This is one for my friends to the left of center.
I don’t care much for Christopher Columbus, one way or the other. He wasn’t even the first European to reach North America – that was Leif Ericsson, 500 years earlier. You can make a case that Columbus was an awful person, and I might even agree.
But are you sure you want to make the case that groups of people should be able to destroy public (or for that matter private) property, as long as they feel it’s really really right? That some causes are just more important than the slow, dirty work of seeking consensus and working via a process?
Especially done with the implied threat of violence against anyone who might have tried to stand in the way?
Before you answer, remember: six weeks ago many of you were up in, for lack of a better term, arms over multiracial groups of protesters, some of them openly carrying firearms, demonstrating peacefully at the Michigan capitol and outside the Minnesota governors’ mansion. The demonstrators broke no laws [1], and there was certainly no violence – and yet many of you acted like that was a threat to democracy.
But actual law-breaking and vandalism, and a very clear implication of potential violence (and in many cases, it goes well beyond implication), is OK – as long as its’ the correct cause?
Because there’s a statue of Floyd Olson on the Capitol grounds. He was a socialist demigogue who governed Minnesota long ago, and there’s no rational way to deny that his policies have caused far more damage than good, especially to disadvantaged communities in this state. Olson represents the worst traits of this state – jamming down equality of outcomes as one-size-fits-all decree, with dire effects on the poor. Did he do as much harm as Columbus? No, but we’re talking principle, here, so let’s not quibble about degrees of evil.
It’s high time someone – me and my friends who feel strongly about the damage Olson and his cronies did to this state – did something about that goddess-forsaken statue. And if the process doesn’t work fast enough (and in a state dominated by the Urban Progressive Privilege that Olson’s policies cemented in place as the dominant class, it won’t), then we’ll have to “expedite” things ourselves.
Because if you’re not part of (our) solution, you’re part of the problem (as we define it).
So – are you SURE you want to set this as a precedent?
[1] Open carry is legal in the Michigan capitol, and let’s not even pretend any of you know the actual statute re “brandishing”, so I’ll not allow the conversation to get side-tracked over that subject.
The Knights of Columbus raised money to put these statues up all over the country in the last century to make Italian Americans feel good about themselves. It was always kinda stupid — Columbus was a pirate, and he was working for Spain, not Italy.
Values and mores change over time. As MLK said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends toward justice.”
We have to be able to bend with it, recognize and admit the points in our history when our moral arc was skewed, and make changes and amends when needed.
Almost no one today believes the way native populations were treated in Columbus’ time was morally sound. His likeness belongs in museums with a full and honest reckoning of his life, the good and the bad.
Remember when the left elites were all atwitter about taliban blowing up centuries old Buddha statues? What we are witnessing is the tyranny of the minority. Destruction of history. Banishment of all contrary thought. Subservience and servitude to the bullies. Denial of law and order and due process. The very things that are the antithesis to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. The issue is, will we, as a country, say ENOUGH! and do something about it. Alas, I am not holding my breath. Enough rope had been sold and good people are too cowed to make themselves heard. Maybe our time had passed and as some pundits are now openly saying, we are headed for two Americas – the break up of the union is inevitable.
^^ Remind us how many years — how many lives lost and how much money was spent on the Taliban…
The statue destroying is an exercise in hatred.
Who is the hated? Not Christopher Columbus, of course.
The Left is in the grips of a demonic hatred of whatever their twisted idea of “America” is. What will they tear down when they run out of statues?
So can we complain when the local Nazi’s now pull down MLK signs/statues? They view him as destroying their race, just as AIM views Columbus.
Silly me, I forgot that respect for other’s opinions only appears for those to the left of you.
Oh, and @Emery, you’re full of it about the KoC, Columbus, and the like. At that time, the Italians were being treated as badly as the blacks.
^^ Good satire — Columbus died in prison. Wasn’t very nice to the locals in the Bahamas/Caribbean.
JPA – good points re: Taliban. And, if you think about it, is the far left/Antifa all that different from the Taliban? They have a religion (Progressiveism). They will violently attack those that differ from them and their beliefs. They consider faith more important than knowledge. Maybe, instead of calling all the nut jobs out there Antifa, the generic catch-all for them should be TaliBRO.
If Columbus was bad because he enslaved native populations, what do we say about politicians who stand for the wholesale murder of the unborn, and who defend the most murderous political system known to history, socialism?
Just askin’.
At one level, the Protestant in me is glad to see a lot of statues of politicians go–the model is, after all, basically the same as “veneration of the saints”, which most politicians (especially those memorialized in statues) are not. On another level….one would figure that those who want government to have a bigger role in our lives would figure out that destroying government property is not what they want to do.
Columbus died in prison
Odd, no one else (Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Brittanica, and some PhD in history discussing Columbus’ death specifically) mention this.
To the Left — the far and the mainstream Left, these days is the same thing, America is a social construct of white supremacism.
That’s it. That is all The United States of America is. If you describe the United States of America as anything else, you are, at best, describing its accidents, things that are not in its essential nature.
This is incredibly stupid. It doesn’t pass the laugh test. But to academics, who have carefully worked to exclude contradictory voices, this is the truth, and they pass it on to the spiritually impoverished young people as the most important part of their “education.”
But it’s a lie. As much of a lie as believing that the essential nature of man is that he is an economic machine, and that everything else about man — his emotions, his dreams, his imagination — are accidental to his nature.
As usual, Emery completely misses the point despite the obvious clue in the freaking title of the post.
“Rule of Law” is shorthand for “everyone agrees to follow the rules” in which the most important is “everyone agrees to accept the result.” That’s the fundamental essence of a democracy – the losers agree to accept their loss, this time, and work harder to win, next time.
Why the statue was put up, whether the man was a good man, how he died – these are all arguments to be made in the official hearing conducted by the officials empowered to make these decisions. Those arguments were made. They lost. That’s the end of it. Accept the result, go home now. Spend time and money to raise consciousness, get someone else elected who will appoint different empowered officials who will reach a different decision. That’s how it’s done in America.
Well, it was. Before impatient children took over.
But this is a temporary aberration. It has to be. Because the opposite of Rule of Law isn’t Give Me What I Want. The opposite of Rule of Law is Might Makes Right. In a state where a third of the population own guns and more than 100,000 Minnesotans applied for official permission to kill (aka a hunting license), changing the rules has the potential to be wildly dangerous. Democrats can’t possibly be that stupid.
Can they?
.
Just listened to a fascinating talk. I wish I could post the link here, but you would need a translator. The gist of the message were the parallels between what is happening right now with St. Floyd riots and the pogroms in czarist Russia. Very unnerving. I guess we are all Jews now. The only difference, Jews were unarmed and in the minority. But hey, the way the majority is behaving in the US right now, you cannot tell who is charge. Maybe I am wrong and we have already been boiled.
“Joe Doakes wrote:
. . .
Can they?”
They have convinced themselves that it cannot possibly worse. They are wrong. Rule by street gangs is a lot worse.
What you may see, if places like Minneapolis “defund the police,” is political authorities turning over police work in areas where poor folks live to street gangs. No one else can do it.
Facts not in evidence in any of the biographies I read, nor in anything online. Care to provide any documentation providing your contention?
Neither were the Indians themselves. Look, there are very few instances in history where one group moves in with another peacefully. Nor, once installed, do they get along. The intra-Indian wars in the Indians were legendary for brutality and cruelty that make anything Columbus did pale in comparison.
JD;
You are spot on. The most recent numbers I could find on the economic impact of hunting in Minnesota, were from 2016. The DNR estimates that close to $725 million was spent on that and related items. Unfortunately, I don’t think DemocRATs even look at that, because they are too busy virtue signaling that they want to ban guns. But, banning guns would do much more additional damage to the state than the loss of revenue.
And Emery, you pathetic loser. Don’t even think of comparing the expenditures on defeating the Taliban to the expenses of Democrat war mongering. There are over 58,000 names on a black wall in Washington District of Crooks, with another 1,587 still unaccounted for. And let’s not even mention the Kenyan Klown’s backtracking on his campaign promise to end the war in Afghanistan, where 2,500 Americans have lost their lives and the war continues, even after his 8 years in office, which, incidentally, his regime was at war longer than any other U.S. president. Then, he launched additional military/CIA operations for regime changes in Syria, and Libya, where he violated the War Powers Act, by failing to get congressional approval and started operations in Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab. Spare me your usual hypocrisy!
For an indication of how well American Indians got along with each other without the help of White people, fix the date August 5 1873 in your memory – it is a date most local Sioux (if they know about it) don’t like talking about. I like bringing it up because it puts the Lie to the Noble Savage argument that progressives and American Indian activists like to promulgate.
see:
https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/1873-aug-5-massacre-dakota-sioux-attack-pawnee-hunting-party-trenton-ne-70/
The year 2120.
It’s been 100 years since the “Great Awakening” that started removing pipipul from political office, corporate boards and public life. Progress was slow at first, but gained momentum at a dizzying pace, according to old, carefully secured news papers of the time. By 2025, America celebrated the complete removal of the influence of Wipipul…finally, the Sun People controlled everything.
Sure, some wipipul remained in the cities for a time, claiming to be “allies”, but soon enough, that lie became a petite misdemeanor crime in itself. Soon, only lovely Sun People faces were to be seen. Beautiful rap music filled the air.
It wasn’t until 2055 that the fabric that holds society together finally started to seriously rip apart; the “middle class” standard of living had long since been erased from memory. In the intervening years, all vestiges of Western culture have been removed; from the landscape, from literature and from public discussion (vis. the “Protect Sun People From Hate Speech Act” of 2030 that made any mention of white European history a federal crime).
The public school curriculum’s were reformed to teach the kids “the TRUTH” about the Sun People and their building Ancient Egypt, inventing the first aircraft, the telephone, the transistor and space craft. Monuments to African Kings and Queens long ago replaced the hated images of the evil white men that stole land from the indigenous Sun People that had inhabited it since the dawn of time. “Washington(1)”, Jefferson”, “Adams”, “Franklin”; these were names to be reviled.
The white population moved to a clandestine, underground economy. The black market was a poorly kept secret; almost all of the ruling Sun People got their food, clothing and technology via the black market. It was only the lack of operational aircraft that saved the fields from destruction. Raids became less frequent as the armed forces became too weak to make the long march into the mountains.
But as the black market supply chain was, of necessity scattered in hidden places, far from the urban cities where 100% of the rulers lived, the decline accelerated until, in 2105, the mainstream population was forced to make a desperate attempt to acquire the lifesaving “gibs” their great, great memaws had spoken of.
The battle didn’t last long, and was never in any danger of being successful. Once the bedraggled Sun People troops reached the peaks, and attacked the neat orderly little towns carefully tucked deep in valleys, they quickly ran out of ammunition, and with their depleted physical condition were quickly overcome.
So, we meet here today to celebrate the tearing down of the last statue commemorating the so called “civil rights movement” that led to the utter destruction of a once great nation. Martin Luther King might have been a good man; some say his dream was noble, but we cannot be sure since history has been so utterly destroyed. But we can be sure he lived in a time when people had a different set of moral standards than we have today. Some say it is unfair to judge him by moral standards he could never have dreamed of 100 years ago, but history belongs to the victors…. and so this statue falls.
(1) The capital city of Wakanda was once named “Washington”.
Pig Bodine, the source of all that is evil is capitalism.
Pre-columbus, American Indians were not capitalists, so they couldn’t have done evil.
This is, essentially, the argument behind all of the Left’s argument.
Utter nonsense, makes no sense, would get them laughed out of any serious discussion of history, etc.
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after reading this thread I need a drink, badly. Open up the bars already Timmy Tyrant.
Hey Emery Incognito!
Here is a handy list of memorials and statues that honor the racist president who rounded up innocent Japanese American civilians during WWII.
List of memorials to Franklin D. Roosevelt
Let’s start with the high schools……..uh, just change the name, don’t burn them down.
Oh….oh….. just a quick note. On my comment upthread, I wrote “don’t burn them down”. Forgive me, please. I truly meant to write “don’t burn them down….yet.”
“And let’s take a pass on Abraham Lincoln, cause he did good, though it’s always questionable, you know,” ~ Donald Trump
Sometimes I manage to put my loathing aside and enjoy a belly laugh at the expense of this dimwit.
Greg — Interesting story about an Asian-American lawyer, whose name was buried in the footnotes of a landmark Supreme Court case, helped pave the way for interracial marriage.
An Unsung Hero in the Story of Interracial Marriage
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/an-unsung-hero-in-the-story-of-interracial-marriage
Ross Douthat on the embrace of “woke” values by capitalists:
Indeed the successor ideology seems particularly adaptable . . . to the corporate world, where it promises a framework for regulating an increasingly diverse work force that conveniently emphasizes psychology and identity rather than a class solidarity that might threaten the corporate bottom line.
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-tom-cotton-op-ed-and-the-cultural-revolution/
Emery – Actually Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists were angry at Lincoln’s suggestion that freedmen should head back to Africa.
“If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,–to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible.” 1854
I would agree, the character and actions of every great figure of the past is always going to be questionable.
Any luck on the Columbus died in prison bit? He didn’t of course, though he was imprisoned for cruelty to both the Spanish and the native people, he was released by Ferdinand.
“I’ve done more for the black community than any other President and let’s take a pass on Abraham Lincoln because he did good but — it’s always questionable, you know in other words the end result.” ~ Donald Trump
“Well we are free Mr. President.” Harris Faulkner
@Emery, found any proof about that Columbus death in jail claim of yours yet? I’m really curious because most biographers have him dying of “gout” (not really, but let’s go with the most official statement) while petitioning the King and Queen of Spain, but I’d really, really like to see this new evidence you’ve found.
We were installing a new Shore Station at one of our rental properties across the lake and missed the President’s address, I assume it was uplifting, charity for all and malice for none, better angels of our nature, etc.
Oh! Are your lake properties in the same bay that teh little Peevee maintains his little summer place in Excelsior, E. Dimwit? Or are you situated elsewhere…perhaps in Tonka bay?
How’s the chowder at Lord Fletcher’s this year, old sod?
Say, E. Dimwit? I assume your financial planner won’t be joining you on the aft solon deck for Mohitos and cigars after that January portfolio liquidation fiasco, eh? Real bother, that.
Emery…It’s pretty clear that Trump meant since Abraham Lincoln, and that even then there are issues with Lincoln’s beliefs. Your TDS forces square pegs into round holes…
Emery Incognito,
While your link “An Unsung Hero in the Story of Interracial Marriage” was mildly interesting, it does not deflect from the racism of FDR.
As for The New Yorker, (the magazine the article appeared in), it is yet another example of how WOKE culture has utterly trashed another great American institution.
As long as we are reading magazines from New York, I highly recommend this week’s Intelligencer from New York Magazine by Andrew Sullivan.
To quote one paragraph on Woke Culture:
I never truly understood how a society like Cambodia could reach the point where it forced children into the Killing Fields to murder their parents for the crime of wearing glasses.
Now I do.
Another unarmed Negro man killed by white cop in Atlanta!
#Tasingwhileblack
So bad a black man can’t even catch 40 winks while waiting for a delicious Wendy’s burger.
Time to burn some sheeeit down again.
Black are so much better off now than when the riots began!
