Too Far (Erasing History ) Removal of Statues

[Jacksgranda]

13 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

Monuments to Scottish War dead who were conscripted into the service of the british empire get to stay. Statues of the politicians, royals and generals who put them there can go.

This game is pretty easy TBH

 

So are you going to chip off the names of those who volunteered, then?

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

The Austrians had the right idea.

[TheProgressiveLiberal]

4 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

People in the South seem to be c***s. Germany oppressed people on the grounds of their race, then lost a war, but at least they have the decency to be quite apologetic about the whole thing. No mainstream politicians in Heidelberg are wearing Third Reich insignia or moaning that the Hitler statues got pulled down.

It's nonsense to compare the early US or the Confederacy or the British Empire to Nazi Germany. Neither the US, or the Confederacy, or the British Empire were out of the ordinary for their basic time period and engaged in activities that all groups have engaged in at various points. Nazi Germany was different.

[Bully Wee Villa]

The Confederates were pro-slavery after the British and French Empires abolished it.

In any case, their views are odious now and it's a part of history that noone should look back on with fondness.

The question should be why anyone wouldn't want the statues to come down? Let alone why should many Southerners, as they undoubtedly do, look back on the era as some sort of bygone golden age.

[Savage Henry]

9 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

People in the South seem to be c***s. Germany oppressed people on the grounds of their race, then lost a war, but at least they have the decency to be quite apologetic about the whole thing. No mainstream politicians in Heidelberg are wearing Third Reich insignia or moaning that the Hitler statues got pulled down.

You'd be surprised.  The deep south has a heck of a lot of contested issues - where in other areas of the US it amounts to non-issues - but in the face of that you have people who have chosen to stand up against incomprehensible prejudice.  There's a whole movement in, say, Birmingham Alabama dedicated to helping the cause of people who have had a far tougher time in life than the white male majority. Which in the end, is all that this statue "debate" is about.  The statues are essentially a non-issue compared to the decades - centuries - of genuine prejudice.  It just happens to be symbolic of that prejudice.  Many members of that movement are white males.  Sweet Home Alabama is not the only voice in the South.

Trump ain't no "good ole boy".  People in the deep South will be the first to say it.

 

[welshbairn]

 

2 minutes ago, TheProgressiveLiberal said:

It's nonsense to compare the early US or the Confederacy or the British Empire to Nazi Germany. Neither the US, or the Confederacy, or the British Empire were out of the ordinary for their basic time period and engaged in activities that all groups have engaged in at various points. Nazi Germany was different.

The "fine people" in the torch lit parade in Charlottesville out to defend the Robert E Lee statue would appear to disagree with you.

[Bully Wee Villa]

The Austrians had the right idea.

Fascinating fact: apparently lots of German (and presumably Austrian) football teams switched to playing in variants of red/black/white kits after the war, as there was a general shortage of cloth but no shortage of unwanted Nazi flags which could be recycled.

Okay, maybe not that fascinating.

[EdgarusQPFC]

The only reason i don't like this is its bowing down to the idiots who look for ways to find anything and everything racist and/or offensive and now you have set a precedent where they can bitch to remove anything they disagree with. We are talking about the kinda people who will turn an article about a fucking eclipse into a discussion about race. What does the fucking moon passing in front of the sun have to do with anyone's skin colour? Everything is fucking identity politics now and it is pathetic

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/american-totality-eclipse-race/537318/#article-comments

[ecto]

3 hours ago, knee jerk reaction said:

it is quite a difficult area, there are statues of Washington and other presidents who kept slaves, hard to judge people from a different era. I can see the reason for taking the statues down, I doubt many non whites were asked their opinions when the planning was going on! having said that, the more modern statue at Wallace's monument of Mel Gibson should be knocked down, even back in the 90s people knew that being an anti semitic, alcoholic, racist wasn't a good thing

 

Is that the one that the sculptor from Brechin done?

[Savage Henry]

9 minutes ago, EdgarusQPFC said:

The only reason i don't like this is its bowing down to the idiots who look for ways to find anything and everything racist and/or offensive and now you have set a precedent where they can bitch to remove anything they disagree with. We are talking about the kinda people who will turn an article about a fucking eclipse into a discussion about race. What does the fucking moon passing in front of the sun have to do with anyone's skin colour? Everything is fucking identity politics now and it is pathetic

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/american-totality-eclipse-race/537318/#article-comments

Comments sections of magazine and newspaper articles - or even youtube clips -  have long since descended into parodies of themselves.  Coming from a point of a white middle class straight male, I'm certainly in no position to comment on what is racist and what isn't.  That works for "social justice warriors" just as much as it does for the far right.  Identity politics is a legitimate defence mechanism in some cases and a weapon in others.  It surely isn't hard to differentiate between the two cases?

[invergowrie arab]

12 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

 

Myserious answer is that memorials to people who died in the two world wars should stay because, unless I'm missing the point, they are largely put up by local communities expressing loss and sadness that for whatever reason young men went off to die. Whether conscripted, patriotic duty, , cos their pals were doing it or whatever - it is an all round tragedy and i think we are at a place where everyone views the first world war as such. If they were there as a GIRFUY to the Kaiser or the German people i Might think differently.

