NYC Cancels Thomas Jefferson

A statue of the third president will likely be removed from City Hall.

Today, the New York Public Design Commission will vote to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall. The seven-foot tall bronze statue will be loaned to the New York Historical Society. Annette Gordon-Reed criticized the move.

Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard Law School professor and a Jefferson expert, objected to the idea of taking down the Jefferson statue, but described its likely move to the New-York Historical Society, where she serves as a trustee, as the best-case scenario.

"This represents a lumping together of the Confederates and a member of the founding generation in a way which I think minimizes the crimes and the problems with the Confederacy," Ms. Gordon-Reed said.

Later this year, the famous Theodore Roosevelt statue will be removed the Museum of Natural History.

Thankfully, Mt. Rushmore is not in Manhattan. At least three of the faces would be effaced.

Comments

[Gandydancer]

So, Taliban-like actions are OK with this Gordon-Reed person as long as the statues are of actual Confederates?

[Martinned]

Ahem...

The seven-foot tall bronze statue will be loaned to the New York Historical Society.

[Gandydancer]

You point being that it hasn't been melted down YET?

There was a Robert E. Lee statue -- not the one in Charlottesville -- taken down recently, cut into pieces, and left in some random storage yard -- for now. So don't pretend that the Woke mob is incapable of iconoclasm.

[JJJSSS]

Would that be the one in Richmond?

Personally, I would've left it there, with a plaque explaining that he was a notoriously brutal slaveholder and a traitor to his nation.

[Gandydancer]

What YOU would do is neither here nor there.

THEY did what they did.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-e-lee-statue-removed-richmond-virginia-capital/

[M L]

They are actually exhuming graves and digging up the remains of confederates who fought in defense of their homelands and were venerated by history for that for 150 years.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Where are they doing that?

[LawTalkingGuy]

The first google result is for a clearly fake story about an Ohio cemetery digging up graves and dumping the remains in a lake.

[Gandydancer]

How strange. The first result that duckduck turns up iwhen searching for "digging up the remains of confederates" is a WaPo story https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/06/02/memphis-exhumes-confederate-remains/. The next nine results are on the same subject. Is Google broken?

[Scooter]

Google's not broken. It's "Fixed".

[JJJSSS]

Way to bury the lede- "digging up the remains of confederates," by which you mean the guy who was notorious for atrocities during the war and then founded the Klan afterwards.

[LawTalkingGuy]

With apologies to Noscitur: the worst crimes are the hypothetical ones.

[Gandydancer]

Yeah, right. Nobody knew rthe Taliband would be blowing up particular statues until they got around to them. Until then it was only "hypothetical", not a pattern, eh?

[JJJSSS]

The Taliban put statues into a museum?

[Armchair Lawyer]

They destroyed historical statues, removing them from the public eye.

Likewise the New York Public Design Commission is removing a statue of Jefferson from the public eye, to a far more removed position, where ever the New York Historical Society can house it.

By eliminating the monuments to past history, it helps to eliminate knowledge and understanding of that history.

[JJJSSS]

Is the knowledge and understanding of that history that you desire the document that reads "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," or is it the man who was a two term President with some significant successes (like the Louisiana Purchase), or is it the man who repeatedly raped an enslaved woman who was herself the result of rapes perpetuated by his father-in-law (Sally Hemings being not only a slave owned by Jefferson but also Martha Jefferson's half-sister)? If it's just the first you care about, perhaps we can put a nice copy of the Declaration of Independence in its place. If it's all of the above, perhaps we should leave the statue there with an updated plaque explaining who he was.

[Gandydancer]

The claims about Hemings are unproven and unprovable.
https://ricochet.com/201929/archives/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-a-dissent/

[grb]

Gandydancer : The claims about Hemings are unproven and unprovable.

Unless you want to go full-Postmodern, there's substantial evidence leading to a limited number of options. DNA establishes Hemmings descendants came from the Jefferson line. The record of Sally Hemmings' pregnancies charts exactly with TJ's presence at Monticello - which is persuasive since Jefferson's travels created very narrow windows of opportunity. The alternate theory is Jefferson's ne'er-do-well brother Rudolf would always drop by at just the precise time to impregnate Ms. Hemmings himself.

Pre-DNA, Jefferson's defenders often insisted he was too disciplined & iron-willed to be responsible. Yet I see him as being remarkably self-indulgent; someone who could never pass up any desire - be it a new building project, expensive work of art, or high-dollar bottle of wine. Thus his final days were buried hopelessly in debt - and unable to free his slaves as a result.

The man was a damn fine architect though. Not just a gentleman builder; not just reasonable skilled; but exceptionally talented. He had an architect's particular kind of creativity.

[Dilan Esper]

Right. Also, you should always be suspicious of backwards reasoning. Before the DNA evidence, nobody was trying to connect Hemings as having been raped by some member of the Jefferson family other than Tom. The defenders of Thomas Jefferson were claiming that the whole story was BS.

Then, suddenly, when the DNA test comes through, oh, maybe it's one of Thomas Jefferson's relatives who raped her! That's the ticket! It's like when OJ Simpson claimed that he never wore Bruno Magli shoes, and then claimed the photos must have been doctored after they came out showing that he had. When you get caught, take the L.

