Andrew Jackson statues belong in museums. The man literally bought frontier lands as POTUS then marched Indians off his lands in the rather famous Trail of Tears.

Then he put slaves on stolen Indian land to work his plantations.

Then he treated his slaves rather brutally even by standards of the time.

American History cannot be complete without examining the work of Andrew Jackson, but he definitely belongs in “preserved but not celebrated” box.

Tear his statues down and please let’s get someone else on the $20 bill.

People who try to make the arguments that statues are about preserving history are 100 percent full of ****. You put up museums to preserve history, you put up statues to celebrate people.

We don't have statues of Hitler, we don't have statues of whoever gave the order to bomb Pearl Harbor and we shouldn't have statues of Confederate soldiers.

Some statues should be in museums to preserve the history of the circumstances that resulted in them being built and displayed in public. Eg "This statue was erected in the town square of the city of xyz in 1908 at the behest of the city council, or whomever, in order to proclaim etc. etc."

This is an excellent point. The history regarding the erection of these statues is arguably more important than the individuals being commemorated.

I don't think either side argues in good faith.

I can't think of a reasonable argument to keep statues of confederate leaders on public land, in a museum, or otherwise. We also don't need a statue of Hitler in a museum to know how bad he was. He is perfectly fine being relegated to documentaries and history books. We should progress to the point where confederate memorabilia should be treated like nazi memorabilia, as should communist symbols, but there's the rub.

The only reason Nazi items are banned around the word and not confederate stuff is that Jews have power and influence.

It's sad to see this injustice. But that's another example to show how racist America is. Imagine you are black and your ancestors were lynched by an evil kkk mob?
And then you walk in the park and come across the bust of a grand wizard dragon kkk leader in confederate uniform on a horse? Wtf honestly is the USA thinking?
It's a no brainer if you talk about victims of the holocaust but victims of the racists in America get a free ride?
Have to say USA is not advanced on that issue. More like backwards. Wtf was obama doing in those 8 years? Have to assume this is why people are disappointed with him.

Sorry you are so incoherant I cannot even dsicern what point you are trying to make.

Is your issue that I say:

- Historical figures no matter how heinous should not be erased from the history books. While they should not be displayed in public people who want to learn the history should be able to seek it out in Universities, museums, books,...'

And you think

- no. There should be no venues or ways to learn about them?


I am honestly trying to figure out what you are trying to saying. You are just so bad at it.

I agree.

I think that is an important and not easy question.

I tried to address it in the OP by identifying extremists on the left and right will never approach this with nuance but i think most others can.

I think you need to look at the person from the 1000 foot view. View the ENTIRETY of their lives, what they contributed to society, and what that meant to many people.

If someone is trying to focus a micro focus on one element to the exclusion of all others they are probably on the extremes and need to be ignored.


When it comes to many or most of the statues of Confederate soldiers it is clear that many/most of them were commissioned out of sour grapes and a middle finger to Northerners and minorities. A guy like Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen because of his service in the war and because even after the War ended and the South lost, he continued the battle and to terrorize blacks as a KKK leader who helped spread the organization all through the Jim Crow era and lynch those defiant Negro's who dared to think things would change with the end of the war.

There really is nothing redeeming about him and that is WHY he was chosen and why they want his statue in the most public frequented places.

But you have people see that. Know why EXACTLY it was commissioned and put where it was and say 'ya, but it has been there since the 70 and 80's so it needs to stay forever. Leave it alone.'

In states where the municipalities refuse to remove statues, residents should take to dressing the statues in funny and humiliating costumes.

Statues seem like such outliers in a society. Who is paying so much attention to statues anyway?

I'd be fine with getting rid of certain statues in a vacuum, but the problem is the idea starts seeping in to other places - like Gone with the Wind being temporarily hidden - or whatever they did to it - and then will probably come back with some preachy prelude before the movie starts.

If the thing in question was created for some oppression purposes, okay, get rid of it, but if it's just reflecting actual history, deal with it.

lmao

That would be a good reason to forgive people like Biden or Kavanaugh if they were otherwise admirable. But not those who were OK with slavery all their life. When I was arguing with Bruce Z about this subject I pointed out that it would not be at all immoral to murder a slaveholder if it would free his slaves. I think he reluctantly agreed. When you evaluate the ENTIRETY of someone's life you can't just count up the good hours vs the bad. They must have ratings or numbers attached to them. For Lee to deserve a statue displayed in public, he needed to have cured cancer.

Getting rid of statues is fine. But I think we all know it won't end there. Next up will be eliminating mention of confederacy figures in museums. Because controlling the past means controlling the future.

Even a majority of Jews know enough to keep places like Auschwitz open to expose the present public to the atrocities done there. IMO it's important to teach people that eliminating the past won't prevent the past from repeating itself. Or we can ask a representative that has a great deal of knowledge and also a dog in the fight :

- Profesor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, historian, author, diplomat and former Auschwitz inmate.

What in the ****????

Okay, so we should do what the Jews did. Got it, sounds like a plan. Do they have statues of Nazis everywhere around Germany? Do they fly the Nazi flag openly to "teach people about the past"?

Well, no, not exactly. So can we remove those things here too, then? No, says Jimmy, because if we do we'll remove them from the museums too! (what????????)

Lol what. Jews don't put statues of Hitler up in town squares. They keep that **** in museums, where it belongs, and nobody has got rid of it to erase history.

Like it should be telling that literally no one in the Confederate monuments debate (at least no one I've ever seen, before someone hits me with a random WordPress blog) has ever proposed shutting down actual Civil War museums, but that doesn't stop people like Jimmy from randomly and wildly asserting that those are the next to go after public statues.

Definitely one of those, as you put it, "your brain on conservatism" moments. I tried to google up a funny meme for that but no cigar

What Lithuania can teach us about grappling with Confederate statues

Sounds like a good plan! Perhaps the park could also discuss the reasons those statues were put up in the first place.

When your 4-year old throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store and you give them candy as soon as they start screaming, they'll scream every time they're in the grocery store.

I'm confused. Are the screaming toddlers supposed to represent cops patrolling Black neighborhoods?

Is getting beaten and tear gassed the "candy"? Or do I have this totally backwards and screaming 4-year-olds are those whining every time one of their precious statues gets torn down, and the candy is fawning right-wing media telling these upset people they're very, very special?