Was it really necessary to melt down the Robert E. Lee statue?

[7,052,770]

A lot of liberals did make that claim as a kind of compromise for removing the statues. Now that this statue has been melted down, it calls into question what they'll do with for example Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln memorials when they tear those down.

Those statues won't be taken down, unless they were put up way after the Civil War explicitly to intimidate blacks.

They will, and some of them already have been pulled down by vandals and rioters. And New York took down a 200 year-old Thomas Jefferson statue a while back. I remember a Late Show segment with Stephen Colbert virtue signalling about how much he hates slave owners. And it'll go beyond that too. Gradually every monument will be removed and every building or site will be renamed after someone supposedly less offensive. It's very obvious that this is the direction that liberals are going so I don't see any reason to lie about it or play dumb.

There may be occasional isolated incidents of that, but I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of statues to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln will still be standing in 2100, while 0 or almost 0 Confederate ones will be. Why? Because normal people want the Confederate statues down, but not the Washington/Lincoln ones. If what's "normal" changes in the next 77 years, maybe I'll be wrong, but I doubt it.

[Trans Rights Are Human Rights]

Ferguson97 Atlas Star ★★★★★ Posts: 25,915

Re: Was it really necessary to melt down the Robert E. Lee statue? « Reply #78 on: October 29, 2023, 06:15:30 PM » I will say this and that is if my ideas for how our history should be taught and represented both Yellowhammer and Ferguson would team up to try to stop it Slavery was not the fault of "Europeans", you dummy.

Yellowhammer Sr. Member ★★★★ Posts: 2,687

Re: Was it really necessary to melt down the Robert E. Lee statue? « Reply #79 on: October 29, 2023, 06:21:14 PM » I will say this and that is if my ideas for how our history should be taught and represented both Yellowhammer and Ferguson would team up to try to stop it Slavery was not the "fault" of Europeans, you dummy.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Ferguson97 Atlas Star ★★★★★ Posts: 25,915

Re: Was it really necessary to melt down the Robert E. Lee statue? « Reply #78 on: October 29, 2023, 06:15:30 PM » I will say this and that is if my ideas for how our history should be taught and represented both Yellowhammer and Ferguson would team up to try to stop it Slavery was not the fault of "Europeans", you dummy.

Yellowhammer Sr. Member ★★★★ Posts: 2,687

Re: Was it really necessary to melt down the Robert E. Lee statue? « Reply #79 on: October 29, 2023, 06:21:14 PM » I will say this and that is if my ideas for how our history should be taught and represented both Yellowhammer and Ferguson would team up to try to stop it Slavery was not the "fault" of Europeans, you dummy.

Neo Confederates and SJW would be proven to be one and the same (people who hate America) so makes perfect sense they would try to fight my ideas on how history should be taught and represented

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Robert E. Lee is one of the greatest Americans ever. He needs more statues in the south, not less. Lee embodied everything a southern gentleman ought to be. Duty, honor, tradition, faith, and respect for ones homeland and the people there.

You forgot owner of other humans

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

shame on any of you who take any of deadprez's very low-quality bait

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

shame on any of you who take any of deadprez's very low-quality bait

To be fair, that's probably the finest he's able to offer the forum. 

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

Why would a museum even want a generic Robert E. Lee statue? These things were practically mass-produced in the early 20th century, so that every city south of the Mason Dixon line could honor their "Southern heritage". The majority (though not all) are not unique and have little artistic value. Does every reproduction of a famous painting need to be saved too?

[GALeftist]

Yes. Cope

[All Along The Watchtower]

It was necessary to melt down the entire South during Reconstruction, but that didn't happen unfortunately so the least we can do is take down monuments to slaver-traitors.

[Ferguson97]

If we don't have statues of the traitor Benedict Arnold, why should we have statues of the traitor Robert E. Lee?

Lee should have been executed for treason, not commemorated with a statue.

You would never see the people pearl clutching over this complain about people tearing down Lenin or Stalin or Hitler statues, so why should this be any different? 

Neo-Confederatism needs to be eradicated.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The United States may as well be the Soviet Union at this point.

No, it's the Confederate States of America that is like the Soviet Union.

1) Both were evil, authoritarian, and deeply racist regimes that claimed they had a noble cause

2) Both fought against the United States of America and lost (the USSR never directly, thankfully---for all of us)

3) Both no longer exist, although there are still apologists for both, because of widespread historical illiteracy on the part of many and active mendacity on the part of some who take advantage of the former

Personally, I'm glad that both of these regimes are on the ash-heap of history and we don't need public memorials to the fiends who ran them if we want to remember, understand, and learn from them!

[7,052,770]

If a South African city decided to take down a statue of Hendrik Verwoerd or PW Botha, would that be OK or "erasing history" ? I will specifically note that said South African city is not claiming that those prime ministers didn't exist (as if anyone could actually do that in modern times anyway), just that they did not deserve the honor of having a statue. I think even our blue avatars would say that it was fine.

I also think we can all agree that apartheid was worse than Jim Crow, but that the chattel slavery system across the New World that Lee and other Confederates fought explicitly to maintain is worse.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Again my proposal is to melt it down and use the metal to create a statue of John Brown.

[Splash]

Personally, I would have had a charged-admission public viewing where the statue would have been blown up and the proceeds from the viewing donated to the NAACP but that's just me. Melting it down works too.

[Dr. MB]

The United States may as well be the Soviet Union at this point.

No, it's the Confederate States of America that is like the Soviet Union.

1) Both were evil, authoritarian, and deeply racist regimes that claimed they had a noble cause

2) Both fought against the United States of America and lost (the USSR never directly, thankfully---for all of us)

3) Both no longer exist, although there are still apologists for both, because of widespread historical illiteracy on the part of many and active mendacity on the part of some who take advantage of the former

Personally, I'm glad that both of these regimes are on the ash-heap of history and we don't need public memorials to the fiends who ran them if we want to remember, understand, and learn from them!

I mean on the one and only defining, existential issue of the Confederacy (race and slavery in America) the USSR was definitely on the opposing side. This comparison doesn't make a lot of sense.

[The Arizonan]

If they cannot put these statues in a museum or warehouse, why not put them in the middle of an opening in a forest and just leave them there?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If they cannot put these statues in a museum or warehouse, why not put them in the middle of an opening in a forest and just leave them there?

what's the point of going through all that trouble?

[The Arizonan]

If they cannot put these statues in a museum or warehouse, why not put them in the middle of an opening in a forest and just leave them there?

what's the point of going through all that trouble?

Preservation.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If they cannot put these statues in a museum or warehouse, why not put them in the middle of an opening in a forest and just leave them there?

what's the point of going through all that trouble?

Preservation.

Why? Why must we preserve a Robert E. Lee statue?

[Koharu]

If they cannot put these statues in a museum or warehouse, why not put them in the middle of an opening in a forest and just leave them there?

On whose land? If a state or national park, it's going to look like the government is endorsing those people, and the statue will have to be maintained to keep it from polluting the environment. I haven't looked into it enough to hear if any private owners offered to buy these statues, but that would have been the only option.

The reality is no one wanted to deal with the expense of long-term maintenance of these statues, and melting them down was the best option. They're just statues and history is not lost because they're gone.