It's absolutely 100 percent clear Thomas Jefferson raped his slave and fathered at least one child. There's no reason other than an irrational attachment to Jefferson that anyone would want to argue otherwise at this point.

[JasonT20]

It’s absolutely 100 percent clear Thomas Jefferson raped his slave and fathered at least one child. There’s no reason other than an irrational attachment to Jefferson that anyone would want to argue otherwise at this point.

True. And to anyone that would dispute whether it was rape, I would point out that she was a slave. She was not in a position to deny consent, so she couldn't give it either.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, I must admit my first thought was, "How does establishing sex establish rape?"

My second thought was, "Well, they'll argue some form of statutory rape."

Guess I was right.

[JasonT20]

You disagree? A person can hold another as a slave at yet engage in consensual sex with that slave? That would be a fairly odd view of what consent means.

[Armchair Lawyer]

There's a lot of history, in many respects, some good, some bad.

Understanding it, and the context for all of it, is critical.

Removing it eliminates the ability to really understand it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

If only there were some sort of institution that could help promote that public understanding of history----a sort of "Historical Society", if you will.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Having a statue in the common view acts as a common reference to the historical item. Removing it to a museum helps keep it from the public eye.

If you want to eliminate history, start by eliminating the public monuments...hide them away in museums where they will be seen less often, by less people.

[JasonT20]

Having a statue in the common view acts as a common reference to the historical item. Removing it to a museum helps keep it from the public eye.

Indiana Jones wanted to put things in museums to keep them away from the public eye?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

You're really resorting to pop shit references to make your point?

[JasonT20]

1) Have a sense of humor.

2) I'm not "resorting" to that reference to make my point. I think it is quite apt what Armchair Lawyer wrote. The villain in that scene had obtained an historical artifact (in a way that would now likely be illegal) and was keeping it for himself. Indiana Jones wanted it in a museum so that other people could see it and know and understand its history. (Not that Professor Henry Jones Jr. was exactly an ethical archeologist, though.)

This is why museums exist, for fuck's sake. People put up statues and monuments in and around government buildings at least as much to make their own political points as to try and represent history for the sake of educating about that history.

[LawTalkingGuy]

They're removing a statue, not "history" which is a genre of writing, an academic discipline, and a mode of thought about the past. You can understand history without statues, in fact it is often better when you don't get mislead by the hagiography, whitewashing, and mythology that statues and memorials often employ. It is by now a cliched point, but is a good one nonetheless: I don't have any trouble understanding WWII due to the lack of Hitler statues.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Statues are part of history. I can't think of any serious historian who doesn't consider statues as part of history. They act as a common reference to the history, to our historical forefathers, especially when they are in common view.

You may not have any trouble understanding WWII. Of course there are dozens to hundreds, if not thousands of monuments, statues, and memorials to WWII.

How much trouble do you have understanding a war, event or history without dozens of historical monuments? Is it any surprise that totalitarian governments destroy the monuments of the previous rulers?

https://www.rferl.org/a/toppled-and-destroyed-statues-and-monuments-from-history/30667614.html

[LawTalkingGuy]

"Statues are part of history. I can’t think of any serious historian who doesn’t consider statues as part of history. They act as a common reference to the history, to our historical forefathers, especially when they are in common view."

You know who some of the biggest supporters of getting rid of Confederate statues are? Historians of the Civil War and the American South. Because they understand that those statues were part of a project about perpetuating a completely false mythology about the Confederacy. The statues are actually in opposition to the basic facts of the Civil War.

"How much trouble do you have understanding a war, event or history without dozens of historical monuments?"

I was a history major in college, I didn't go looking for statues to do my papers.

"Is it any surprise that totalitarian governments destroy the monuments of the previous rulers?"

No. But is it also any surprise that totalitarian governments put statues up to praise themselves and to offer a warped version of history and public memory to support their ideological goals? Shouldn't those be taken down when the regime ends? Or do you think Russia should have left all the Lenin statues everywhere. Or do you think North Korea needs to leave up all the Kim iconography if they are lucky enough to escape that brutal regime?

[Gandydancer]

The statues are actually in opposition to the basic facts of the Civil War.

This is a bizarre claim.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No. It's actually supported by the historiography on how the Lost Cause myth came to be implemented. Read: The Southern Past by Fitzhugh Brundage for a good place to start.

[Gandydancer]

Utter nonsense. There is nothing about the existence Lost Cause historiography that could possibly justify the claim, "The statues are actually in opposition to the basic facts of the Civil War."

[LawTalkingGuy]

Who put up the statutes? Typically groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. This group and groups like this were an integral part of the formation of the Lost Cause mythology. And part of that project involved taking over public spaces and directing public memory towards honoring and memorializing Confederate leaders and soldiers. The statues praised the honor and valor of soldiers while ignoring and whitewashing the actual cause for which they fought. Their mere existence, in places of honor, was part of a concerted and deliberate effort to make a myth about the Confederacy.

[Brett Bellmore]

You need something more than claimed intent to establish that the statues, as statues, are somehow in opposition to the facts. Did they get the appearance of the people depicted wrong? Wrong dates or events? I mean, is there a statue of Robert E. Lee liberating Lincoln's slaves?

I've a suspicion that what you mean by "in opposition to the basic facts of the Civil War" is that they commemorate people who you think should not be commemorated, and nothing more.

[LawTalkingGuy]

What I mean is they were used to promote a mythology about the south that stands in opposition to the facts about the war and its causes.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, I was right. The statues themselves, as statues, don't falsify squat. You just don't like the fact that people you despise have statues; They falsify them being the sort of people who ought to get statues.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Brett being a lost cause apologist is the least surprising revelation ever.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Shouldn’t those be taken down when the regime ends? Or do you think Russia should have left all the Lenin statues everywhere.

Russia still has plenty of Lenin statues standing. Stalin, too. Or do you mean the ex-Soviet states?

Hell, the one statue of Lenin in the US is owned by one of your fellow travelers in Seattle.

[Armchair Lawyer]

This is a seriously odd argument you're making.

Wou're saying that statues and monuments aren't part of history, in part because you in particular didn't go out and study them for your B.S. in History....

It's frankly amazing that you're making this argument.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I’m not saying they’re not part of the historiographical landscape, indeed, that’s why I’m so critical of Confederate ones: they were part of a noxious effort at historical whitewashing. What I am saying is they’re not at all necessary to the study of history: removing extremely recent public memorials doesn’t actually impair the study of the past.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Armchair, LawTalkingGuy has it right. Try a thought experiment. All the Lost Cause statues get taken off their pedestals, and shipped to an appropriate place to put them on public display together—say in Stone Mountain, GA. Each statue gets its own historical article, explaining where it originally stood, who put it there, and when, together with contextual info about what was going on in the nation at the time, with regard to Reconstruction, Jim Crow, or race relations. The idea is to let observers experience whole the phenomenon these statues present, in historical context. I think you can see how that would come out.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"What I am saying is they’re not at all necessary to the study of history"

You can say that about anything, and use it to justify anything.

Burn down the Library of Congress... "Not at all necessary to the study of history, there are other libraries".
Eliminate history textbooks from middle school and high school. "Not at all necessary to the study of history, they can do it in College".
Purge inconvenient history professors from Universities in a country. "Not at all necessary to the study of history, there are other countries".

Just because you CAN use other methods to study history, it doesn't mean that eliminating easily visible monuments and landmarks doesn't impede the common understanding of history. If you limit "History" to just an elite few who have doctorates and access to the key materials, rather than available to the masses...then you've done the profession, the country, and history itself a grave injustice.

[LawTalkingGuy]

That’s an extremely silly response. Of course destroying documentary evidence for thousands of different fields is going to impair the study of the past. By contrast removing tons of useless and repetitive monuments to people involved in a very well documented event won’t impair it at all.

Basically this is less ironic Dril: “there’s no difference between good things and bad things.”

[Gandydancer]

Jefferson = Hitler. Got it.

[LawTalkingGuy]

In the sense that I learned about Jefferson and Hitler without ever seeing or studying closely a statue of either of them.

[Gandydancer]

Oh, please. You know better than to be unaware that ad Hitlerium is a thing to be avoided. How did that pop out instead of "Churchill" or "Roosevelt"?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Because there obviously aren't any statues of Hitler anywhere and yet I still figured out who he was and his place in history. It's a rebuttal to the non-sense idea that you need statues to learn history.

Using Roosevelt and Churchill wouldn't make any sense to support my point because there are tons of public memorials to them.

I mean I guess I could take a very obscure figure with zero statues, but that would also undercut the point: there are zero Hitler statues, yet everyone knows about him and what he did, so saying removing statues is destroying history is completely ridiculous.

[Brett Bellmore]

Aren't a lot of Budda statues in Afghanistan, either.

[LawTalkingGuy]

That’s a complete non-sequitur.

[bernard11]

Oh bullshit.

The notion that we erect statues as neutral symbols, simply to teach history, is complete fucking idiocy. Spouting it is either just trollery or ignorance.

There’s a lot of history, in many respects, some good, some bad.

And when we conceal and misrepresent and outright lie about the bad we are doing way more damage to history than we do by taking down a statue.

Actually, I think there's a good case for leaving Jefferson alone. He was President, after all, and wrote the Declaration. Unlike Lee and the other Confederates he was not a traitor to the US.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Actually, I think there’s a good case for leaving Jefferson alone."

But many people don't. Many people would prefer to eliminate history. There's a good reason that it's best to not go around destroying all those monuments and statues you disagree with, as well as those you agree with.

[JJJSSS]

You seem to have this misapprehension that taking down statues that were put up well afterwards and for reasons relating to the times the statues were put up is "eliminating history."

If you want to learn about history, you can go to a museum. You can go to an archive. You can go to a battlefield, or to a historical building (I'm told that Jefferson has a rather famous one that he designed and lived in). You can read about it in a book, or on a reputable website. Statues are one of many objects that can teach you about history, but taking down a statue isn't "eliminating history," any more than switching which face is on a dollar bill is "eliminating history" (of course, which faces you want on your bills have to do with affection for the individual in question- sort of like statues).

[Armchair Lawyer]

" you can go to a museum."
Until that gets cancelled

"You can go to an archive"
Until it is restricted so the public can't go

What you don't understand is that eliminating the easily visible statues and monuments is the first step to eliminating history. After that, the museum is closed...the statue there is quietly removed...

[Don Nico]

Indeed, they blew-up famous, giant Buddhas of long ago.

[Michael D]

Ms. Gordon-Reed shows her naïveté with her comment. Removing statues was never about the Confederacy. The Confederacy only the low hanging fruit. The real prize is the founding generation with the goal of delegitimizing the founding of the nation and the ideas upon which it was founded.

This is part of the “great reset”.

[JJJSSS]

It is entirely possible to think that "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" is a statement that epitomizes the ideals of America and what it should be and at the same time think that the guy who wrote them had serious issues with fulfilling them, even under the standards of the day. Or that the man who wrote "the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance" and yet was one of the largest slaveholders in America perhaps failed to live up to his own ideals.

Try to keep up with the concept of both lauding good ideas and tearing down the hagiography of the people who wrote them but failed to fulfill them as being possible. Some of us can keep two thoughts in our heads at the same time.

As for the Confederates- they not only did terrible things but also failed to even espouse ideas to advance the American ideal. Into the dustbin of history they should go.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

As for the Confederates- they not only did terrible things but also failed to even espouse ideas to advance the American ideal. Into the dustbin of history they should go.

For someone appealing to history, it's hilariously ironic that you're portraying the Civil War as some kind of golden crusade.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You don't need to portray the Union as fighting for abolition at the start of the war to recognize the Confederacy's great sins and why those who supported it should not be honored.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

You don’t need to portray the Union as fighting for abolition at the start of the war to recognize the Confederacy’s great sins and why those who supported it should not be honored.

That doesn't exactly bolster his point, does it? He's arguing that Jefferson's sins make him unacceptable as a someone to look up to, while employing a selective narrative of the Civil War.

[grb]

Red Rocks White Privilege : "portraying the Civil War as some kind of golden crusade"

Hailing from Richmond, I've spent the better part of my life arguing Lost Cause nonsense with my fellow Southerners. Before beginning the debate, I always offer this:

(1) The North didn't begin the war with the aim of abolishing slavery. That objective came much, much, later.

(2) The South seceded over a perceived threat to slavery - specifically, the belief their weakening national power would lead to fewer new slave states entering the union, which then would accelerate their decline.

Often that's enough to establish agreement. But a lot of my fellow Southerners want to whitewash the issue of slavery out of the Confederacy's "cause"

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Often that’s enough to establish agreement. But a lot of my fellow Southerners want to whitewash the issue of slavery out of the Confederacy’s “cause”

Iconoclasm is its own form of whitewashing, just for different purposes.

[grb]

Red Rocks White Privilege : "Iconoclasm is its own form of whitewashing"

Uh huh. The dictionary offers this : "The action of attacking or assertively rejecting cherished beliefs and institutions or established values and practices."

So you can see the problem, right RRWP? Anyone who mines "cherished beliefs and institutions or established values and practices." from the moral cesspool of the Confederacy has bigger problems internally than any iconoclastic challenger.

Ethics-wise, the South's cause was completely barren ground. You might want to focus on not blaming the messenger.....

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Anyone who mines “cherished beliefs and institutions or established values and practices.” from the moral cesspool of the Confederacy has bigger problems internally than any iconoclastic challenger.

Except the argument that whatever the current left-liberal consensus happens to be on history is what constitutes an "accurate" interpretation of it, and thus those symbols which the statues represent no longer have any historical, cultural, or educational value to offer, is ultimately a specious, stunted, incurious one. And in these cases, a disingenuous one to boot, as plenty of statues not associated with the Confederacy at all (indeed, some who actually fought against said Confederacy) were torn down, destroyed, and vandalized as well.

The issue isn't whether the Confederacy was representing an abhorrent practice (an argument that would get laughed out of many non-western influenced nations and cultures even today). The issue is the ideological motivations of the people who are doing it.

Ethics-wise, the South’s cause was completely barren ground. You might want to focus on not blaming the messenger…..

Focusing solely on the cause itself rather than the circumstances and the people involved is what distorts the history as much as the post-Reconstruction mythology that sprung up.

[JJJSSS]

The circumstances were Lincoln's election and a refusal by Northern states to acknowledge parts of Dred Scott. The reason that those circumstances led to the Civil War is that Southerners realized that sooner or later a critical mass of anti-slavery sentiment would exist in Congress.

And as for their motivation? Read the documents. The various declarations of secession were pretty clearly based on slavery, and the primary innovation of the Confederate Constitution was further protection of slavery.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

And as for their motivation? Read the documents. The various declarations of secession were pretty clearly based on slavery, and the primary innovation of the Confederate Constitution was further protection of slavery.

I didn't argue otherwise, you moron.

[Gandydancer]

The election of Lincoln was absolutely part of a crusade to abolish slavery, though he dissembled about this when convenient. The South was not wrong to anticipate interference from his ilk.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It does not escape my notice that "ilk" is typically used in a pejorative fashion but you applied it to abolitionists.

[grb]

Gandydancer : "The election of Lincoln was absolutely part of a crusade to abolish slavery, though he dissembled....(etc)"

Wrong. Lincoln's election by itself posed zero risk to slavery. As many people eagerly note, Lincoln's abolitionist views were initially matched by little or no concrete proposals or actions. The fact Lincoln could be elected by Northern electoral votes alone was the issue, not Lincoln himself. It signaled the South would be shut out of power moving forward, particularly in decisions on whether a territory entered the union as slave state or free.

Remember: The core of Southern power had been the coalition between Norther & Southern Democrats. That collapsed at the party's convention in Charleston, when Sen. Stephen A. Douglas supported public referendums as the means to settle slavery's status in a new state. That enraged Southern delegates who wanted the issue controlled by a strong central government. They broke from the Democrats and staged their own convention in Baltimore. The South's old political base was permanently broken. That's what Lincoln's election signaled.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

If Lincoln had possessed competent operational and tactical generalship in the Army of the Potomac early in the war (to be fair, McClellan at least was a wonderful organizer, if a piss-poor field general), the South probably would have been defeated in relatively short order and the Emancipation Proclamation never would have been produced.

His stance was always that the South needed to abide by the Missouri Compromise and stay within the practice's territorial limits, but he was also self-aware enough to understand that it wasn't going to go on like that forever. That's why he ultimately preferred just shipping all the slaves back to Africa if he thought that would have been possible.

Lincoln was more than willing to let slavery remain in its existing territories if it meant restoring the Union. It wasn't until after Antietam that he decided that freeing the Confederacy's slaves was a strategic necessity to overcome the Army of the Northern Potomac's weaknesses.

[grb]

RRWP : "Lincoln was more than willing to let slavery remain in its existing territories if it meant restoring the Union"

Absolutely 100% true, though blaming Lincoln for McClellan is a reach. "Little Mac" certainly looked the part of a professional soldier, as did Lincoln's other choices before their core incompetence was exposed - before he finally found Grant.

Again, the centrality of slavery to the Civil War was in Southern secession, not the North's reaction to secession.

[Gandydancer]

"John Brown's Body", celebrating the terrorist, was a favorite Yankee marching song quite early in the War of Northern Aggression. Lincoln's claim about non-interference in slavery was just a politician's lie. Eliminating slavery was a foundational motive in the creation of the Republican Party.

[David Nieporent]

War of Northern Aggression.

Fort Sumter should never have attacked those artillery shells with its walls.

[LawTalkingGuy]

JFC.

[grb]

Most people criticize Lincoln because he wasn't prepared to take concrete actions to abolish slavery. It was well into the Civil War before his deeds matched his words.

In contrast, Gandydancer criticizes Lincoln because he WAS prepare to act against slavery (via a secret plan). Whether that plan did or didn't exist, it's worth noting that Gandy believes Lincoln's "inference" with the institution of slavery would be something worthy of censure.

I think most normal people would applaud evidence of that inference if it was found. Gandydancer? Not so much.

[Bob from Ohio]

"The real prize is the founding generation with the goal of delegitimizing the founding of the nation and the ideas upon which it was founded."

Exactly. See also "1619 Project"

[grb]

Bob from Ohio : "goal of delegitimizing the founding of the nation"

It's always instructive to hear that kind of talk in a different setting. You see news accounts of Russians refusing to face Stalin's crimes, or Japanese nationalists enraged over a tally of WWII crimes, or the Turkish government's brazen dishonesty re the Armenians.

These people are often furious - just because someone is trying to make them face unpleasant history. To an outsider, they just look weak.

[Gandydancer]

Upthread it's Jefferson=Hitler, here it's Jefferson=Stalin, or the Rape of Nanking, or the Armenian Genocide.

Thanks for proving Bob's point.

[grb]

Hilarious. So now you're patrolling up and down the comments hawking facile strawman puerility?

What's the point, dude? I clearly didn't say Jefferson equals Armenian Genocide. LTG never went Godwin. You're just full of shit.

(But you're used to that)

[Gandydancer]

Acvtually you clearly did compare Bob's observation on the motives behind Jefferson's defenetration to hiding the crimes of Stalin, Japanese war crimes, and the Turk's denial of the Armenian Genocide. That you deny the clear implications of that is just dishonesty.

(But that's you, all the time.)

[Gandydancer]

I will add that Reason's shitty comment software gives me no way to see if anyone has replied to me than searching for my name and moving the cursor to the instances of it popping up on the slider bar. So, if "patrolling up and down the comments" were a bad thing (why?) don't blame me for it happening.

You and the guy using ad Hitlerium are of a piece, however.

[IPLawyer]

More histrionic bullshit from Blackman

[Armchair Lawyer]

Is it?

How long before Washington DC is renamed?

Washington owned slaves, after all. And Columbus was a bad bad man.

[JJJSSS]

Columbus was a bad bad man- he was clapped in irons and sent back to Spain for atrocities that even 15th century Spanish officials saw as atrocious.

As for Washington DC- personally, I rather like the compromise that the pro-state folks have proposed (and would be happy to see a name change even without the statehood)- Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.

[Bob from Ohio]

Columbus's political enemies put him in chains. The Crown freed him and even funded his 4th voyage.

[bernard11]

And we all know what wondrous and noble people Ferdinand and Isabella were.

If they say Columbus is OK, then who am I to argue?