I don’t really care about this sort of thing, but if Biden did it, there would be a slew of tweets from Trump campaign staff suggesting Biden was deteriorating before our very eyes, and the clip would end up in its ads.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-tries-to-explain-his-slow-and-unsteady-walk-down-a-ramp-at-west-point/2020/06/14/7d89cdf2-ae43-11ea-856d-5054296735e5_story.html
Stop committing crimes, stop getting shot and killed. I guess it is too much of a concept to grasp for some folks.
jpa – you just don’t get it.
White people invented slavery in the 1600’s for the sole purpose of oppressing Blacks in America (slavery never existed before, never existed anywhere else, and never existed since – ask the NYT).
Slavery is a heinous moral crime for which all White people – however remote their connection to the actual oppressors – are guilty, not because of the content of their character, but because of the color of their skin. Simply put: being White is immoral. And since Whites enacted all the laws in America without Black consent, the laws are immoral as applied to Black people.
In consequence, Black people (being morally superior to White people) have no obligation to follow the rules White people enacted for White society. It’s not that Black people are incapable of following the law, it’s that the law doesn’t apply to them. It’s like they have diplomatic immunity only based on race. Racial immunity.
Since the law doesn’t apply to Blacks, they cannot be said to commit crimes by breaking the law and therefore it is obviously ridiculous for policemen to attempt to arrest a Black for committing a crime. All the subsequent events – chasing him, wrestling with him, shooting him during his arrest – are illegitimate uses of government force to deny an innocent person of his Constitutional rights.
Your error is assuming everyone is equally subject to the law, that nobody is above the law on account of their race. That’s your white privilege blinding you to the moral necessity of racial immunity.
Trump ran a 2016 campaign with a promise of banning Muslims and Mexicans from the US. The GOP has struggled with racism for decades and still haven’t managed to figure it out.
Instead of rearranging the deck chairs, you might think about finding a seat in one of the lifeboats.
You call it racism Emory because that’s how shallow your arguments are, you just have the race card.
Dems see BLEXIT going on because they care more about foreigners, Klan Parenthood and so on.
Legalize so ,many illegals? That would hurt the Black community in a number of ways.
JD, thank you so much for whitesplaning history to me. I am now so much more aware of my privilege.
As long as we are talking about the reparations that the descendants of slaves are owed, when are we going to address these people?
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire
It makes 1629 look pretty insignificant.
Check this out: Abyssinian slaves.
We also might want to bring Ilham Omar’s attention to this piece: Slavery in Somalia
Seriously, is she the descendant of slavers?
“The GOP has struggled with racism for decades and still haven’t managed to figure it out.”
I think you misspelled “Democrats.”
The Democrat Party was founded on the idea of racial separatism. It has never, in it’s nearly 200 years of existence, disavowed the idea of racial separatism, e.g., that the law must consider race when handing out rights and privileges.
The Democrats of 2020 insist that to believe the law should not take race into account is itself a manifestation of racism.
Sorry, the idea that the GOP is racist is laughable. There is only one major political party that believes in equality before the law, and it ain’t the Democrats.
One of the many tragedies of racism is that poor people of all races are prevented from seeing how much they have in common.
The poor would be so much better off if only they realized that the bourgeois knows what is really important to them.
The single greatest problem poor black people face (and society as a whole) is the breakdown of the family. Nearly all dysfunction can be traced back to the home.
The nuclear family was the fundamental organizational unit of America until the 1960’s. Liberals correctly deduced that in order to destroy America as it existed then (so they could replace it with something better), they had to destroy its most basic building block.
The sexual revolution, no fault divorce, elimination of bastardy laws, and welfare combine to make single parenthood almost affordable. The attendant costs of societal decay are never mentioned.
If they really are a separate people, then I got nothing to say to them. I have no idea what they are trying to do, much less if they are trying to do it the right way.
It would be like me telling telling clouds or trees that they weren’t doing it right.
But, if they are as human as I am, made in the image of God as I am, then I have a pretty good Idea what they need to do to be happy human beings.
Having a black man in the Oval Office is less important than having one in the home.