Protesters destroy confederate monument in Durham

[Badlanguage]

The thing about history, is that you can't change it. What is the point of destroying public works of art, what will it accomplish?

[Flarelaine]

Robert E Lee never owned a slave and even was against it.

A flagrant lie. Lee owned slaves and ran a plantation.

Grant and Sherman both owned slaves right until the 13th amendment passed.

Again, sources.

[Elba]

The thing about history, is that you can't change it. What is the point of destroying public works of art, what will it accomplish?

No longer publicly glorifying slavers and traitors. History isn't going anywhere.

[Aeula]

Historical landmark? Dude, you see how shitty quality that thing was? How easy it came apart? Those things were mass produced and put up in the early 20th century. Nothing historic about them.

Just because it isn't high quality doesn't make it unimportant to history. At the very least it's an example of statues from that era.

[Elba]

Just because it isn't high quality doesn't make it unimportant to history. At the very least it's an example of statues from that era.

Dude, its kitsch. You think people forget because we take down that crap? Ever heard of books?

[Dead Moose Fandango]

Ugh. I wish we could just send all the extremists on both sides into the sun with a rocket. A very large rocket. Protests can work, but the message is lost when you resort to extreme idiocy.

[Dextroden]

Dude, its kitsch. You think people forget because we take down that crap? Ever heard of books?

Ever heard of vandalism?

I guess we can tear the pyramids down because they were made with slave labor.

[Realitytrembles]

this is how you make more far right backlash

If they are moved to this backlash by the destruction of monuments dedicated to traitors, they can go ahead and riot. Police could use the target practice.

[Badlanguage]

Half of the founding fathers of the U.S owned slaves, when do their statues get torn down by a bunch of entitled children?

[Eviscero]

Only people who hide things are either: ashamed or embarrassed.

False; I don't hide things, and I am both ashamed and embaressed...

In all seriousness, a public statue is a glorification, not a history lesson.

[Wyrt]

They should have moved it into a museum. The left is more hateful than anything I've ever seen.

Oh no! People hate symbols of racism erected by racists! How horrible!

[Flarelaine]

Freedom Square in Budapest is the best example I can think of here - a Red Army memorial shares space with a statue of Reagan and nearby there is a bust of Horthy (a staunch anti-communist and ally of Hitler). Even the holocaust memorial manages to be controversial, as it depicts poor Hungary as a victim of Nazi aggression rather than acknowledging the complicty of many Hungarians of the time.

TLDR: We erect statues and memorials to deeply controversial figures and groups and then argue about them just like they do in the US.

There is indeed a bust of Horthy, but it is on private property overlooking the square as no government ever dared go as far as to raise a statue to him.

On the other other hand, you forgot we also have a statue of an American general, who is the most deserving of it, actually.

[Elba]

Ever heard of vandalism?

Which isn't inherently bad.

I guess we can tear the pyramids down because they were made with slave labor.

The pyramids were build with paid labor, actually.

And even if they were build by slaves, those people and their descendants would have been dead for 5000 years.

They are not a symbol glorifying slavery in the public space of a country that still directly deals with the aftermath.

[Realitytrembles]

At the time it was perfectly legal for a state to succeed from the US. A law was written after the Civil War to make succession illegal. So they were not traitors the statue in question was one to the southern soldiers that died in the war not a specific person.

Really? Show me where in the Constitution that it is explicitly written the mechanism by which a state was allowed to leave the Union. I'll wait.

You can't, because it isn't there.

Therefore, traitors.

No sympathy for the CSA. Nor for the blood spilled by their soldiers. It was in defense of a shame to our republic.

[Aeula]

Dude, its kitsch. You think people forget because we take down that crap? Ever heard of books?

History is more than some historians point of view written down on paper.

[Elba]

History is more than some historians point of view written down on paper.

Okay? Still, some mass produced crap statue glorifying slavers and traitors is not needed to remember shit. The statue serves no other purpose.

[Deleted]

On the other other hand, you forgot we also have a statue of an American general, who is the most deserving of it, actually.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle

[glowzone]

Good lord, it's always threads like this that make me realise we're not that much better than feces flinging apes.
That goes for both sides.

[Aeula]

Okay? Still, some mass produced crap statue glorifying slavers and traitors is not needed to remember shit. The statue serves no other purpose.

It belongs in a museum dedicated to the American civil war so people can learn about it.

[Deleted]

This is pure vandalism. The correct solution would be move the statue to a museum, explain its story and be done with it.