Washington & Jefferson Statue Get Pulled Down

[Saiwania]

Did he seriously just compare raping a child to breaking a chair? Did he actually compare harming a living human being to breaking an inanimate object?

By 18th century standards, the person wasn't a child. But yes, its true that during that time that most people thought of it exactly along those lines. Slaves were treated as indifferently as inanimate objects if not worse. Human property was still property that could be done with as the owner saw fit.

Only you (theoretically anyways) want a slave to continue being physically able to perform hard labor/tasks for you if you're the owner. To buy another person and to keep clothing/feeding/sheltering them was expensive.

The early abolitionists usually had a religious motivation to their opposition to slavery. For the Quakers for example, its said that they believed that there was a higher law from God that superseded any law that was currently in effect then, which was that all people had to be free. Hence, they were an important part of what would be the Underground Railroad.

[Repubblica Fascista Sociale Italiana]

I don’t think most of these protestors even know history, they just see a statue of a white person from the 19th century or earlier, and assume it was a slave owner or some colonialist.

[New haven america]

I don’t think most of these protestors even know history, they just see a statue of a white person from the 19th century or earlier, and assume it was a slave owner or some colonialist.

Probably because they were, as were most people in power at the time.

Have you read up on American history?

[Salus Maior]

I'm loathe to say that Saiwania ever has a point, but I think he does somewhat in this instance.

Sexual norms are subject to the times, and our current view of sexuality is almost completely different from other times in history because we've become so open about it and questioning norms. It took a lot of different historical factors in order for that to arise, and those factors didn't really exist in the 18th century. We're projecting our own 20th century norms on this guy who lived over 200 years ago when these norms didn't exist. Projecting moral norms in this way is looked down upon in the historical community, because honestly it is something of an unfair criticism to expect someone who lived before certain norms developed to live according to those norms.

There is also the matter that we're getting angry over a man who is long dead, who supposedly had a controversial and morally questionable relationship with a girl who is also long dead. Getting enraged about it is pointless.

I say that as a guy who doesn't like Jefferson or a lot of his political legacy. But regardless of what I personally feel about it, he remains and important piece of America's foundation in both his influence on the Constitution and other initial developments in America's founding, and in his presidency as well whose legacy is still recognizable in our national ideas and culture.

[Luminesa]

I'm loathe to say that Saiwania ever has a point, but I think he does somewhat in this instance.

Sexual norms are subject to the times, and our current view of sexuality is almost completely different from other times in history because we've become so open about it and questioning norms. It took a lot of different historical factors in order for that to arise, and those factors didn't really exist in the 18th century. We're projecting our own 20th century norms on this guy who lived over 200 years ago when these norms didn't exist. Projecting moral norms in this way is looked down upon in the historical community, because honestly it is something of an unfair criticism to expect someone who lived before certain norms developed to live according to those norms.

There is also the matter that we're getting angry over a man who is long dead, who supposedly had a controversial and morally questionable relationship with a girl who is also long dead. Getting enraged about it is pointless.

I say that as a guy who doesn't like Jefferson or a lot of his political legacy. But regardless of what I personally feel about it, he remains and important piece of America's foundation in both his influence on the Constitution and other initial developments in America's founding, and in his presidency as well whose legacy is still recognizable in our national ideas and culture.

I'd say "morally questionable" is an understatement, and there's good reason to be upset and horrified by this relationship, but his political legacy should still be preserved.

[Salus Maior]

I'm loathe to say that Saiwania ever has a point, but I think he does somewhat in this instance.

Sexual norms are subject to the times, and our current view of sexuality is almost completely different from other times in history because we've become so open about it and questioning norms. It took a lot of different historical factors in order for that to arise, and those factors didn't really exist in the 18th century. We're projecting our own 20th century norms on this guy who lived over 200 years ago when these norms didn't exist. Projecting moral norms in this way is looked down upon in the historical community, because honestly it is something of an unfair criticism to expect someone who lived before certain norms developed to live according to those norms.

There is also the matter that we're getting angry over a man who is long dead, who supposedly had a controversial and morally questionable relationship with a girl who is also long dead. Getting enraged about it is pointless.

I say that as a guy who doesn't like Jefferson or a lot of his political legacy. But regardless of what I personally feel about it, he remains and important piece of America's foundation in both his influence on the Constitution and other initial developments in America's founding, and in his presidency as well whose legacy is still recognizable in our national ideas and culture.

I'd say "morally questionable" is an understatement, and there's good reason to be upset and horrified by this relationship, but his political legacy should still be preserved.

As I understand it, it's not clear cut as to whether this relationship even happened.

[Czechostan]

The American left would probably be better off trying to re-appropriate American national figures and ideas as socialist than outright trying to erase them. Tearing down the statue of traitors like Lee or P.G.T. Beauregard is one thing, tearing down the statues of the folks who are so deeply intertwined with American national identity is another thing.

Personally, I really don't care if statues stay or go (though I detest Confederate statues); it's up to the local community to decide (and contrary to the belief of many, when statues of Confederates fall, it's often at the request of grassroots campaigns than George Soros). I highly doubt the people of Portland were consulted about this.

[Luminesa]

Teddy Roosevelt's statue is being taken-down now...despite the fact that he fought against corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reminder that these mobs don't care about Native Americans, despite their fight against racism, and Natives suffer from poverty, broken homes, and violence almost at the same rates as African Americans. He also fought for workers' rights, preserved our National Parks, and fought against corporate monopolies and the mass media. He was never a perfect man and had some questionable personal views, but he was one of our better presidents, all things considered. And fought against corruption against Native Americans. This is nuts.

[New Kvenland]

Slavery and rape were only "the norm" among sociopathic rich white slaveowners in America, the UK was well on its way to total abolition at the time of the Revolution and Spain had offered freedom to escaped slaves for almost a century. Jefferson and Washington were well aware of the idea that slaves were people and didn't deserve to be owned and raped at will, they were just to rich to care.

Replace their statues with either black and native rights activists or Evangelions, preferably both

[Luminesa]

I'd say "morally questionable" is an understatement, and there's good reason to be upset and horrified by this relationship, but his political legacy should still be preserved.

As I understand it, it's not clear cut as to whether this relationship even happened.

It's debated largely among historians, but Monticello, which is responsible for preserving much of Jefferson's personal legacy, acknowledged and affirmed much of the story of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

[Luminesa]

Slavery and rape were only "the norm" among sociopathic rich white slaveowners in America, the UK was well on its way to total abolition at the time of the Revolution and Spain had offered freedom to escaped slaves for almost a century. Jefferson and Washington were well aware of the idea that slaves were people and didn't deserve to be owned and raped at will, they were just to rich to care.

Replace their statues with either black and native rights activists or Evangelions, preferably both

> Evangelions
We've had enough garbage happen in 2020, let's not move Third Impact up the list of possibilities please.

[Diarcesia]

Teddy Roosevelt's statue is being taken-down now...despite the fact that he fought against corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reminder that these mobs don't care about Native Americans, despite their fight against racism, and Natives suffer from poverty, broken homes, and violence almost at the same rates as African Americans. He also fought for workers' rights, preserved our National Parks, and fought against corporate monopolies and the mass media. He was never a perfect man and had some questionable personal views, but he was one of our better presidents, all things considered. And fought against corruption against Native Americans. This is nuts.

The sauce

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that they aren't destroying it. I hope they do a proper assessment of Teddy's place in history and decide to give the statue some cultural decency.

[Xmara]

I'm loathe to say that Saiwania ever has a point, but I think he does somewhat in this instance.

Sexual norms are subject to the times, and our current view of sexuality is almost completely different from other times in history because we've become so open about it and questioning norms. It took a lot of different historical factors in order for that to arise, and those factors didn't really exist in the 18th century. We're projecting our own 20th century norms on this guy who lived over 200 years ago when these norms didn't exist. Projecting moral norms in this way is looked down upon in the historical community, because honestly it is something of an unfair criticism to expect someone who lived before certain norms developed to live according to those norms.

There is also the matter that we're getting angry over a man who is long dead, who supposedly had a controversial and morally questionable relationship with a girl who is also long dead. Getting enraged about it is pointless.

I say that as a guy who doesn't like Jefferson or a lot of his political legacy. But regardless of what I personally feel about it, he remains and important piece of America's foundation in both his influence on the Constitution and other initial developments in America's founding, and in his presidency as well whose legacy is still recognizable in our national ideas and culture.

I'd say "morally questionable" is an understatement, and there's good reason to be upset and horrified by this relationship, but his political legacy should still be preserved.

Agreed

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

It is vandalism. Perhaps with good intentions

Not anywhere close to the scale of vandalism as the Boston Tea Party, which is mostly supported now, this event in particular.

Tarring and feathering was worse than both.

While both some of today's vandalism and revolutionary vandalism had some good motives, I think that in general, options which backfire less exist.


No mere mortal is perfect, but anyone who has lived any significant amount of time has at least tried to do good. The evils should be denounced, but not denied, simultaneously as/if the good is remembered. The "ends" of the founders militant/political/vandalizing/tax-evading actions, while not immediately worse than the most likely alternative, do not justify the "means". I think the treason was good, but the methods and some of the reasons for the treason were bad and/or evil.

[Greater Miami Shores]

It is vandalism. Perhaps with good intentions

Not anywhere close to the scale of vandalism as the Boston Tea Party, which is mostly supported now, this event in particular.

Tarring and feathering was worse than both.


No mere mortal is perfect, but anyone who has lived any significant amount of time has at least tried to do good. The evils should be denounced, but not denied, simultaneously as/if the good is remembered. The "ends" of the founders militant/political/vandalizing/tax-evading actions, while not immediately worse than the most likely alternative, do not justify the "means". I think the treason was good, but the methods and some of the reasons for the treason were bad and/or evil.

And illegal under the law, I don't have any other comments on your long post.

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

You dislike a statue? Sign a petition to have it moved to a museum and stop acting like a dickhead. These people are so focused on just destroying statues that they don't realize its self defeating. No one will remember the history of racism in 200 years if you destroy anything remotely connected to racism.

Traitors shouldn’t get statues though. Moving them to a museum or using them as target practice would be fine.

Hey I got a great idea. I’ll come up with a museum where the statues of confederates can go and people will learn about the racist past while being allowed to shoot at the statues.

$500 to the person who can take off Lee’s head with a rifle

Technically the founders of the USA were traitors as well, they just "won".

[New Kvenland]

Teddy Roosevelt's statue is being taken-down now...despite the fact that he fought against corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reminder that these mobs don't care about Native Americans, despite their fight against racism, and Natives suffer from poverty, broken homes, and violence almost at the same rates as African Americans. He also fought for workers' rights, preserved our National Parks, and fought against corporate monopolies and the mass media. He was never a perfect man and had some questionable personal views, but he was one of our better presidents, all things considered. And fought against corruption against Native Americans. This is nuts.

He was also comically war-happy, which is cute and funny until he celebrates the massacre of a thousand Filipinos. He did a ton of good, he shouldn't be erased from history or anything, but it's an affront to the thousands of people he directly or indirectly hurt to build prominent statues of him.

The counterargument is that no one's perfect, of course, which doesn't really counter the argument at all. These guys are all messed up, even the "good" ones like Lincoln and Teddy. Frankly there should only be statues of abstract representations, like the Statue of Liberty or the Motherland Calls, or of Jesus Christ and the Buddha and other righteous figures, representing anyone else in such a prominent way implies that they're just as perfect and the people they hurt either are lying or deserved it

[Proctopeo]

The American left would probably be better off trying to re-appropriate American national figures and ideas as socialist than outright trying to erase them. Tearing down the statue of traitors like Lee or P.G.T. Beauregard is one thing, tearing down the statues of the folks who are so deeply intertwined with American national identity is another thing.

