Taking down statues

[watsup1000]

Yes, I think that the practice of tearing down statues has gone too far. Christopher Columbus? Thomas Jefferson? Really?

We are all victims of the culture of the times in which we are live, and that applies to the two listed above. It was expected to enslave and mistreat those natives that "civilized" people came across in the days of "discovering the world", and the ownership of slaves on the estates of the South was quite accepted among a large part of the populace in the late 18th century. That does not make it right, of course, but neither does it downgrade the accomplishments of sailing across an ocean to find a different continent, or being a prime mover in the development and inception of a new nation based on democratic principles. That is why the statues are there, and that is why they should be honored. Which is not to say that those actions that were wrong should not be pointed out. They should.

But what about the statues dedicated to the Confederacy. Were they not also victims of a "nation" and a culture dedicated to the maintenance and extension of the scourge of slavery. Indeed they were. Both the soldiers and the generals were fighting for "the honor of the nation". The difference, of course, is that those particular statues were erected specifically in order to honor the "nation" that went to war to preserve slavery, and that is quite different from finding a continent of which the European peoples of the time were unaware, or of starting a new democratic nation.

So each statue would have to be judged on its merits. Many want to take down statues because the person uttered some racist statements, but this was in an era when the n-word was quite accepted, even in polite society. It was during the apartheid era of the nation when blacks were simply treated as unimportant to the fabric of the nation. Those utterances were often made by people who did not even realize what they were saying and who were, indeed, victims of a CULTURE of racism in which the very great majority of the nation participated.

Again, this does not mean that we should not learn from the mistakes of the past and make every effort to change them for the positive, but I simply don't think that the people who lived in those times should have to shoulder all the blame for them.

Is being a victim of culture still a problem? Of course it is. We still have a culture of racism in which a great many, if not most, right-wingers and Republicans participate while seeing themselves as free of racism because that is what their FOX/Rush culture tells them. And we have a culture of Trumpism in which the "president" can do virtually anything he wants in the way of anti-democratic and personal corruption without the slightest bit of outrage from right-winger Republicans, and again the FOX/Rush/fundie culture tells them that's perfectly acceptable and even "patriotic".

And they will demand statues of Trump in the public square, sooner rather than later.

[Mark B]

We could leave them up but draw big mustaches on 'em.

[donquixote99]

We had statues of Trump in the public square already, but they took them down: