Brickbat: Who Is Buried in Grant's Tomb?

RICHARD B. LEVINE/Newscom

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered a review of all the city's monuments to get rid of symbols of hate. City Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito says the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle could be a target for removal as could the tomb of President Ulysses Grant. De Blasio says every monument in the city will be reviewed.

Comments

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

"get rid of symbols of hate"

"... Starting with all mirrors and other reflective surfaces in the mayor's office."

[gaoxiaen]

De Blasio hates Columbus and the Irish? I'm shocked...

[DajjaI]

You don't 'review' for hate. You just suddenly realize that you hated it for decades and then tear it down.

[DajjaI]

"So you can just tear these things down? Honestly - NEVER EVEN OCCURRED TO ME."

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

Next on the docket:

John Pershing (charge: surname culturally appropriative of Asian-Americans)
George Patton (charge: glamorizing public urination)
Bernard Montgomery (charge: enabling British imperialism in North Africa and France)
Creighton Abrams (charge: promoting climate change by lending his name to vehicle with obscene carbon footprint)
Norman Schwartzkopf (charge: promoting climate change by guaranteeing continued Western access to the Persian Gulf)
David Petraeus (charge: making statue removers feel badly about themselves by scoring a way hotter chick than they'll ever get)
H.R. McMaster (charge: not letting Trump start thermonuclear war, thus depriving DNC of several competitive districts in the 2018 midterms)

[gaoxiaen]

Aww... c'mon. Why would you not piss in the Rhine?

[Brother Kyfho]

> H.R. McMaster (charge: not letting Trump start thermonuclear war, thus depriving DNC of several competitive districts in the 2018 midterms)

WTF is wrong with you? McMaster is the neocon war monger, he's the one that wanted 50,000 US troops in Syria (war crime). Trump campaigned on a policy of getting us OUT of Afghanistan and quoted Ron Paul favorably.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

I dunno WTF is wrong with me, Brother Kyfho. Maybe it's that I was TRYING TO TELL SOME FUCKING JOKES? But Void Forbid that I offend your sensibilities while doing so- after all, genuine comedy NEVER involves offending people, amirite?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The real question for the mayor as he hunts for political correctness is how far to go.

PRIORITY ONE. DROP EVERYTHING ELSE AND GET ON THIS.

[Rhywun]

WELL, EVERYTHING EXCEPT CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISERS FOR THE UPCOMING ELECTION.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Assemblyman Dov Hikind put the bee in de Blasio's bonnet in May when he asked him to remove plaques to Nazi sympathizers in the Canyon of Heroes.

"You can probably find something wrong with everyone in public life. That doesn't mean they should be purged," he said, "This is going to be fun to watch."

You know who else was a massive troll?

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

That dude who tried to crush my chest with his foot outside the Morannon?

[gaoxiaen]

Beowolf.

[Fist of Etiquette]

CBS2's Kramer asked if the name New York City would be changed since it was named for the Duke of York; a slave trader.

His press secretary said he doubts the commission will put that idea on the table.

Soft. On. Slavery. Fire that press secretary.

[Libertarian]

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam.

"Hudson named the river the Mauritius River. He was covertly attempting to find the Northwest Passage for the Dutch East India Company. Instead, he brought back news about the possibility of exploitation of beaver by the Dutch who sent commercial, private missions to the area the following years.

At the time, beaver pelts were highly prized in Europe, because the fur could be felted to make waterproof hats. A by-product of the trade in beaver pelts was castoreum?the secretion of the animals' anal glands?which was used for its medicinal properties and for perfumes."

1. Gotta love wikipedia
2. You know who else exploited beaver?
3. I've always heard that the first man to eat an oyster was awfully brave, but I think the first person to use a beaver's anal gland secretions for perfume has him beat.
4. Insomnia sucks.

[Mickey Rat]

So NYC was founded to exploit beaver...tear it down!

[gaoxiaen]

I love to exploit beaver.

[esteve7]

Why they changed it I can't say

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Because some people liked it better that way.

[Robert]

But it's really Byzantium!

[Cynical Asshole]

3. I've always heard that the first man to eat an oyster was awfully brave, but I think the first person to use a beaver's anal gland secretions for perfume has him beat.

I'm guessing both of those were the result of a dare. As is most Scottish cuisine.

[Radioactive]

not to mention soft in the head...

[KDN]

One of the more entertaining developments caused by the DeBlasio administration is watching Marcia Kramer, long a reliable booster of everything NY Democrats propose, pester DeBlasio daily about the local government stuff that mayors normally focus on. He becomes visibly annoyed as soon as he sees her camped out in the press gaggle waiting to ask a question about this mundane item or that.

I'm personally surprised that he hasn't snapped and snarkily told her that if she would just stop asking about this bullshit then she wouldn't be late for her latest botox injection.

[sharmota4zeb]

Yeah, they might take down a statue of New Amsterdam's anti-immigrant governor.

[Number 2]

Wait a minute! Didn't someone named Dalmia assure us all that reasonable people could distinguish between Confederate symbols of hate and statues of deserving people with flaws?

[geo1113]

Dalmia is 100% correct. The problem is finding those reasonable people.

[Libertarian]

I suggest we save time by not looking in NYC's mayor's mansion.

[geo1113]

No shit!

[Mickey Rat]

The problem is she assumed that reasonable people will be making these decisions. It was a strange moment of optimism about who is in charge of local governments.

[eyeroller]

Why is this a brickbat? They should get rid of all monuments on government-controlled property. The government should not be dictating who is admirable and who is not.

[Shirley Knott]

^^This
The monuments should never have been erected in the first place.
None of them are acceptable if they were built with 'public' funds, for if they were, they are the result of slavery. [do I really need to explain this?]

[Robert]

Well, duh, they're all bits of gov't propaganda. But after a while they're just the background noise, & removing them becomes a bit of gov't propaganda.

[Rhywun]

While we're at it, get government out of marriage and education. And a few other things.

[gaoxiaen]

Especially heroin addiction.

[Brandybuck]

Especially those monuments erected to honor enemies of the United States. Such as any and all Conferedate generals and hanger ons.

[IceTrey]

Aren't libertarians enemies of the United States?

[Brother Kyfho]

This one is.

[IceTrey]

Any real libertarian would say there shouldn't be any government controlled property.

[JeremyR]

Reason supports the government funding stuff it likes: museums, symphonies, abortions, and big elaborate monuments

[Brother Kyfho]

I doubt you'll find anything in Reason that supports gubmint funding of ANY of those.

Troll.

[Brother Kyfho]

I doubt you'll find anything in Reason that supports gubmint funding of ANY of those.

Troll.

[geo1113]

"[do I really need to explain this?]"

Surely not!

[Jerryskids]

Public displays are not enough. The statues are a social signal that these horrible people are thought to be admirable in a collective way, what we need is to remove any such thoughts at an individual level. The idea that imperialists and oppressors, racists and sexists, anti-semites and homophobes, are in any way acceptable to even mention in polite company means we have to scour the history books of any reference to them. Gather the torches and away to the New York Public Library!

[Rhywun]

We have always been at war with racist statues.

[loveconstitution1789]

RACIST!

[Rich]

get rid of symbols of hate

and replace them with symbols of love: statues of Teletubbies, for instance!

[Longtobefree]

Teletubbies are racist.
Green, red, purple, yellow.
No black, no white, no brown.
Pure racist.

[loveconstitution1789]

Well, of course, the Statue of Liberty needs to comes down because Liberty means oppression and it was erected by racist men.
Statues in NYC

[Longtobefree]

Not to mention the horrible example of a greenhouse generating torch!

[Cyto]

I still think it is odd that this race-baiting issue is suddenly the national focus. Every democrat politician is running around looking for some way to get in on creating a white vs. black / history vs. feelings controversy.

This really doesn't feel like it developed organically. After years of Obama pretending to be above racial politics, but stirring the pot every time we had a case that depended on racial animus, we've finally got a riled up group on the minority side, but there really hasn't been a group on the other side.... unless you count the anti-illegal-immigration right. But it isn't really the same thing. They tried really, really hard with "law and order" vs "black lives matter", but it didn't really take.

Finally, finally they found a way to pull the KKK out of their trailer park. Start removing the signature statue from southern cities' biggest parks and you'll get some old white guy outrage that lends just enough legitimacy to get the KKK/Nazi guys to come out. Sure, that's only a couple of hundred people throughout the region, but that's enough to get your pictures for TV.

I'm getting cynical, but they've been working way, way too hard at creating racial divides for people not to notice.

I just wonder if this is from some "lean forward" think tank work, or if it really is an organically created accident.

[CatoTheChipper]

"I'm getting cynical"

Yeah. I don't like being cynical, but it's necessary to be cynical to comprehend US politics.

Over the decades, I have occasionally reflected on how increasingly cynical I've become over time, and how naive I was just a few years ago. I've been through at least a dozen iterations of this.

I'm now cynical enough to think that the sudden nationwide impetus to remove memorials to confederate figures might have originated in some Soros think tank with the intention to inflame political hostilities. It's too extraordinarily well-coordinated to be a mere accident.

[Cynical Asshole]

Yeah. I don't like being cynical, but it's necessary to be cynical to comprehend US politics.

As long as you don't become cynical and an asshole. That's sort of my shtick and if you take it away then I don't really don't know what I bring to the table anymore.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""It's too extraordinarily well-coordinated to be a mere accident."'

I agree.

Those busses don't charter themselves. Follow the money and you will find the hand that guides.

[Robert]

it's necessary to be cynical to comprehend US politics.
it's necessary to be cynical to comprehend US politics.
it's necessary to be cynical to comprehend politicshuman relations.
it's not necessary to be cynical to comprehend human relations.
it's not necessarypretty much useless to try to comprehend human relations.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""I just wonder if this is from some "lean forward" think tank work, or if it really is an organically created accident.""

It's just partisan politics looking to demonize the other team disguised as anti-racism do-gooding.

Note how it's only things the other person does is racist.

Hillary voters seem to have no shame for voting for a candidate that called a former high ranking member of the KKK a mentor. The bar for racism has been dropped so low theses days there is no way Hillary's comment means anything other than she supports the KKK, if they applied their own standard. If these people were really concerned about racist connections, they could never vote for someone who said that.

[Robert]

I still think it is odd that this race-baiting issue is suddenly the national focus.

'Tis a signal that the real problem they're trying to distract us from, namely that there's more call on our $ than we have $, is getting more serious. Because that's an intractable problem. A promise to somebody, including a promise to be allowed to keep their own $, has to be broken.

[Longtobefree]

Grant owned a slave.
Only for about a year, but he owned a slave.
Down with his statue.

On the other hand, his administration was corrupt enough qualify him for a statue in the people's republic of East Coastistan.

[IceTrey]

His wife owned 4. Don't even get me started on Grant's campaign of extermination vis a vis the Native Americans.

[Jordan]

When can we expect them to rename Robert Moses State Park (yeah, yeah, I know not NYC)?

[Rebel Scum]

as could the tomb of President Ulysses Grant

I am against taking historical monuments, but this at least makes some sense from the "omg slavery!" perspective. Grant was a slave driver who didn't give up his own slaves until forced to by law. Contrast that with Lee who didn't own slaves (and opposed slavery on moral grounds) and followed through on his late father in laws will to free the slaves his father in law owned. Lee freed more slaves than Lincoln (the EP did not apply to anywhere under Union control at the time). Let that sink in.

[Mickey Rat]

Yeah, Lincoln allowed himself to be constrained by the Constitutional limits of presidential authority in issuing the EP, so he did not do enough.

Sorry, that is just a silly apples to oranges comparison of two men.

[Brother Kyfho]

Uhhh, Lincoln never allowed himself to be constrained by the constitutional limits of presidential authority in ANYTHING.

[creech]

Lee had five years to free his father in laws' slaves. He waited until the very last day of the five years (taking time out from his commander duties at ANV ) to do so. There are post-bellum letters from Lee urging white Southerners not to employ black people. Was he the worst racist? No, but he and Lincoln and lots of Northerners were not about to agree that black folks had the innate ability to be "as good as" the white race.

[IceTrey]

Grant had one slave for about a year that was given to him. Lee did own slaves at some point. Grant should be pilloried for the Indian Wars.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

I heard the mayor was going to review monuments that "offends the sensibilities". The first thing that came to my mind was this is argument that Giuliani was making in an attempt to censor art.

[CatoTheChipper]

Here's an idea that Marxists and libertarians would agree with if they were true to their ideology:

Tear down ALL public statues and other memorials and rename ALL public landmarks, streets, cities, and states that commemorate politicians and war.