I don't think that would go over very well.

Perhaps painting socialist thinkers (but not leaders; your options are "enemies" and "people nobody has heard of") as somehow "American" would work better.

[Aguaria Major]

I'm a proud leftist Yankee who thinks the Confederate statues should come down...

and I even I think that is just too goddamn far.

Let's compare them, shall we:

The Confederates knowingly committed violent treason against the US for the sole purpose of keeping the dying institution of slavery around in the face of public opinion in the US as a whole having turned against it, and most of these statues weren't even erected immediately after the war to commemorate recently-fallen dead - they were erected during the early 1900s and 1960s to send a message to "uppity" black people. Plus, Robert E. Lee expressly said he didn't think statues of people like himself were a good idea because in his mind, it would only sow more division and he wanted the country to re-integrate peacefully. Everything about Confederate statues is overtly racist and anti-American.

Jefferson wrote the passage of the Declaration of Independence condemning slavery before the delegates from the states that would eventually become the Confederacy threatened to vote against independence and not participate in the war of he didn't remove it, and both he and Washington were responsible for founding the nation and government that would destroy the Confederacy and which allowed black Americans, albeit slowly, to empower themselves with protest, court appeals, and political action. Plus, we'd still be British without them. They are positive figures in the history of America while the Confederates only represent shame and regression.

They aren't even close to being on the same level.

[Luminesa]

Teddy Roosevelt's statue is being taken-down now...despite the fact that he fought against corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reminder that these mobs don't care about Native Americans, despite their fight against racism, and Natives suffer from poverty, broken homes, and violence almost at the same rates as African Americans. He also fought for workers' rights, preserved our National Parks, and fought against corporate monopolies and the mass media. He was never a perfect man and had some questionable personal views, but he was one of our better presidents, all things considered. And fought against corruption against Native Americans. This is nuts.

The sauce

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that they aren't destroying it. I hope they do a proper assessment of Teddy's place in history and decide to give the statue some cultural decency.

Agreed.
The Times said Futter “made a point of saying that the museum was only taking issue with the statue itself, not with Roosevelt overall”.

“It’s very important to note that our request is based on the statue, that is the hierarchical composition that’s depicted in it,” she said. “It is not about Theodore Roosevelt who served as governor of New York before becoming the 26th president of the United States and was a pioneering conservationist.”

Huh. With this article, I can understand their decision, and Teddy Roosevelt's descendant seems to be okay with it. I have a bad feeling regarding how this will affect other presidents' statues, but if this decision is made by the museum, his family, and with the government's go-ahead (not that I trust De Blasio any further than I can throw him, nor does most of America), I hope his statue and his legacy will be kept responsibly to allow people to understand the whole picture of the president. Again, he does have problematic elements to his personal views, but he also did quite a lot of good.

[Diarcesia]

The sauce

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that they aren't destroying it. I hope they do a proper assessment of Teddy's place in history and decide to give the statue some cultural decency.

Agreed.
The Times said Futter “made a point of saying that the museum was only taking issue with the statue itself, not with Roosevelt overall”.

“It’s very important to note that our request is based on the statue, that is the hierarchical composition that’s depicted in it,” she said. “It is not about Theodore Roosevelt who served as governor of New York before becoming the 26th president of the United States and was a pioneering conservationist.”

Huh. With this article, I can understand their decision, and Teddy Roosevelt's descendant seems to be okay with it. I have a bad feeling regarding how this will affect other presidents' statues, but if this decision is made by the museum, his family, and with the government's go-ahead (not that I trust De Blasio any further than I can throw him, nor does most of America), I hope his statue and his legacy will be kept responsibly to allow people to understand the whole picture of the president. Again, he does have problematic elements to his personal views, but he also did quite a lot of good.

