand...


Yep, continually creating supposed enemies is a main feature of postmodernist 'progressivism', justifying perpetual violent Revolution. Many in common with Stalinism. If something must go it is also this destructive ideology.
 
Last edited:
"If statue X comes down then statue Y has to come down to!" isn't an opinion, it's an argumentative tactic.

People know that more people are (some degree of) more open to Washington and Jefferson and Columbus and whatnot than Lee and Davis.

They know full well that making an implicit threat of "Ohh... so you want the statue the the person who turned traitor and killed his own countrymen to keep black people as property? Oh well then.... AH YOU TRIGGERED MY TRAP CARD! What about this statue here of this person who did some good things but also did bad things? What about him! Don't want to lose him do you! AHA THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT!" will trigger the "Cause Purity" subroutine to kick into action and shut the whole discussion down.

We're not getting rid of all statues that's an insane pipe dream. And black people shouldn't have to wait for white people to get done running statues through trolley problems to get rid of offensive monuments to the idea that they aren't fully human.
 
metacristi said:
Then let's follow Lenin who was saying basically the same (well definitely the first part). I'm afraid the situation does not need a violent revolution, the 'institutional racism' is a perception carefully cultivated by the 'progressive activists (finally yes the core of postmodernist 'progressive' ideology is deeply flawed).
Click to expand...

Nope - it was and is well investigated and documented by distinctly non-progressive bods, you know the pillars of society, the great and good. For example from the inquiry that established the existence of institutional racism you had : Sir William Macpherson - high court judge and former soldier and Tom Cook a retired deputy chief constable. Not known for being "progressives".
 
JoeMorgue said:
"If statue X comes down then statue Y has to come down to!" isn't an opinion, it's an argumentative tactic.

People know that more people are (some degree of) more open to Washington and Jefferson and Columbus and whatnot than Lee and Davis.

They know full well that making an implicit threat of "Ohh... so you want the statue the the person who turned traitor and killed his own countrymen to keep black people as property? Oh well then.... AH YOU TRIGGERED MY TRAP CARD! What about this statue here of this person who did some good things but also did bad things? What about him! Don't want to lose him do you! AHA THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT!" will trigger the "Cause Purity" subroutine to kick into action and shut the whole discussion down.

We're not getting rid of all statues that's an insane pipe dream. And black people shouldn't have to wait for white people to get done running statues through trolley problems to get rid of offensive monuments to the idea that they aren't fully human.
Click to expand...

Yeah - it's a combination of the slippery slope fallacy and argumentum ad absurdum dressed up in a nice strawman outfit.

The answer to the "argument" is really a simple "and so what". Perhaps we should remove all statues that commemorate people! After all it is rather unskeptical to have heros you want to put on a plinth..
 
JoeMorgue said:
"If statue X comes down then statue Y has to come down to!" isn't an opinion, it's an argumentative tactic.

People know that more people are (some degree of) more open to Washington and Jefferson and Columbus and whatnot than Lee and Davis.

They know full well that making an implicit threat of "Ohh... so you want the statue the the person who turned traitor and killed his own countrymen to keep black people as property? Oh well then.... AH YOU TRIGGERED MY TRAP CARD! What about this statue here of this person who did some good things but also did bad things? What about him! Don't want to lose him do you! AHA THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT!" will trigger the "Cause Purity" subroutine to kick into action and shut the whole discussion down.

We're not getting rid of all statues that's an insane pipe dream. And black people shouldn't have to wait for white people to get done running statues through trolley problems to get rid of offensive monuments to the idea that they aren't fully human.
Click to expand...

And yet Columbus and Washington statues are vandalised.

Who decides? Mobs? Any mob, or only mobs you approve of?

What if (shock, horror) black people don’t agree with destruction of a statue, but a mob does?

Your response will be “non-blacks/non-mobs don’t have a say”.

I say ********.
 
Dave Rogers said:
The problem is that there is no viable right way to do it. Relevant, rational debate in the public space leads to bureaucratic delay, the usual response to which is to start the relevant, rational debate all over again from the beginning. If there were a right way to do this that worked, we wouldn't have got to where we are now.

Dave
Click to expand...

Exactly what was said by the man who was interviewed out in Portland about why he participated in the pulling down of the statue of Thomas Jefferson.
 
lionking said:
And yet Columbus and Washington statues are vandalised.

Who decides? Mobs? Any mob, or only mobs you approve of?

What if (shock, horror) black people don’t agree with destruction of a statue, but a mob does?

Your response will be “non-blacks/non-mobs don’t have a say”.

I say ********.
Click to expand...


You can yell ******** all you want. When "Oh but what about other statues!" only come out when discussions of taking down racist traitor statues comes about, then it's transparent racist apologetics.

I don't remember all the discussion of your oh so very deeply help and totally honest opinion about Columbus and Washington that you were so passionately hold that we surely must have had back when black people wanting statues of racist traitors taken down wasn't in the news.

Funny... I guess I just missed them.
 
JoeMorgue said:
You can yell ******** all you want. When "Oh but what about other statues!" only come out when discussions of taking down racist traitor statues comes about, then it's transparent racist apologetics.

I don't remember all the discussion of your oh so very deeply help and totally honest opinion about Columbus and Washington that you were so passionately hold that we surely must have had back when black people wanting statues of racist traitors taken down wasn't in the news.

Funny... I guess I just missed them.
Click to expand...

We only talk about statues being torn down by mobs when there are news stories about statues being torn down by mobs.

Yeah? What's your point?

I have a pretty high opinion of Don Miguel de Cervantes, but it just never comes up on these forums until someone tears down his statue.
 
Meadmaker said:
We only talk about statues being torn down by mobs when there are news stories about statues being torn down by mobs.

Yeah? What's your point?
Click to expand...

That you don't give one single crap about statues one way or the other and you aren't even trying to hide it, you just have to make sure black people getting any improvement is as hard as possible.

You only care about statues of Columbus and Washington when black people want statues of Lee and Davis taken down.
 
Elaborating on this. Joe, you want to stick to Confederate statues. That's awesome. So do I. However, when I see a mob with ropes pull down a statue, I know that it will not stop with that statue. And it didn't. Now we've got an empty plinth in Golden Gate Park where General Grant used to be.

That isn't some sort of hand wringing. It's not a straw man. It's not a slippery slope fallacy. It's a real, actual, statue lying on the ground, and it was entirely predictable based on the rhetoric of those tearing down the statues of Colston or Davis. It was easy to see this coming, and here it is.
 
JoeMorgue said:
That you don't give one single crap about statues one way or the other and you aren't even trying to hide it, you just have to make sure black people getting any improvement is as hard as possible.

You only care about statues of Columbus and Washington when black people want statues of Lee and Davis taken down.
Click to expand...

You're wrong.

Don't feel bad. You've been wrong before.

I only care about statues of Columbus and Washington when statues of Columbus and Washington get taken down.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom