Thomas Jefferson Statue Toppled

[ThatRobGuy]

In some cases, they don't even know which statue they're toppling...

They defaced the statue of Matthias Baldwin in Philly.

Park Volunteer Outraged over Vandalism of Monument to Philadelphia Abolitionist: 'He Was BLM Before There Was A Slogan' | National Review


I understand the opposition to certain confederate monuments, parks, etc... and have always made the distinction between "history preservation" and "reverence". For instance, preserving a monument put up by people who actually served under a commanding officer and knew them personally, "history". Building a new school in the deep south in 1986 and naming it after Jefferson Davis, "reverence"...or the naming of certain parks and buildings after confederate officers in the 1960's and 70's as a "middle finger" to the federal government due to being mad over civil rights legislation, also "reverence".


However, this "any old-looking statue of a white guy must be a monument to racism" is an example of "ready, fire, aim" by millennials who are filled with more P&V than actual historical knowledge.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Some context - Jefferson high school is “the” black school in Portland. So it’s particularly uncomfortable for those black students and their families that their school is named after a slaveholder.

That's silly....if black people move into a particular neighborhood and become the majority, we should remove anything that might make them "uncomfortable"?

If they leave and become the minority, do we get to put the statues back up? Why are we only considering the feelings of black people? If a bunch of feminists claimed that a statue of MLK jr made them "uncomfortable"....should it be torn down? He was an adulterer after all...

I think it’s quite important that we finally reckon, in a real way, with the fact that so many of our “founding fathers” did some atrocious things. That there was a time not so long ago when certain groups were so dehumanized that people who were seen as wise and good treated them like animals. And we have to ask ourselves how we can expect the descendants of those dehumanized people to see the perpetrators revered and not be upset. We should also be asking ourselves what atrocities we commit now that seem normal and wise, that our descendants will be ashamed of? I don’t have an answer to how we move forward, but I feel no sadness about Jefferson’s statue being pulled down in my city and I support the call to rename the school.

There's literally nobody in history who hasn't said or done something that we wouldn't consider wrong. Here's a group of people who are pushing for a Kaepernick statue....

UNR alumni group pushes for Colin Kaepernick statue

Here's a statement from Kaepernick after the US killed an Iranian general...

"America has always sanctioned and besieged Black and Brown bodies both at home and abroad. America militarism is the weapon wielded by American imperialism, to enforce its policing and plundering of the non white world.”

Now, anyone who served in the military might justifiably be uncomfortable by a Kaepernick statue at their school. Does that give them the right to pull it down?

Thomas Jefferson is an inspiration to me....not just as an American, but as an atheist. He had the courage to say things about christianity and religion that could get a person killed in his day. He had a secret copy of the bible that was edited to remove the miracles and other elements he considered mythological. Christians might justifiably be uncomfortable at the sight of him....but I don't recall them ever pulling his statue down.

Anyone can be offended by anything....that's part of living in a free society where freedom of expression is permitted. You have a right to express yourself....but you have no right to not be offended.

The reality is that nearly every nation today was built upon the death or oppression of some group of people. The Franks were at one point just one of several tribes fighting for control of the region now known as France. The Angles and Saxons fought it out until they assimilated into one group called Anglo-Saxons who then oppressed the Welsh and Scots. Nearly every major monument of human effort from the pyramids to the Colosseum to the Parthenon to Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal were all built on the backs of slaves and the conquered.

If anyone is unaware that this is how nations are created....that's their fault. It's old news. It's not a reason to tear down monuments or the society that was created.

 

[Ana the Ist]

In some cases, they don't even know which statue they're toppling...

They defaced the statue of Matthias Baldwin in Philly.

Park Volunteer Outraged over Vandalism of Monument to Philadelphia Abolitionist: 'He Was BLM Before There Was A Slogan' | National Review


I understand the opposition to certain confederate monuments, parks, etc... and have always made the distinction between "history preservation" and "reverence". For instance, preserving a monument put up by people who actually served under a commanding officer and knew them personally, "history". Building a new school in the deep south in 1986 and naming it after Jefferson Davis, "reverence"...or the naming of certain parks and buildings after confederate officers in the 1960's and 70's as a "middle finger" to the federal government due to being mad over civil rights legislation, also "reverence".


However, this "any old-looking statue of a white guy must be a monument to racism" is an example of "ready, fire, aim" by millennials who are filled with more P&V than actual historical knowledge.

I never really opposed the idea of removing some statue of Jefferson Davis that was erected in the mid 1900s by a neo Confederate group trying to rebrand their history. I did however, think it was the sort of thing that should be done officially through the proper channels.

The reason why is because the mob doing these things seems to have no real understanding of history. They simply see a statue of a white man...and figure they're good people for tearing it down or defacing it. I knew this when I saw they went after some statue of V I Lenin years ago.

 

[rjs330]

I'm just waiting for the day when they decide they want to get rid of the Constitution cause it was written by a bunch of old white slaveowners.

Maybe we should just get rid of the US altogether. Afterall it was founded on slavery and only established when they agreed that slavery could exist.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I'm just waiting for the day when they decide they want to get rid of the Constitution cause it was written by a bunch of old white slaveowners.

Maybe we should just get rid of the US altogether. Afterall it was founded on slavery and only established when they agreed that slavery could exist.

I know you're exaggerating....but sometimes it does feel that way.

It's probably years ago at this point....but I posted a list of Black Lives Matter demands on a few different threads. It was, in all sincerity, the most ridiculous and implicitly racist list I'd ever seen. If I posted it and replaced the word "black" with "white" and told you it was a list of goals for some neo nazi group....I don't think you'd doubt it.

I don't remember everything on the list....but the gust of it was....

Give us...land, wealth, free healthcare, free education, all positions of power within the government, get rid of police and free all the black criminals in prison. It was as if anything done by white people, ever, was wrong and could be corrected by replacing white people with black people and giving them everything white people had, and more.

It's a list that should have ended the movement....but the media didn't really report it. The few articles that did only reported a handful of the more reasonable demands or they didn't report any and just left a link.

When abolishing police doesn't work....we'll see where it turns to next. Dismantle the government? Abolish the state?

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

Gotcha! I don't see any of these protestors converting to Eastern ideals. They tend to remain capitalists when entering adulthood (the left in general) and they sure love the prosperity supplied by free markets like the iPhone and Honda.

The frenzy for the destruction of historical artwork is reminiscent of China's Cultural Revolution, or for a more recent example, ISIS - and the left these days is not anti-capitalist...

 

[Archivist]

Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, a sentiment he obviously didn’t believe in considering he enslaved his own children.

Jefferson borrowed those words from a pamphlet written by James Wilson. I don’t see any statues of Wilson out there.

 

[Caliban]

The frenzy for the destruction of historical artwork is reminiscent of China's Cultural Revolution, or for a more recent example, ISIS - and the left these days is not anti-capitalist...

That I agree with. However, read the Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey, It's a surprising read.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

People and their worshiping of graven images…

 

[rjs330]

I know you're exaggerating....but sometimes it does feel that way.


It's probably years ago at this point....but I posted a list of Black Lives Matter demands on a few different threads. It was, in all sincerity, the most ridiculous and implicitly racist list I'd ever seen. If I posted it and replaced the word "black" with "white" and told you it was a list of goals for some neo nazi group....I don't think you'd doubt it.

I don't remember everything on the list....but the gust of it was....

Give us...land, wealth, free healthcare, free education, all positions of power within the government, get rid of police and free all the black criminals in prison. It was as if anything done by white people, ever, was wrong and could be corrected by replacing white people with black people and giving them everything white people had, and more.

It's a list that should have ended the movement....but the media didn't really report it. The few articles that did only reported a handful of the more reasonable demands or they didn't report any and just left a link.

When abolishing police doesn't work....we'll see where it turns to next. Dismantle the government? Abolish the state?

I know. It's a movement far beyond just looking at police brutality, which is how it is represented. Its a movement that supports every single liberal agenda these days AND is still implicitly racist because it demands special privileges for a particular race.

Since the United States was founded upon racism and slavery I say we abolish the Constitution and the government we start over. Oh wait, we can't do that because America is still a racist country with nothing but white privilege. No matter what we do to found a new government we still will be a racist white privilege country.

 

[Caliban]

I know. It's a movement far beyond just looking at police brutality, which is how it is represented. Its a movement that supports every single liberal agenda these days AND is still implicitly racist because it demands special privileges for a particular race.

Since the United States was founded upon racism and slavery I say we abolish the Constitution and the government we start over. Oh wait, we can't do that because America is still a racist country with nothing but white privilege. No matter what we do to found a new government we still will be a racist white privilege country.

Check out this link to the "What We Believe" Section on the BLM website.
Gems like this are interesting:
"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."

 

[rjs330]

People and their worshiping of graven images…

Yeah, it's not about that. I don't see anyone worshipping Jefferson.

 

[rjs330]

Jefferson borrowed those words from a pamphlet written by James Wilson. I don’t see any statues of Wilson out there.

Not every one that served in the government or had part of the founding got a statue. Wilson was part of the team that built the Declaration and the Constitution. Not everyone who had a hand in that got a statue. Jefferson got one not just because he was involved in that, but because of all the other things he did as well, including being president. If a state or community wanted to acknowledge him for that, then who are we to say they shouldn't.

Statues should not be torn down by the mob. If a community wants to remove it by a vote then remove it legally. Tearing it down, defacing it etc is a crime and those that dis it should be punished.

 

[rjs330]

Check out this link to the "What We Believe" Section on the BLM website.
Gems like this are interesting:
"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."

Yep. They are for continuing to encourage the practice in the black community that has been a significant reason for it's struggles over the last 50 years or so.

 

[Archivist]

Not every one that served in the government or had part of the founding got a statue. Wilson was part of the team that built the Declaration and the Constitution. Not everyone who had a hand in that got a statue. Jefferson got one not just because he was involved in that, but because of all the other things he did as well, including being president. If a state or community wanted to acknowledge him for that, then who are we to say they shouldn't.

I didn’t say that Wilson should have a statue, I just pointed out that he didn’t have one despite all that he did. I hear some people saying that these statues should be left up because it is our history. Well many who contributed to our history don’t have statues.

BTW if Wilson had convinced enough people in the Constitutional Convention, Trump would not be our president. Wilson pushed for the direct election of the President by popular vote.

Statues should not be torn down by the mob. If a community wants to remove it by a vote then remove it legally. Tearing it down, defacing it etc is a crime and those that dis it should be punished.

I never said that statues should be torn down by mobs. If they are going to be removed it should be done legally.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I'm just waiting for the day when they decide they want to get rid of the Constitution cause it was written by a bunch of old white slaveowners.

Maybe we should just get rid of the US altogether. Afterall it was founded on slavery and only established when they agreed that slavery could exist.

It's a case of people trying to employ the logic of "judge people who lived 200 years ago by today's standards"

If that's going to be the standard, then take down anything made by people more than 100 years ago...because times change, and I'd guarantee that nobody in those times would live up to today's social standards.


...and that's not just the case with political related stuff. It's true of a number of things.

People still pay homage to Isaac Newton in the science realm, even though he thought ingesting mercury would turn it into gold (which everyone in modern times knows is absurd), yet, it's not controversial to mention his name in a high school science class.

Aristotle thought the earth was the center of the universe...

etc...

People who were considered great men by the standard of their time wouldn't be considered great by modern day standards.

Does anyone think that Doctor from 1850 could sit at a table with modern day Doctors have anything even resembling a productive conversation about disease and medicine? If the best doctor in the world in 1850 treated people, and people applied 2020 standards to them, they'd be regarded as a quack/charlatan and probably be locked up for harming people. In fact, if there was a time machine, and we could bring prominent doctors from the 1800's to present day and show them an MRI machine, their comment would likely be "what is this witchcraft???"

That doesn't mean that a statue/museum/etc.. dedicated to Louis Pasteur is a "monument to incorrect theories about fermentation"...nor should it negate any of the positive contributions he had to medicine that were the building blocks to much better things later on.

 

[rjs330]

I didn’t say that Wilson should have a statue, I just pointed out that he didn’t have one despite all that he did. I hear some people saying that these statues should be left up because it is our history. Well many who contributed to our history don’t have statues.

BTW if Wilson had convinced enough people in the Constitutional Convention, Trump would not be our president. Wilson pushed for the direct election of the President by popular vote.



I never said that statues should be torn down by mobs. If they are going to be removed it should be done legally.

I agree. And who really cares that everyone involved did not get a statue? I certainly don't. It's irrelevant. What's relevant is some communities wanted one and got one. And they get to choose who they out up.

So, the fact that one founder is chosen over another is irrelevant. And Jefferson was part of our history and so in tearing him down people are trying to erase historical monuments.

If a community decides to do that they have that right, just like they had the right to put it up in the first place. A mob doesn't have a right to force or tear it down. So I am glad we agree on that point.

 

[rjs330]

It's a case of people trying to employ the logic of "judge people who lived 200 years ago by today's standards"

If that's going to be the standard, then take down anything made by people more than 100 years ago...because times change, and I'd guarantee that nobody in those times would live up to today's social standards.


...and that's not just the case with political related stuff. It's true of a number of things.

People still pay homage to Isaac Newton in the science realm, even though he thought ingesting mercury would turn it into gold (which everyone in modern times knows is absurd), yet, it's not controversial to mention his name in a high school science class.

Aristotle thought the earth was the center of the universe...

etc...

People who were considered great men by the standard of their time wouldn't be considered great by modern day standards.

Does anyone think that Doctor from 1850 could sit at a table with modern day Doctors have anything even resembling a productive conversation about disease and medicine? If the best doctor in the world in 1850 treated people, and people applied 2020 standards to them, they'd be regarded as a quack/charlatan and probably be locked up for harming people. In fact, if there was a time machine, and we could bring prominent doctors from the 1800's to present day and show them an MRI machine, their comment would likely be "what is this witchcraft???"

That doesn't mean that a statue/museum/etc.. dedicated to Louis Pasteur is a "monument to incorrect theories about fermentation"...nor should it negate any of the positive contributions he had to medicine that were the building blocks to much better things later on.

If you ask me we ought to tear down the pyramids and the sphinx for the same reasons. They were built by slaves. We ought to go to Rome and rip.down all the Roman architecture there as well.

In fact we all ought to.move back to Europe and turn the country back to the Indians. Then when we get back to Europe we can all go back to tribalism and war there since EVERY piece if ground was taken in war from someone else and slavery was part of the process. Then we can swarm into Africa and all the Africans, Arabs and the whites can all battle of who were the worst slavers.

This is nuts.

 

[FireDragon76]

I think Washington and Jefferson were dangerously lionized in the past. Something both men themselves would not approve of. Perhaps this is an over-reaction, but I believe it's also in response to decades of overinflated status for these men. For too long the US has been under the influence of a certain kind of mythmaking that has kept the white majority from dealing soberly with reality.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

I myself would agree that Thomas Jefferson is overrated as a philosopher. That said, he was an excellent President.