statues to remove and statues to reinstate

[Nearholmer]

My son is in Year 7 (well, the half of Year 7 that happened this year), so Uranus jokes are all the rage round here.

 

Presumably they observed Uranus from Slough, not in Slough, though.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, Ohmisterporter said:

In the USA a slave owner named Patrick Henry made a famous quote, "Give me liberty or give me death". He had a narrow view as to what liberty meant. Even so, he and his quote are still revered in the country.

 

An idea can transcend its original context: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - in the minds of the framers of the Declaration, "all men" clearly meant propertied free males - much as in ancient Athens. Now, we can agree with the sentiment since we have a broader view of who "all men" encompasses.

[Ozexpatriate]

53 minutes ago, runs as required said:

Quite simply YES

I've never seen it happen in a wheel tappers thread. You're lucky if on topic posts last through the first page.

 

No offence intended. It's just the nature of the beast - more so if the thread title seems even vaguely controversial or potentially political - as this one does, even if that was not your purpose.

 

A good example is the recent "rubbish" thread. Plenty of rubbish was posted, but not the way the OP intended.

[Ozexpatriate]

31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

An idea can transcend its original context: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Largely plagiarized from George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted in Virginia on June 12, 1776.

 

Virginia Declaration of Rights

Quote

Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

 

The "Rough Draft" of the Declaration of Independence compiled by Thomas Jefferson and emended by the committee of five includes:

Quote

We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; 

The addition of "Creator" is presumed to be Franklin. The evolution of the writing and editing process is quite interesting.

 

It is notable that "All Men" is consistently worded throughout.

[fezza]

There is a lot of nonsense going on at the moment.

 

Slavery did help fund the early development of the British Empire and that was not the best chapter in our history.  But without the Empire, we would have been a weak state offshore from Germany.  We may have lost in 1914.  We'd  certainly have been invaded in 1940 and there would have been no Empire to help us out in the subsequent struggle against the fascists.  We'd probably be speaking German now under the most evil regime the world has ever known.  I don't have to tell you what would have happened to those who weren't white.   Bottom line is that the Empire was crucial in saving parliamentary democracy, as well as spreading it to many parts of the world.

 

People need to focus on building good race relations and treating each other better today.  Too many on the left and right just want to use history to stir up trouble.

[brianusa]

Wm Gladstone is someone I never imagined would be picked on by the current Inquisition especially trying to improve the Irish situation of the time.  He was made more famous by Lady Bracknell's "handbag" exclamation, not necessarily referring to the Gladstone bag!  He's in Westminster Abbey in case they want to dig him up

     Brian.

[fezza]

3 minutes ago, brianusa said:

Wm Gladstone is someone I never imagined would be picked on by the current Inquisition especially trying to improve the Irish situation of the time.  He was made more famous by Lady Bracknell's "handbag" exclamation, not necessarily referring to the Gladstone bag!  He's in Westminster Abbey in case they want to dig him up

     Brian.

 

Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.

 

In government Gladstone renounced slavery and sent British troops to suppress the slave trade.  He demanded that imperial leaders respect the nobility and rights of all men whatever their race.  As PM he supported disarmament negotiations as he believed an arms race would lead to a European war.  He was the man who introduced what amounted to universal manhood suffrage in 1884, establishing mass democracy in Britain.  He created the modern civil service, a comprehensive national network of elementary education, a better system of local government, health and safety at work legislation... I could go on.

 

To any sensible, informed person he is probably the greatest prime minister we ever had and should be a national hero.

[Ozexpatriate]

43 minutes ago, fezza said:

Slavery did help fund the early development of the British Empire and that was not the best chapter in our history.  But without the Empire, we would have been a weak state offshore from Germany.  We may have lost in 1914. 

The mercantile system (including slavery) funded the defeat of Napoleon. Slavery was ended more than 80 years before the Great War. You could make the claim that the British Raj in India funded the Empire in the run-up to the Great War, but not the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

 

(As to whether the Raj was slavery by another name, I'll not comment.)

[newbryford]

I very rarely post in such threads but:

 

What's next in relation to anti-slavery statue protests?

 

Flatten all the WW2 concrete structures in Europe that were built with slave/forced labour?

 

Go one further and flatten the Pyramids in Egypt as they were also built with slave labour?

 

Next up will be all our war monuments and the like that show any link with the past.

 

We should remember the bad bits for their sins as well as the good bits of our history.

 

The world is going mad and the sooner that the shops and pubs re-open, along with footy at the weekend and we'll be back to as normal as we can be.

 

 

 

 

 

[kevinlms]

5 hours ago, rab said:

Do we have to discuss this here.

RMWeb is my place for getting away from the world.

You do realise that this is page 3 of this discussion?

[Nearholmer]

There’s something about this thread that seems to suggest/assume that the purpose of the demonstrations over the past days has been to complain about about slavery, and then slide on to suggest that doing so is mad.

 

That is not what what the demonstrations were about.

 

Please tell me that everyone understands what the demonstrations have actually been about.

 

Kevin

[Killybegs]

Just heard on the BBC news that a statue of Baden Powell is to be taken down. Where will it stop. Cecil Rhodes is on the list. Who's next, Queen Victoria for encouraging empire building?

[Compound2632]

Indeed, concerns over the fate of statues or, indeed, historical reputations could be seen as yet another instance of prioritising property over people.

[fezza]

7 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The mercantile system (including slavery) funded the defeat of Napoleon. Slavery was ended more than 80 years before the Great War. You could make the claim that the British Raj in India funded the Empire in the run-up to the Great War, but not the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

 

(As to whether the Raj was slavery by another name, I'll not comment.)

 

The massive government  compensation from the abolition of slavery help fund railways and industrialisation in the 1830s and 1840s - that seems to be what some are complaining about. My point is that history is complicated. This investment and the associated imperial expansion made Britain powerful. Without that power we could not have defended ourselves against Hitler. 

[Gibbo675]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

There’s something about this thread that seems to suggest/assume that the purpose of the demonstrations over the past days has been to complain about about slavery, and then slide on to suggest that doing so is mad.

 

That is not what what the demonstrations were about.

 

Please tell me that everyone understands what the demonstrations have actually been about.

 

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

 

The whole point of the demonstrations are that one one is to actually know what is going on, thereby seeding confusion and dissonance though out society, it is part of what is known as a non linear warfare strategy, Vladislav Surkov is your man to research there. Better yet ridicule anyone that points out what is likely going on, me included.

 

I am well aware that you will now denounce me a nutcase and the moderators ban me from yet another thread for upsetting folks by simply pointing out something that they previously didn't have a clue about. This chap in this video question various philosophical points while feeding peanuts to squirrels.

 

His take is that compassion is required to deal with such issues and also that it is somewhat lacking in the world right now. Something else that is noted is that there is far too much stimulus response and polarisation of opinion by those he describes as "evacuated".

 

To quote Marcus Aurelius:

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.

Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

 

 

At almost an hour and a quarter most people are far too busy to watch and far to lazy to consider the above video which is why there is so much confusion as to what is happening all around the world.

 

Gibbo.

[Compound2632]

Clearly the only just course of action is to remove all public statuary - all those commemorated have skeletons in the cupboard. 

[fezza]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

Indeed, concerns over the fate of statues or, indeed, historical reputations could be seen as yet another instance of prioritising property over people.

No, its just that we don't want our history and heritage destroyed by a mob who know little about it. 

 

When Churchill, Gladstone, Baden Powell, Peter Shilton, and Ant and Dec become hate figures you realised this is a seriously warped ideology. 

 

Those who think Britain is a terribly undemocratic authoritarian place that denies economic opportunities  need to spend some time in modern day Egypt, Zimbabwe, South Africa or India. 

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, fezza said:

No, its just that we don't want our history and heritage destroyed by a mob who know little about it. 

 

But that's exactly the issue: whose history and heritage? 

[fezza]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But that's exactly the issue: whose history and heritage? 

Everyone's! I don't object to the statue outside Parliament  of the AntiSemitic, Black-hating, domestic abuser Gandhi as I recognise that he is a hero to so many South Asian Britons and he did great work for the Indian national struggle. But he wasn't perfect either. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by fezza

[Nick C]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Presumably they observed Uranus from Slough, not in Slough, though.

 

Might be safer to observe Slough from Uranus? 

[Nearholmer]

28 minutes ago, fezza said:

mob who know little about it. 

That phrase gets repeated, but it seems completely at odds with the facts: the people who hauled down the statue in Bristol knew exactly what the history was, which is why they hauled it down.

 

Not only did they know the history, but they’ve educated the entire nation about it, because there can be barely anyone who is no longer aware how the chap made his money, whereas before, outside Bristol I’d wager barely any of us had heard of him.