Of course, Marxists only pretend to wish the state to wither away and to end war; they really worship the state and know that nothing enriches the health of the state so well as war.

[loveconstitution1789]

So, spend taxpayer money to tear down statues that have already been paid for?

I think history and historical markers are important because seeing a statue or battlefield really hits a different part of you than reading history in books.

On that note, this tearing down statues is about power to tear down statues and what you don't like today. These nutjobs will be doomed to relive history because they are so ignorant of it. They are literally tearing down historical markers that might have influenced others to not follow in racist Democrat's footsteps.

I guess that makes sense that lefties don't want Democrat history to be readily apparent to people.

[Rhywun]

Maybe it would be easier to just affix a number to each plaque, statue, monument, bridge, or building inidicating how many slaves the namesake owned. Kind of like calorie counts.

[Cynical Asshole]

Who Is Buried in Grant's Tomb?

Jimmy Hoffa?

[Sevo]

Naah.
They found his body years ago under Tammy Faye Bakker's makeup.

[Brandybuck]

This is what happens when you let Leftists be in charge of things. We got rid of the Bobby Lee statues NOT because they were a symbol of hate, but because they are profoundly unpatriotic displays of an enemy state that made war on us. We don't have statues to Tojo or Romel or Goering, why do we have statues to Lee? We don't have statues to Gage or Howe either.

And flags. We don't fly the Japanese flag, Nazi flag, or British flag. We especially don't fly the Al'Qaeda flag. So why the fuck are all these places flying the Confederate flag?

The Confederacy LEFT the United States. Maybe that was their perogative, maybe it wasn't, but we don't honor quitters in this country. And then they attacked us first!

Patriotism calls us to remove all monuments to our enemies from public lands. Period.

[Cloudbuster]

There are millions upon millions of people living among us who are blood descendants of confederate soldiers -- living, breathing monuments to slavery! I guess they should all be erased, too.

[CE]

So libertarians should judge everything through the lens of allegiance to the federal government?
And not honor those who fought for the right to secession and self determination, as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence? The Confederate flag flew over several of the united States. The Japanese, Nazi, and Al Qaeda flags did not. And Washington and Jefferson quit the British Empire -- down with their statues.

[Brother Kyfho]

> they are profoundly unpatriotic displays of an enemy state that made war on us.

"Us"? There is nothing - NOTHING in the Constitution that prohibits secession. In fact, it was expressly allowed for in the debates over ratification. The south was absolutely within its rights to secede. The war was NOT over slavery, all of the northern stated ratified the Corwin amendment immediately after Lincoln was elected, the south seceded anyway.

Brandybuck, you need to check out today's LewRockwell.com , and read Tom Woods article Lincoln Unmasked, a review of Tom DiLorenzo's book. Lincoln was a POS.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""Patriotism calls us to remove all monuments to our enemies from public lands. Period.""

Would that include a statute of Sitting Bull? Does patriotism only apply to enemies of specific wars?

[Cloudbuster]

Because taxation is slavery, anyone who has ever benefited from government taxation is a slavery supporter.

Death to all of us!

[IceTrey]

The Democrats want the statues to come down because it was Democrats who erected them!

[Robert]

Of course none of these things are matters of "hate" or offense, but just a matter of interest groups showing they can throw their weight around, theoretically demonstrating their clout by influencing meaningless gestures. Like the signs downtown that point to "SCHOOL FOR DEAF" in finger spelling?completely nonfunctional, since deaf people can read letters easier than they can fingers forming letters, as can hearing people, so they make it that much harder to convey, "Blowing your horn may not be effective here."

[GamerFromJump]

When will all the Robert K Byrd whatevers start coming down?

[Brother Kyfho]

How come nobody is commenting on Columbus? There's a POS if ever there was one. Read his diary where he writes about beating bloody a Caribbean woman that resists his efforts to rape her.

[Dan S.]

DeBlasio ordered a review of monuments and memorials on City property. But Grant's Tomb (officially General Grant National Memorial) is Federal property. You can be sure it will not be removed for "offensiveness". And no, even in his most spiteful moments, I don't believe Trump would have it removed in order to "balance out" the removal of monuments to Lee.