Some things have been bugging me lately. And I'm gonna discuss a few of them over the weekend, starting with:
Statues
Since the the Charlottesville thing happened where one person was killed by a white nationalist in a car, there has been a sudden need for statues of the confederacy to be pulled down or hidden from view.
I have so many problems with this it's unreal, and hopefully I'm just preaching to the choir, but the amount of times the US bows down to the will of the leftist agenda is somewhat sickening, and I really want to consider myself left-leaning, if I was to give myself any label, but I don't want to be associated with this kind of shit.
Observing these privileged, middle class, 'educated' youths tear down history because it goes against their moral beliefs is one of several recent red stamps on the demise of civilisation. At the same time, these youths preach equality, tolerance and open-mindedness - as long as it's equality for them, tolerance for things they do, and open-mindedness about things they agree with.
Of course, this wasn't the first time this has happened.
- The Black Lives Matter movement defaced a statue of Frank Rizzo with the words 'black power' on the man, who died in 1991.
- Lenin was also a target.
- A statue of Abe Lincoln was vandalized, claiming him to be a racist (???!)
- There have been calls to remove the faces on Mount Rushmore, a mountainside full of racists apparently
- Numerous confederate statues around the country are being attacked
- Calls to remove Gandhi's statue at a University for his 'racist' views.
It sounds awfully familiar to, I dunno... Literally every time a collectivist extremist regime overthrows a government or system, ISIS and so forth. They all destroy historical statues and monuments too. For the same reasons
I'm not claiming a snowball effect is happening here where the US government is overthrown, to be clear
To compare, over in England the Cambridge University Press recently bowed down to pressure from China to remove 300 documents the Communist Party didn't like - made them look bad.
Here's what people had to say about it. I'll probably get Cheetah tagged for this but whatever:
Cambridge University Press’s decision to censor the journal China Quarterly as it is viewed online in China is a craven, shameful and destructive concession to the PRC’s growing censorship regime.
"Chinese students and scholars reading a censored version of The China Quarterly will encounter only historical facts and scholarly analyses approved by political authorities,"
“It is noteworthy that the topics and peoples CUP has so blithely chosen to censor comprise mainly minorities and the politically disadvantaged. Would you censor content about Black Lives Matter, Mexican immigrants or Muslims in your American publication list if Trump asked you to do [so]?”
(Thankfully they reversed their decision after the backlash)
Does the USA, a bastion of free speech - far more than that of Europe, want to go in the direction of the CCP? Do the people want to tear down and rewrite history because it triggers them? Is that what this is? Or do we just not tolerate 'less than perfect' individuals becoming statues?
I find it bizarre that people don't understand what statues are. Statues are symbols of historical times , reminders of people and events that were paramount in the development of the nation. Abraham may not have been a shining beacon of equality when put aside a leader of 2017, but that's because he lived in a completely different time, and calling him out as a racist now is like calling doctors from the 1600's retards for not knowing bacteria exists.
Why would you want to erase such significant events? If you read documents written by confederate slave owners at the time, you can see that, though they weren't morally on the same level as us, they truly believed they were doing the right thing by owning slaves, many having the belief that they were saving the blacks from a worse fate of torture, death and starvation in their own countries.
Moral relativism changes over time.
We cannot remove things in our past and when we do, what does it accomplish other than censorship? Does it remove a racist? No. Does it get people arrested? Yes. Does it make people angry? Yes. Any benefits you can think of?
Tragic.
In the next post I'm going to address an even bigger problem, those behind the statue destruction; The terrorist organisation - Antifa.
This post received a 3% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @mobbs! For more information, click here!
Good article. This is bothering me a lot as well. I don't consider myself left or right, but instead as an individual. Lately I seem to siding with Right more often than left, but that is not because I am a right leaning person. It is because that seems to be where reason still sometimes is in effect rather than pure emotional reaction. Resteemed.
Thanks for reading! Something that makes me think and chuckle is the idea that 'the left are leaning so far left that they're turning right'.
They're all basically the same, collectivist insecure individuals, just with a slightly different agenda to start off with. They're free to be that, but the US shouldn't Kowtow to them like this... sigh
Let's make this a Protest Poster for the millennials to revolt against next!
I agree so much with this statement. We are the United States of America. The Land of the Free. These motherf&*^ers need to wake up and read the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights before they join up with these idiotic CULTS who are picking and choosing the pieces that they can relate to and agree with and think that that's OK.
source
I'll drink to that! And I'll drink whatever culturally appropriated drink I please!
I appreciate that you even sourced a comment image by the way!
Haha, thanks. I didn't source it at first (since it's from pixabay and doesn't require to use a source. Buuuut for whatever reason, I always feel the need to source everything nowadays).
Anyway, I'm looking forward to some drinks very soon... It's Friday and it's getting closer to the 5 o'clock hour. And after reading this post, my blood started boiling again (everyone on the far left and right can leave my/our beautiful country if they disagree with it so much)!