 

 

 

 

[62613]

8 hours ago, fezza said:

There is a lot of nonsense going on at the moment.

 

Slavery did help fund the early development of the British Empire and that was not the best chapter in our history.  But without the Empire, we would have been a weak state offshore from Germany.  We may have lost in 1914.  We'd  certainly have been invaded in 1940 and there would have been no Empire to help us out in the subsequent struggle against the fascists.  We'd probably be speaking German now under the most evil regime the world has ever known.  I don't have to tell you what would have happened to those who weren't white.   Bottom line is that the Empire was crucial in saving parliamentary democracy, as well as spreading it to many parts of the world.

 

People need to focus on building good race relations and treating each other better today.  Too many on the left and right just want to use history to stir up trouble.

Really? If people didn't go around empire-building, perhaps there wouldn't be so much of the competition that leads to catastrophic events such as the two world wars. Here's a little nugget for you; the Lancashire textile industry, which took off after about 1810, relied almost exclusively on slave-grown cotton from the southern states of the USA, until 1861, when the supply disappeared overnight. That cotton, transported around the empire, destroyed, in one example the domestic textile industry in India. One philosopher has pointed out that the people who actually manufactured the cotton only differed from slaves in that they weren't bought or sold; but they were, and are, just as disposable

 

On western parliamentary democracy; you mean like the one where even in 1914 in the UK, only 40% of adults had the vote (not just women; there were certain male workers who still couldn't vote)? Did anyone actually ask the peoples of Africa, India and Asia whether they wanted this democracy? Or the other things that went with it? Most of our former colonies appear to be one party states, and some of them quite oppressively run, for the benefit of Western and Chinese corporations

 

[TheQ]

The year is 2024, the world is in permanent Lock down, and not because of a virus, in fact there are no viruses or colds because of the lock down.

 

First Statues were removed because someone might be offended, initially it was just the anyone who may have been a slave trader, then anyone who may have been as slave traders son  or daughter. Then all statues were removed as they may offend.

 

Then the films, any showing the past at first, that may not show racial diversity in the past. Then any where an actor is playing someone of a different race, So American Australians  couldn't play a 13th century Scotsman of Welsh Descent, fighting for one Scotman of Norman Descent against another Scotman of Anglo Norman Descent.

 

That progressed to television and all forms of media, at first no one could play, another race, sex or age. then eventually no one could play anyone but themsleves. So drama was banned, you were only left with real life filming, but that to was banned, because it may offend someone not of the same race, age or sex.

 

 The News was banned fairly early on, crime could not be reported in case you upset a victim or criminal, in fact the the term criminal could not be used because you can't label anyone. Actions between nations could not be reported, because that's racist. 

 

From there it progressed to books, anything involved with slavery,  race, ageism, Sexism, was banned.. Mathematics books was banned because it used Arab numerals, and the  concept of Zero invented by numerous different races...

 

And so to the lock down, no one is allowed outside in case you offend someone, food  and other materials are delivered by robot by a firm called   "          ". company names are banned because they may offend, especially the former company Amazon which is both a racist and sexist name.

 

At first, a life partner was selected at random by computer, it may have been of any age, sex, race, or religion. Then it was realized that the life partner may offend, so they too were banned.

 

The human race is expected to die out within 100 years, if the robot delivery service lasts that long as there is no one allowed out to repair them.

 

Excuse me, I think there is a knocking on the door, as I mentioned the terms above, by a robot who may or may not be from the Authorities not wear an offending uniform or carrying a badge as that may offend, it will want to lock me up  in an non offensive institution .

Edited June 11, 2020 by TheQ

[Metr0Land]

4 minutes ago, 62613 said:

 Did anyone actually ask the peoples of Africa, India and Asia whether they wanted this democracy?

 

 

Maybe not, but the current lynch mobs who are going around trying to tear down any and every statue they can find an excuse for, aren't asking the rest of us for a considered opinion either.  Plus ca change.....

[62613]

1 minute ago, Metr0Land said:

 

Maybe not, but the current lynch mobs who are going around trying to tear down any and every statue they can find an excuse for, aren't asking the rest of us for a considered opinion either.  Plus ca change.....

In the case of the one in Bristol, they have been, for the last three or four years at least. But the Council of the Merchant Venturers, which still has a lot of clout in Bristol, have more or less torpedoed it. If Liverpool can do it, why can't Bristol?