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Should Confederate monuments be removed?

Should Confederate monuments be removed?

  • yes

    Votes: 56 52.8%

  • maybe

    Votes: 10 9.4%

  • maybe not

    Votes: 3 2.8%

  • no

    Votes: 32 30.2%

  • don't know

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • don't care

    Votes: 4 3.8%
  • Total voters
    106
R

Rumpel

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Should Confederate monuments be removed?

The vast majority of these Confederate monuments were built during the era of Jim Crow laws (1877–1964). Detractors claim that they were not built as memorials but as a means of intimidating African Americans and reaffirming white supremacy.[9][10][11] The monuments have thus become highly politicized; according to Eleanor Harvey, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and a scholar of Civil War history: "If white nationalists and neo-Nazis are now claiming this as part of their heritage, they have essentially co-opted those images and those statues beyond any capacity to neutralize them again".[4]

In a counter-reaction to the movement to remove Confederate monuments, some Southern states have passed state laws restricting or prohibiting altogether the removal or alteration of public monuments
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Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials - Wikipedia
 
Yes... next question?
 
Rumpel said:
Just removed to somewhere else - or completely destroyed?
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Unsure, depends on where the "somewhere else" is I would assume.
 
Rumpel said:
Should Confederate monuments be removed?



Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials - Wikipedia
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Depends where they are placed, if they are placed in a museum about the history of the civil war, maybe it is appropriate as long as it is not placed there to revere or glorify the slave owning or racist past of a historical figure.

But outside as places of reverence and to honor that person, well I think than removing is appropriate. At least on public lands, privately owned statues can remain because that is not the right of the government to interfere with them.
 
No. Not one. If anything all that have been removed should be returned. Immediately.
 
yes, and placed in a museum with placards that say...this person betrayed their nation and shall from here forward be known as a traitor.
 
Grim17 said:
I think that should be left up to the people of a city, town or state to decide... Not left up to the whims of some out of control mob to decide.

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I would say that if protesters take them down...that means there are sufficient strong feelings about their existence in a town square. Personally, when I see a confederate flag, I want to rip it down and stop on it before lighting it afire....but that is the American in me.
 
Yes. It is an insult to america to create monuments for traitors.
 
ChezC3 said:
No. Not one. If anything all that have been removed should be returned. Immediately.
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They should be preserved in a museum. Symbols of racism and oppression by traitors should not be in public spaces.
 
I chose maybe. For direct homages to slave-owning traitors I upgrade that to a 'yes'.

Now the qualifier. There is still some value or merit in the statues themselves. Rather than being kept as monuments to the wrong people (sorry revisionists, the Confederacy was morally wrong, a doomed cause and one not worth honoring) they could be moved as museum pieces or in some cases even left in place with a rebranded plaque that explains the personage represented in a more honest light.
 
Grim17 said:
I think that should be left up to the people of a city, town or state to decide... Not left up to the whims of some out of control mob to decide.

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I agree. But state legislatures should definitely open a discussion.

lincoln.webp
 
ClaraD said:
I would say that if protesters take them down...that means there are sufficient strong feelings about their existence in a town square. Personally, when I see a confederate flag, I want to rip it down and stop on it before lighting it afire....but that is the American in me.
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You can't allow that to happen for 2 very good reasons... First, let's say a state has a population of 5 million people and 50 protesters decide to take a statue down. You are allowing 0.001% of state residents to make a decision about what is displayed on public property, without considering what the other 99.999% of the state residents might want. That's not democracy, that's mob rule. Second and most obvious, destruction of public property is a crime. You simply can't allow people to destroy public and private property at will. They have no right or authority to do so.

People do not have the right, to not to be offended. What some find offensive, others might revere. You can not allow the "feelings" of a small group of people to dictate things for everyone. People belonging to the offended few, don't have the right to subvert the law or silence the voices and feelings of the many.


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uptower said:
I agree. But state legislatures should definitely open a discussion.
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That's how our society works. If a group of people are offended and want a change of some sort to take place, it's incumbent upon them to present their case in the court of public opinion.

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The brown shirts have spoken. We can not allow those who thought differently than us to be honored. They were all traitors to the cause. Next we must tear down the Crazy Horse Monument. Another traitor who fought against the brown shirt nation. What happened to the party that said we must be all inclusive? I guess we now see their true colors. They only include those who think the same as they.
 
Grim17 said:
You can't allow that to happen for 2 very good reasons... First, let's say a state has a population of 5 million people and 50 protesters decide to take a statue down. You are allowing 0.001% of state residents to make a decision about what is displayed on public property, without considering what the other 99.999% of the state residents might want. That's not democracy, that's mob rule. Second and most obvious, destruction of public property is a crime. You simply can't allow people to destroy public and private property at will. They have no right or authority to do so.

People do not have the right, to not to be offended. What some find offensive, others might revere. You can not allow the "feelings" of a small group of people to dictate things for everyone. People belonging to the offended few, don't have the right to subvert the law or silence the voices and feelings of the many.


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When you are more offended by a statue of a man who raped and robbed and murdered being thrown into the lake, than you are by a man having the life sucked out of him by a police officer for no reason at all there are then clearly huge issues in our society. It seems to me some of you are more offended by STATUES that don't feel or serve purpose being destroyed than people being murdered.
 
Grim17 said:
I think that should be left up to the people of a city, town or state to decide... Not left up to the whims of some out of control mob to decide.

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This. I also believe location is important. If it's located in a museum or memorial designated area, it's fine. It's located at a court house or town hall or city hall, I would say no.
 
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