I was jealous that you used a sub, so I wanted to use one too.
hahah sorrynotsorry
We don't need fewer statues, we need more statues, more history, more heritage, more Harriet Tubman, more Nat Turner, more Frederick Douglass and more Olaudah Equino.
Good to make friend with you
well said
Coming from the extreme right (minarchist); I am glad to see those that contemplate leftism can often look at in effect, and not only think about it in practice, but more importantly look at those on the left that do not think and they part that the non-thinkers play in leftist movements
I'm not quite saying...one of us, one of us...but I like to see that not everybody is a zombie ;>
I wouldn't categorize anyone as left or right in your statement. I'd go with there are plenty of people who do not think. This is on every side, across, up, down, sideways, diagonals, in the middle, on the outsides, insides, and all over every other part I didn't cover yet.
The problem with society is your first, well really second, statement:
Why the hell does everybody feel the need to put themselves into a freaking little bucket. Does it make you feel better that you can consider yourself as part of a group or something? We're all Americans. We all have opinions. Can we not just leave it at that!?
/rant
for me, that bucket fits nicely ;>
most folks have a poor understanding of the Left/Right continuum anyway. Nolan and Pournelle (both very smart guys otherwise, made it more confusing instead of clarifying); it should solely be a measure of the level of State control in a government
Absolute Right = Anarchy (Liberty)
Absolute Left = Communism (Statism)
Leftism requires State control because I am not sharing my hard work with people unless I decide to. Economic control over others is necessarily State control.
I think I would be sh*tting on your post if I continued any further down this line, and that's not my intent.
So I'll just say nice post again ;>
{Edit: oops, you aint OP LOL. I do like your statement re: the Bill of Rights and the Consitution, and I still dont want to get off OP's track]
It's pretty easy for me given that I'm living in China so I can very much be a kind of fly on the wall, watching everything fall apart from all sides... lol...?
I've thought about working in China, but my place is here, doing what I can.
It is still early enough in the process to counter.
Hope your popcorn supply is GTG ;>
Even knowing that all of this, including the fake death false flag in Charlottsville, is a big set up designed to divide and conquer, I am enjoying how it's working out, because rather than an even divide like the overlords are paying to create, it's a massive backlash against the "left' (libtards) and that is fun to watch!
Everyone in the US should prepare for a nice long life under a Communist regime, which is forthcoming. Remember, it was 'students' who executed the leadership of Russia and created the Soviet Union. It was 'students' who took over Afghanistan as the Taliban. It was 'students' who, with the help of the unemployed Iraqi generals and the US, created ISIS. If moderate leftists don't stand up to the emerging radical left, we'll all be waiting in the bread lines together soon.
I don't have that much of a bleak outlook. The overthrowing of a government tends to come from a place already in extreme unrest, financial strife and political volatility, where resources and safety are in short supply. There have been no developed, wealthy nations in recent history that has been tossed aside by some angry students. But, the extremism is certainly being noted
This isn't overthrowing of a government, this is the rotting of a government. Rotting takes decades but is virtually unstoppable unless all the maggots and bacteria are eradicated. All those paid ANTIFA assholes and the rich kids playing at being anarchists/dissidents have sponsors and parents who are making sure they get what they want. Just how someone (who was that) sponsored the Taliban and co. Pull up any picture of any of these activists and you'll see everything around them is expensive as fuck. Check out my earlier posts about how funding works if you want.
Or a continued pathetic excuse for education leaving us with millions of idiots who don't know what Socialism means beyond the McCarthy dumbshit red scare.
Oh noes! Let's all be ignorant because we can selectively remember a vague commonality between organizations of evil. You know they all had to a shit too? Maybe the only good people in the world are constipated!
I'm not sure why people in America think that committing acts of vandalism is somehow going to change the history of the country.
It's utterly ridiculous.
I'll be the first to admit that there are some ugly things in America's history. However, that's the case with most countries. All we can do is learn from our mistakes and try to right our past wrongs. One thing we just CANNOT do is CHANGE our history because we don't like what happened.
What's next? Rewriting text books to make them contain the history we want instead of the actual history we had?
A lot of people protested the Vietnam War. Does that mean we should knock down the Vietnam Wall memorial and write it out of our history? Yeah let's just pretend it never happened because some of us don't like it.
How FOOLISH! Grow up people!
Well said. I find it bizarre that governments try to hide the history, like it somehow reflects what they are now. Only those with extreme insecurity feel the desperate need to avoid being seen as flawed. British citizens know their country did horrible things, we know we raped and sliced off the breasts of native African women. Germans know the Nazis killed a bunch of people. The people alive today had nothing to do with it, we don't need to apologize or feel guilty.
We learn from is academically and move on.
I agree. I never could understand why different races are still at odds with each other. I don't understand why someone would blame my generation for anything that was done to their people a hundred years ago.
For one thing, I believe in equality for all and I would never have anything to do with racism or prejudice.
I don't know why I should be expected to feel guilty for the actions of my ancestors. I'm not them and I don't condone anything they did.