[Bob from Ohio]

His incorrect point is that Columbus was bad even by 15th century standards. He was not.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Depends who you ask.

[Toranth]

Columbus was a marvel of kindness, who fell afoul of political rivals that lied their asses off to take of his job. As soon as any investigation was done, the whole tapestry of lies collapsed.

If you think Columbus was "bad bad man" even by 16th century standards, please list what you think his actual crimes were - specifically - and how other Spaniards behaved in the New World around that time.

[David Nieporent]

I like how your trolling argument pivots from "he didn't do those things" to "okay, he did but that doesn't make him worse than other Spaniards" in the space of three sentences.

[Toranth]

I didn't name any things he did or didn't do, except in the case of the specific accusations he was charged with - which were all lies.

However, being a "bad bad man" even by 16th century standards is an entirely different argument. The complaints that JJJSSS may be thinking of probably are not the things Columbus was charged with, and it wouldn't surprise me that he included things like "not paying natives a living wage" or equal levels of bullshit.

Now, anyone with even 10% of a 4th grader's mental capacity would be able to parse these sentences and understand what I was asking. It does not surprise me, then, that you failed to do so, and responded it your usual idiotic fashion. But since you decided to include yourself, can you specify things that Columbus did that made him a "bad bad man"? Or are you just ignorantly trolling again?

[IPLawyer]

So your brilliant theory to show that I'm wrong is by asking an even-dumber and more histrionic question?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Consider it an in-kind contribution.

[IPLawyer]

I find it hard to consider moving a statue to a museum a "cancellation", but then again, I'm not a total moron.

Likewise with Blackman's complete misrepresentation of what's going on with the Roosevelt statue at AMNH.

As a New Yorker, my message to Blackman is to "fuck off".

[Gandydancer]

Dipshit:

Likewise with Blackman’s complete misrepresentation of what’s going on with the Roosevelt statue at AMNH.

Blackman:

Later this year, the famous Theodore Roosevelt statue will be removed the Museum of Natural History.

NYTimes headline:

Unanimous Vote Is Final Step Toward Removing Roosevelt Statue

You know your membership on Team Stupid is really secure when you start accusing the New York Times of being too far to the right.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"I find it hard to consider moving a statue to a museum a “cancellation”, but then again, I’m not a total moron."

Here's a question for you.

Where does a statue get viewed more often. In front of city hall? Or in a quiet corner of a museum?

[Noscitur a sociis]

I'm all for reflexive outrage first and comprehension later, but if you read the article you'll see that the statue is not "in front of city hall", but rather against one wall of the room where the city council meets. (There's even a picture if you don't feel like reading). So I would say that it is in fact quite likely that the statute will be more visible to the public in its new location.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I apologize for the minor point. It was IN city hall, not OUTSIDE city hall...

But again, why remove it at all, if it's so "unobtrusive"...

[IPLawyer]

Because they want to move it to a museum so they can put something else there. Next question...

[Gandydancer]

A statue of George Floyd?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Well, according to the article, the move was prompted by members of the city council who thought that it "symbolizes the disgusting and racist basis on which America was founded."

Which is, of course, a profoundly stupid belief richly deserving of criticism and ridicule. But that criticism works better if it's based on facts that are true and arguments that have merit. And for that matter, on the scale of profound stupidity from the New York City Council, I'm not sure moving a statue from city hall into a museum should even make it above the fold.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Which is, of course, a profoundly stupid belief richly deserving of criticism and ridicule."

But these people are controlling the argument. They've removed Jefferson from the City Hall. Maybe next from a town square. Why not? They've got a history of success. Maybe the Jefferson Memorial in DC next?

Can you make a good argument for why this wouldn't happen? One that also applies to the current situation?

[IPLawyer]

So? That's cancellation? Being viewed less? It's city hall, are people in new york not allowed to determine what they want standing in front of city hall? What a fucking moronic argument on a free speech blog.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I find it hard to consider moving a statue to a museum a “cancellation”, but then again, I’m not a total moron.

Not from what I've seen.

As a New Yorker, my message to Blackman is to “fuck off”.

A message that should go right back to every left-wing NYC shitlib out there.

[IPLawyer]

You're the one complaining about what we are doing in NYC, so you seem a bit confused, much like the rest of your response indicates.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

There's nothing confusing about big-mouthed New York City morons acting like big-mouthed New York City morons.

[IPLawyer]

Well the NYC council isn't moving a statue wherever you are from, so why don't you heed your own advice?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Why don't you jump in front of a subway, it might improve the city's gene pool, but just barely.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The slippery slope is real.

First cancel the "Confederates". Then the slave owners (but not the REALLY popular ones). Then...the popular ones?

I'm just curious where does it end? Do you have a good place?

[Jonny Scrum-half]

I don't think that people like Washington or Jefferson should be treated the same as people like Lee, and to the extent that's happening I think that it's a counterproductive over-correction to 150+ years of distortion in the name of white supremacy.

But, really, can't you disagree with the over-correction while at the same time understanding that it's a response to a powerful and long-term project to whitewash slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction?

[IPLawyer]

You could, but then he wouldn't get his nut

[Brett Bellmore]

Here's the way it works: You establish the principle that people 'beyond the pale' can be erased. They get erased. The pale is now in a new location. Rinse and repeat.