The ones like the one on Princes St with a bear skin hatted highlander with the names of various imperial engagements I wouldnt lose any sleep over them going. Not only for what was done abroad but for what was done here that resulted in many ordinary young men having no choice but to join up.

[The OP]

8 minutes ago, EdgarusQPFC said:

The only reason i don't like this is its bowing down to the idiots who look for ways to find anything and everything racist and/or offensive and now you have set a precedent where they can bitch to remove anything they disagree with. We are talking about the kinda people who will turn an article about a fucking eclipse into a discussion about race. What does the fucking moon passing in front of the sun have to do with anyone's skin colour? Everything is fucking identity politics now and it is pathetic

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/american-totality-eclipse-race/537318/#article-comments

The article isn't about an eclipse. It's an article about racial segregation in the USA, both historical and current, and uses the path of the eclipse as a topical and slightly romantic way of exploring it. Your problem is that you can't easily understand the main point of a piece of writing and it is making you angry. 

[Crùbag]

5 hours ago, Jackie Moon said:

Few articles about it on the web, mainly the Guardian wanting the removal end of the day it happened no ones bothered there backside about it up until the left wing side in the US started wanting statues removed and if you start there where do you end it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/22/toppling-statues-nelsons-column-should-be-next-slavery

Trump called for the statues to be removed just a year or two ago.

Yeah, get rid. How many HItler statues in Germany or Austria? And the Duke of Sutherland one in Golspie too.

If you're bothered abt history, they can go in a museum where the context and meaning can be explained. Or, read a book.

[invergowrie arab]

9 minutes ago, EdgarusQPFC said:

The only reason i don't like this is its bowing down to the idiots who look for ways to find anything and everything racist and/or offensive and now you have set a precedent where they can bitch to remove anything they disagree with. We are talking about the kinda people who will turn an article about a fucking eclipse into a discussion about race. What does the fucking moon passing in front of the sun have to do with anyone's skin colour? Everything is fucking identity politics now and it is pathetic

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/american-totality-eclipse-race/537318/#article-comments

Are you a regular reader of the Atlantic or once again have you been turned onto a pile of hot nonsense presented as having universal application?

Its like being against votes for white men because you read a youtube comments page.

[pandarilla]

I thought the original Guardian was very good, and I was extremely sceptical before I read it.

The issue is far less about tearing things down, and far more about questioning the cultural certainties that have been foisted on us. More discussion, and more education is needed.

Maybe we need to add plaques to these statues, explaining the context.

[TheProgressiveLiberal]

10 hours ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

The Confederates were pro-slavery after the British and French Empires abolished it.

In any case, their views are odious now and it's a part of history that noone should look back on with fondness.

The question should be why anyone wouldn't want the statues to come down? Let alone why should many Southerners, as they undoubtedly do, look back on the era as some sort of bygone golden age.

Right, but a couple of decades in the grand scheme of the world isn't that different. Even if the Confederacy had won it's likely the slaves would have been emancipated within a few decades.

I do wonder if the British and French would have voted so easily to emancipate the slaves if half the people in the mother country consisted of African slaves? Did the planters in the Caribbean support emancipation. I'd guess there wasn't much of a white working class to weigh in on the issue so it's not exactly and apples to apples comparison to compare what whites in Jamaica thought to what whites in South Carolina though.. I know what became the US Deep South was heavily settled by the descendants of the original white laborers from places like Jamaica and Barbados when they were replaced by slaves. 

10 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

Comments sections of magazine and newspaper articles - or even youtube clips -  have long since descended into parodies of themselves.  Coming from a point of a white middle class straight male, I'm certainly in no position to comment on what is racist and what isn't.  That works for "social justice warriors" just as much as it does for the far right.  Identity politics is a legitimate defence mechanism in some cases and a weapon in others.  It surely isn't hard to differentiate between the two cases?

This attitude is the problem. If we allow the most radical people or the people who make money off defining what's racist to be in charge, then this issue will define our politics for all time. We have to decide that we aren't going to have our society ruled by the loudest voices crying "racism."

[TheProgressiveLiberal]

Love how McQuade asked me for evidence and then provided a red dot when I linked to reputable polling companies. 

[pandarilla]

The problem is that you're denying that there still is racism.

The majority of educated people accept that it is a problem, and has never gone away (despite getting an awful lot better).

[ICTChris]

Idea for compromise - Confederate statues can stay but they all have to be recast by the guy who did this

[TheProgressiveLiberal]

20 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

The problem is that you're denying that there still is racism.

The majority of educated people accept that it is a problem, and has never gone away (despite getting an awful lot better).

Nobody argues that racism doesn't exist. I certainly don't. Most people prefer to deal with people that share their basic assumptions about how to act in a given situation. Often those assumptions are based on ethnic culture rather than any type of active decision making or free choice. And certain groups obviously have more power in every society, so it can perpetuate inequalities that are negative for the society as a whole if individuals just surround themselves with like minded people.

The question is how do we best deal with this situation to make our society better for everyone. The answer isn't to cede the ability to define racism because you're a white male. That's a recipe for disaster. Sometimes we just have to tune out the radicals because their proposals will just make the issue worse, like tearing down statues because somebody 200 years ago didn't always live up to todays standards of behavior. While it doesn't make things better, being the most radical can get you the most visibility which leads to more money. Always important to remember profit motive.