While I'm sensitive to some of the horrible things that happened in the past, and while I'm sorry that these things happened, there is nothing I can do to change the past.
I can only conduct myself properly and treat people with respect and dignity. People must learn how to move on. We all have to share this planet, so we should learn to drop the grudges and move forward and treat each other with love and respect. Blaming the people alive today for events that occurred 100+ years ago is foolish and will never result in moving forward and improving racial relations.
I read today that the mayor of New York City is considering taking down the Columbus statue in Columbus Circle that was erected in 1892. SMH?
I imagine there will be no statues left until they're all Obama or something lol
Definitely gotten out of hand!
This is what goes through my mind every time I hear about all this statue drama.
Absolutely agree with everything said here.
While I do agree with your sentiment about historical preservation, this whole dilemma makes me wonder about the timeline for such things... At what point has a statue lost its educational value? Is there a time for replacing or demolishing such objects ? Do they deserve an immutable status?
I'm sure statues don't have eternal status, for sure. But it's the context here that makes all the difference. Angrily ripping down men because they would have been defined as racist if they were born 200 years later, there's nothing good about that.
Ripping a statue down professionally and legally when they are not important enough to avoid replacing with a nice water feature is fine with me
Another good point. Context is key. Appreciate the food for thought!
I can't agree that removing a statue is rewriting history. A monument, especially on public grounds, is something that is there in reverence of the particular person. If that person is deemed unworthy of reverence by society, removing their statue is something that might be reasonable to do. If that is the case, what's the problem? Are all monuments that were ever erected supposed to be kept forever and regardless of their meaning and the way society sees them?
Of course if something like that is to be done, it should be done after a public conversation has been had and with a good reason. The fact that there are people overdoing it, or blowing it out of proportion does not mean that some monuments are not reasonable to remove or change. Society should have a reasonable debate and discussion on what to keep and what to remove and if something like that has enough support, it can be implemented.
I personally as a person that doesn't even live in the US don't see a good reason for statues of confederate generals to be kept on public grounds.
Agreed, as another comment I've written states. The context of how it's torn down is the main issue, rather than necessitating eternal statues.
Well the general in question was a great man, he was one of the greatest generals at the time who happened to be fighting on the losing side, and he didn't even want the secession to happen, he was on the North's side, regarding slavery, and though it was horrible (not like we do, but very progressive for the time) but he felt the need to fight for his home state.
The point is these statues are of people who did great, notable, progressive things, but those things are ignored because of something else that these people consider bad now which to them, completely overrides anything good they did.
It would be like tearing down a statue of Obama 100 years from now because he ate chicken, and in the future everybody is a vegetarian and meat eaters are scum. Never mind all the great things he might have done.
Well, I honestly don't know what the case with his personal qualities actually is, but I am also sure there are people that revere him for the "wrong" reasons too. Still, that's an evaluation I'm simply not qualified to make, so I'll keep what you've said here in mind when continuing to think about this issue.
I think it is becoming less about being left or right, and more about who has common sense!... although i think common sense needs to be re-labelled as I struggle to find that many people with it.
The only history of racist statues and flags is the history of Jim Crow laws putting them up to terrorize people of color. Heroes are on the correct side of history and they win. If you are appalled by the reasons people want to take them down, try addressing the reasons people want to take them down.
Also, there is no left or right. The idea that there is is just an ongoing delusion for idiots who think politics should be treated like sports. Vote for people with integrity and refuse to vote for anyone without integrity. Anything less than that just makes you a sucker.
BLM is also not an organization. It's still nothing more than a hashtag that some people decide to get behind. While some such people including those who made the the tag have acted like fools, it's still no better to be dumb enough to generalize or spin the meaning to suggest that other race's lives don't. Don't fall for the same stupid and generalize Antifa as everyone against bringing back fascism.
Oh, and if you want to be appalled by people's actions, you should make sure you catch the footage of the Neonazi who shouted "Die Nigger!" and opened fire at a black man in Charlottesville.
I wouldn't say I was 'appalled'... I don't get that emotionally invested in a place I've never been to. But I think you undermine the damage that Antifa has done. At no point did I justify neonazism as an ideology. My only point is that providing people do things through the legal means, ie, peaceful protesting, then they should be free to do so. Antifa are making a conscious decision to suppress the freedoms that The US enjoys because they simply don't agree with it.
And there's blatantly a left and right. Ok so it's been massively over dramatized in the US to the point that it's practically a reality TV show, but at the end of the day, some people want Anarchism, and others what statism. Some people want something in between. All these ideas are rational in a sense but not mutually exclusive. Therefore you have a spectrum of ideas we call left, centre and right.
Integrity is in the eye of the beholder, after all. Many think Trump has integrity because he 'doesn't take any shit' and 'gets straight to the point'. Others think he's a bumbling buffoon who has no idea what it means to be a president. That's the crux of the issue here. Democracy just isn't as simple as 'choose somebody who isn't an asshole', because the definition of 'asshole' quickly breaks down.