And if at any time you demure from the latest wash cycle, you get to be a racist Nazi like the rest of us, so you almost certainly won't demure when the time comes.

But it won't matter if you do, because you already helped with the important part: Establishing that people beyond the pale can be erased.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No one is being erased, just not honored in the public sphere. No one is entitled to public praise for all eternity, least of all traitors who fought to preserve and expand slavery.

[Toranth]

The Chicago mob already tore down a statue of Lincoln for being insufficiently anti-racist, so I'm not really sure there is an end.

[Don Nico]

Do you ever make constructive comments? or do you just prefer snarks?

[Gandydancer]

Blackman seems more bemused than histrionic. You, on the other hand, are in high dudgeon that this was even mentioned. You want to see histrionic? Look in the mirror.

[JasonT20]

The statue at issue in the NY Natural History Museum is problematic because of the Native American and the Sub-Saharan African walking beside him in a way that makes them seem subservient. That is, Teddy Roosevelt, being on horseback while they walk beside him is portrayed as the Great White Father bringing civilization to the savages. Whereas Mt. Rushmore simply has his face, which can be viewed as a celebration of the positive things that he did for our country.

So which is worse, that Blackman didn't know that about the statue before bringing it up or that he did, but wanted to use it anyway to make his culture wars point dishonestly?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Thankfully, Mt. Rushmore is not in Manhattan. At least three of the faces would be effaced."

All it takes is a willing vandal, some explosives, and the guards persuaded to look the other way. So don't count on Rushmore lasting all that much longer. Where the left don't think they can get away with openly destroying something, they're quite capable of just being ineffective about defending it.

[apedad]

Are you talking about Mt. Rushmore or 1/6?

[Michael P]

Mt. Rushmore, "room to destroy" (in) Baltimore, multiple police precincts last year, 1/6, there's a long and recent history of the left being willfully negligent about public resources that they stopped caring about.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "All it takes is a willing vandal, some explosives, and the guards persuaded to look the other way"

I'm not sure the last one is even a problem. After all, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint had no difficult traipsing up and down Lincoln's nose. (and then the train went into the tunnel)

[David Nieporent]

Look, it's today's example of Brett being a conspiracy-minded loon.

[AmosArch]

So when do we get our apologies from the people who sneered at our prediction that this wouldn't stop at Confederates?

[Longtobefree]

The next speech after Pelosi admits the dems are hiding in back rooms.

[Carl_N_Brown]

What is their problem with Teddy Roosevelt?
Even Cuban Communists have said the U.S. kicking Spain out of Cuba in 1898 was a good thing.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

The statue at the Natural History Museum was problematic not because of Teddy Roosevelt, but rather its composition: TR on horseback, leading an exploring expedition, flanked by two POC scouts or helpers who look too subservient.
(2) The best solution would be
(2a) Detach the two POC statues (which are of perfectly good artistic quality), to be displayed individually at other sites, and
(2b) restore the statue of TR on horseback *alone*, shorn of the great-white-father overtones. He deserves the spot as a great promoter of natural history, as well as a famous New Yorker and most interesting President.
(3) TR has been denounced as an imperialist (notably for the 3-year Philippines guerrilla war, which belied our supposedly noble motives against Spain). That, however, was not the issue at the Natural History Museum.

[IPLawyer]

Also, the statue is going to be replaced with a different statue of Teddy Roosevelt and the decision was made by the museum and his family at their own behest. If I recall correctly, the woke mob demanded that the Museum cede it's land rights because it was built upon stolen native american land. Despite the continued histrionic proclamations of Blackman and other bloggers here, insisting that woke mobs rule all, the Museum has yet to cede such rights.

[Cal Cetín]

I'm glad the museum didn't commit seppuku, but simply because they have a self-preservation instinct doesn't mean they're not woke.

[Longtobefree]

Stolen my ass; we took that land by force of arms, just like the "native" americans did.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Why is "native" in scare quotes? Also, we didn't steal we used lethal violence isn't the defense you think it is. "Your honor I didn't steal his wallet, I just used force of arms!"

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Also, we didn’t steal we used lethal violence isn’t the defense you think it is.

Let us know when you're planning on fucking off back to the land of your ancestors, then, if it bothers you that much. By your side's stupid definition, you're talking as if voting Democrat is some kind of indulgence that allows you to stay.

[LawTalkingGuy]

So the options are 1) either ignore or praise the violent history of the country or 2) criticize it and leave? Do you apply this to any other country or just the US? Should the French leave France for criticizing the course of the French Revolution?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Resorting to a false dichotomy doesn't improve your argument. In fact, it just shows that you're an unprincipled hypocrite.

If you're on "stolen land," then fuck off to where your ancestors came from. As it is, you're really in no position to criticize shit when you willingly marinate in the benefits of the Law of Conquest.

Do you apply this to any other country or just the US? Should the French leave France for criticizing the course of the French Revolution?

White liberals deserve all the criticism on this they get.

[Toranth]

Because the "natives" weren't originally from the Americas, but instead immigrated a few thousand years before, wiping out the people that lived here before that. For example, the Lakota that claimed to be the "original" inhabitants of the Black Hills (where Mount Rushmore is located) actually invaded and wiped out the previous inhabitants in the 1800s!

