Erasing the past

[kevm14]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/08/ ... id=prn_msn

This is a good piece. Where do we go from here?

[kevm14]

All of us live in his shadow. Unfortunately, however, Jefferson was also a slave holder. That's real. It's a moral taint. We ought to remember it.

But to the fanatics on the left it means that Jefferson must be purged from public memory forever. The demands are already coming that we do that.

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. Needless to say there is literally no limit when you start thinking like this.

Last year, hundreds of activists in New York demanded the statue of Theodore Roosevelt at the American National History Museum be dismantled. They argued that Roosevelt was a racist.

That's the standard. Nobody is safe.

Watch out Abraham Lincoln. You're next.

With some on the left this is similar to the tax discussion. What is the right tax rate? All you get is "higher than it is now.". What statues should be taken down? All until none are remaining that could possibly offend anyone.

Now, to be clear, as if it's necessary, slavery is evil. If you believe in the rights of the individual, it's actually hard to think of anything worse than slavery.

But let's be honest. Up until 150 years ago when a group of brave Americans fought and died to finally put an end to it, slavery was the rule, rather than the exception around the world. And had been for thousands of years, sadly.

Plato owned saves, so did Mohammed -- peace be upon him.

Many African tribes held slaves and sold them. The Aztecs did, too. Before he liberated Latin America, Simon Bolivar owned slaves.

Slave-holding was so common among the North American Indians that the Cherokee brought their slaves with them on the Trail of Tears. And it wasn't something they learned from European settlers.

Indians were holding and trading slaves when Christopher Columbus arrived. And by the way, he owned slaves, too.

None of this is a defense of the atrocity of human bondage. And it is an atrocity.

This past part is important because the narrative I learned as a kid was, more or less, that white Europeans and Americans basically invented slavery in the world. It's important to remember the historical context when discussing slavery. Some soft in the head will read that as a defense of slavery and I think the first and last lines of the above quote make his stance pretty clear.

And this is the real point:

The point however is that if we are going to judge the past by the standards of the present. If we are going to reduce a person's life to the single worst thing he ever participated in, we had better be prepared for the consequences of that. And here's why: Forty one of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence held slaves.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, had a plantation full of slaves.

George Mason, the father of the Bill of Rights, also owned slaves, unfortunately. But does that make what they wrote illegitimate?

[kevm14]

Nobody wants to have a reasonable conversation like this, it seems. Why is that?

[Adam]

There are no statues of Hitler in Germany yet somehow everyone still knows who he is. Pretty sure the presence of statues has nothing to do with the knowledge of history, especially now.

Totally stolen from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GxQR6ssap4

[Adam]

The question of whether or not to remove a statue should be up to the owner of the land on which is stands. That is generally a city, state, or potentially university. The decision should be based on the prevailing opinion of the people involved. I.E. the state would vote on on a ballot question, the city would have town hall meetings, and the university would have the board of trustees or whatever. Concerned people would have the opportunity to voice their opinions and the results of a democratic decision process would prevail.

If you live somewhere else, you can voice your opinion but that doesn't mean you have a say in the vote. The town (city?) or Charlottesville decided to remove the statue. Was there not a meeting or vote that made this decision?

People are obviously overreacting about monument removal after the events and making all sorts of demands. The cities/states/wherever that own these monuments/properties should do the right thing for the residents of that area.

[kevm14]

That's fair. But pretty sure defacing public property is still a crime. And doesn't erase the past.

[Adam]

The problem from both sides is a bunch of people travelled to somewhere they didn't live and tried to tell the people there what they should do with the things in their city. Then a member of one of those groups drove their car into the other group injuring many and killing one.

[kevm14]

Sounds just like the Ferguson riots....

[Adam]

That's fair. But pretty sure defacing public property is still a crime. And doesn't erase the past.

I'm not saying defacing public property isn't a crime. If you want a statue removed from your town/state, there is a mechanism in place for addressing that. If you want a statue removed from someone else's town/state, you can tell them that, but if they tell you to fuck off, you should go home, not straight to the statue with a sawzall.

[kevm14]

No disagreement here...