The Statue Wars Begin

If we are going to start a war of removing statues - I suggest that we start with this one..



On all levels this is offensive.

Despite the original intent of some of them, I don't think these statues currently suppress anyone's free speech, but if they are erected or endorsed by the State and positioned on public land, they are not expressions of free speech they are expressions of the government's views. This fact is unchanged by how many people agree with the expression or whether it can be considered benign or malignant. As such they are not deserving of any consideration based on the First Amendment, and raising it either in defense or opposition of them is a red herring.

That liberals are attacking the Bewitched statue as offensive is hilarious.

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a liberal.

“We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue.”

University of Houston to change the name of its Calhoun Lofts dorm because it shares a name with the 19th-century vice president and white supremacist John C. Calhoun, even though, a university spokeswoman told the Houston Chronicle, “the residence hall was not named in recognition of John C. Calhoun” but a nearby street.

In Atlanta, likewise, protesters last week attempted to tear down that city’s Peace Monument, apparently mistaking it for a Confederate shrine. The sculpture was erected to honor those who worked for reunification during Reconstruction.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a 90-day review of any statues on city property that could be “symbols of hate.” New Yorkers are now taking aim at the Christopher Columbus statue in Columbus Circle and the tomb of Ulysses S. Grant. (Grant? What did he do other than win the Civil War for the North and the Abolitionist/)

Some object to the Theodore Roosevelt statue outside the Museum of Natural History, (Because he hunted and killed black bears?) and others suggest the name “New York” itself may have to go because the Duke of York was a slave trader. New York chef Tom Colicchio dropped the name of his new restaurant because it was named after a building that was named after 19th-century publishers who had racist views.

There’s a movement in Massachusetts to rename Boston’s Faneuil Hall, cradle of the Revolution, because the 1742 structure was built by a slave trader and owner, Peter Faneuil. Residents of Philadelphia and Seattle, not to be left out, want to remove statues of, respectively, Frank Rizzo and Vladimir Lenin. (Well that's a twist! Must be a Neo-Nazi group or else it's been rumored that Lenin enjoyed Minstrel Shows when he was in exile in Western Europe)

Some may see this as a pell-mell rush to replicate George Orwell’s “1984,” in which “every statue and street and building has been renamed.” But I don’t think it goes far enough (Hold on, hold on. He's kidding about it not going far enough).

As there are obviously insensitive clods here expressing their indignation, I think it will be useful to point out that trivializing what was an horrific and brutal act against basically defenseless women is what people object to.

That liberals are attacking the Bewitched statue as offensive is hilarious.

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a liberal.

Quote:

As there are obviously insensitive clods here expressing their indignation, I think it will be useful to point out that trivializing what was an horrific and brutal act against basically defenseless women is what people object to.

Finn, is Setanta joking? This overhyped hysteria over a dozen "defenseless" White women being brutalized over 320 years ago seems like a joke... but he seems so serious.

Please Finn.... is this supposed to be funny? Because I find it ironically funny.

If he is serious, maybe it is more funny given that he is overlooking the racial segregation in this colony, on stolen land, that had a role in Slavery. Of course attacking "defenseless women" has always been hyped up... the tragic death of 14 White Women trumps the deaths of thousands of slaves I suppose.

When the going gets stupid, the stupid turn pro....a vandal in Baltimore took a sledgehammer to what is believed to be the oldest Columbus monument in the United States, a 225-year-old work whose cornerstone was laid in 1792. For maximum publicity value, the vandal or an associate brazenly posted the video of his handiwork to YouTube as he gleefully narrated.

As George Orwell saw it, in 1984: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

New York City in 2017 is a one-party place where high elected officials literally parade down Fifth Avenue next to terrorists who were convicted of shocking crimes in the 1970s, but where an inanimate hunk of metal commemorating Christopher Columbus that has stood in the city for 125 years is declared a menace to society. The hard-left city-council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito — who last made headlines when she appeared next to convicted terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera on a float at the head of the Puerto Rican Day Parade in June — called for taking down the Christopher Columbus statue...

Is (Big Bird)de Blasio bothering to ask the people he supposedly represents whether they want statues ripped off their perches? Of course not.

Every governor in the country should be ordering up legislation like North Carolina’s to bar cities and the extremists who wield power in them from removing any more longstanding historical markers without state approval

it is the duty of the (more) conservative party to preserve history and heed the people, who have said again and again by wide margins in polls that they do not want historical statues ripped down.

The Lincoln Memorial has already been vandalized and a spokesperson for Mark-Viverito called for Grant’s Tomb to be put under review, citing the general’s anti-Semitic streak. That one is a national monument, not a city one, so it may be safe from Mark-Viverito’s clutches for now.