Doing a thorough review of a historical figure's good and bad legacies is a net positive.

[Luminesa]

Teddy Roosevelt's statue is being taken-down now...despite the fact that he fought against corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reminder that these mobs don't care about Native Americans, despite their fight against racism, and Natives suffer from poverty, broken homes, and violence almost at the same rates as African Americans. He also fought for workers' rights, preserved our National Parks, and fought against corporate monopolies and the mass media. He was never a perfect man and had some questionable personal views, but he was one of our better presidents, all things considered. And fought against corruption against Native Americans. This is nuts.

He was also comically war-happy, which is cute and funny until he celebrates the massacre of a thousand Filipinos. He did a ton of good, he shouldn't be erased from history or anything, but it's an affront to the thousands of people he directly or indirectly hurt to build prominent statues of him.

The counterargument is that no one's perfect, of course, which doesn't really counter the argument at all. These guys are all messed up, even the "good" ones like Lincoln and Teddy. Frankly there should only be statues of abstract representations, like the Statue of Liberty or the Motherland Calls, or of Jesus Christ and the Buddha and other righteous figures, representing anyone else in such a prominent way implies that they're just as perfect and the people they hurt either are lying or deserved it

Unfortunately most major leaders in both ancient, medieval, and modern history have been war-happy. Whether we speak of Alfred the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, or Teddy. All of them should be examined individually. I'm not saying Teddy should be canonized in the Catholic Church (he wasn't Catholic) or in the Episcopalian Church (he was not a saint), but the problem with removing the statues has been that the legacies of even good leaders has been tossed aside by angry mobs. I'm glad this isn't the case, but if the statue of a canonized Catholic saint who fought against racism is subject to mob-attacks, nothing is safe. This is why we need non-mobs to handle these matters.

[Luminesa]

Agreed.
The Times said Futter “made a point of saying that the museum was only taking issue with the statue itself, not with Roosevelt overall”.

“It’s very important to note that our request is based on the statue, that is the hierarchical composition that’s depicted in it,” she said. “It is not about Theodore Roosevelt who served as governor of New York before becoming the 26th president of the United States and was a pioneering conservationist.”

Huh. With this article, I can understand their decision, and Teddy Roosevelt's descendant seems to be okay with it. I have a bad feeling regarding how this will affect other presidents' statues, but if this decision is made by the museum, his family, and with the government's go-ahead (not that I trust De Blasio any further than I can throw him, nor does most of America), I hope his statue and his legacy will be kept responsibly to allow people to understand the whole picture of the president. Again, he does have problematic elements to his personal views, but he also did quite a lot of good.

Doing a thorough review of a historical figure's good and bad legacies is a net positive.

I mean, as an educator, it's something I hope to do in my job-field, and something I hope to do well.

[Uiiop]

Teddy Roosevelt's statue is being taken-down now...despite the fact that he fought against corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reminder that these mobs don't care about Native Americans, despite their fight against racism, and Natives suffer from poverty, broken homes, and violence almost at the same rates as African Americans. He also fought for workers' rights, preserved our National Parks, and fought against corporate monopolies and the mass media. He was never a perfect man and had some questionable personal views, but he was one of our better presidents, all things considered. And fought against corruption against Native Americans. This is nuts.

from diarcesa's source:“It’s very important to note that our request is based on the statue, that is the hierarchical composition that’s depicted in it,” she said. “It is not about Theodore Roosevelt who served as governor of New York before becoming the 26th president of the United States and was a pioneering conservationist.”
Given the statute is him being a singular great man above token representations of other races i get it even if i don't buy necessarily that the maker must have been a supremacist nor do i think it should be destroyed.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Most white people were racist at that time, even the liberals. Jefferson and Washintong were slaveowner and were torturing people of color. Jefferson was even raping a black girl.

People were products of their times. They did do good things during those times too.