But that's OK, I guess, because those all those previous residents may have done the same to the people before them as well, according to some of the latest findings in Central America.

[IPLawyer]

Love how you can't move past what the woke mob said, despite what must be a belief on your part that they are all stupid and misguided. Yet, you obsess over it and miss the point that they aren't in control and have no say.

[Noscitur a sociis]

When did that happen, exactly?

[Brett Bellmore]

"(2) The best solution would be
(2a) Detach the two POC statues (which are of perfectly good artistic quality), to be displayed individually at other sites, and
(2b) restore the statue of TR on horseback *alone*, shorn of the great-white-father overtones. He deserves the spot as a great promoter of natural history, as well as a famous New Yorker and most interesting President."

So, you'd cancel the "POC"? Because that's how your proposal would be portrayed.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

If it were negotiated carefully, my change probably would not have to carry that baggage. But the actual pending solution, as described by IPLawyer, sounds controversy-proof, hence better-- bring in a totally different statue of Teddy Roosevelt.

[David Nieporent]

The statue at the Natural History Museum was problematic not because of Teddy Roosevelt, but rather its composition: TR on horseback, leading an exploring expedition, flanked by two POC scouts or helpers who look too subservient.

But, I mean, that's historically accurate. The complaint isn't that it falsely depicts TR as too dominant; the complaint is that people don't like that he was.

Anyway, you're only half right. The museum's official rationale for its decision is as you describe it, but protesters in recent years (and of course escalating in 2020) have protested about the fact of honoring TR, not just this depiction of him.

[Cal Cetín]

"Annette Gordon-Reed criticized the move."

From now on she's *right-wing* professor Annette Gordon-Reed." I certainly hope *she* doesn't have any statues of herself.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Thankfully, Mt. Rushmore is not in Manhattan. "

You probably are correct in sensing a scant likelihood that today's South Dakota would acknowledge anything wrong with White supremacy, slaveholding, or the Confederacy.

[Gandydancer]

There are Confederates on Mt. Rushmore in Kook-world?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I was describing a range of preferences in half-educated, White, old-timey South Dakota.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

What about the range of preferences of slack-jawed, slope-foreheaded hicklibs?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Many Volokh Conspiracy fans are quick to defend a traditional Jefferson statute in New York. Most Volokh Conspiracy fans also, however, would support a new Robert E. Lee in uniform on horseback statue at the Capitol.

Carry on, clingers. Your betters will continue to shape American progress; you get to watch and whine about it.

Stick with this unheralded tune until the end.

[Cal Cetín]

"Most Volokh Conspiracy fans also, however, would support a new Robert E. Lee in uniform on horseback statue at the Capitol."

Really? What are their handles?

[Gandydancer]

If Kook is typing he's lying.

I looked to see if he was pointing at an actual statue of Robert E. Lee in uniform, but, nah, just another stupid music video.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I figure most conservative Conspiracy fans have a photograph or small statue of Robert E. Lee within view most of the time.

[Cal Cetín]

"Good by, senses, it's been nice knowing you but now I'm taking leave of you."

/Kirkland

[Gandydancer]

We know already that you "figure" all sorts of stupid things, but Lithium might ameliorate some of that.

[bernard11]

Well, I'm guessing M.L., who seems to be a dedicated defender of the CSA for one.

[Cal Cetín]

If you guessed right, then you still haven't gotten to "most" - as in, "Most Volokh Conspiracy fans also, however, would support a new Robert E. Lee in uniform on horseback statue at the Capitol."

[bernard11]

It was Kirkland, not I, who said "most."

You, in turn, seemed to suggest that the number is zero. I think you are both wrong.

[Cal Cetín]

"You, in turn, seemed to suggest that the number is zero."

OK, you're doing that thing again where you make stuff up.

He said "most" and I challenged him. And I conceded one guy for the purposes of argument. That "seems" to be nothing at all like your paraphrase.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Most" might have been an overstatement. It could be as low as 30 percent.

(It probably is roughly 30 percent among the Conspirators. Among this blog's right-wing fans, though, it seems likely to be higher.)

[Noscitur a sociis]

I'd have to imagine the confederate apologists in this very thread wouldn't be too broken up about it. But if, say, ML, Gandydance, Armchair Lawyer, or Red Rocks White Privilege want to dispel the confusion, they're more than welcome to do so.

[Cal Cetín]

I'll confess to not having read every post, so perhaps I missed the "CSA all the way" cheerleading. I did see statue-toppling mentioned as a slippery slope starting with Confederates and going on to non-Confederates.

I, personally, wished I could disagree with that. That is, I wish we could just stop honoring Confederates, qua Confederates, in public places. I wish this wouldn't generate cultural momentum in favor of getting rid of Jefferson et. al.

But while I like that the Confederacy isn't being honored in the country which defeated the Confederacy and its principles, I'm wondering if the iconoclasts were ever limited to the Confederacy. I'd like to know whom I'm marching beside.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You can probably start with people like Annette Gordon-Reed who wrote a pretty critical biography of Jefferson and his relationship to slavery but doesn’t want to take his statue down and make him akin to Confederates.

[Cal Cetín]

You mean controversial right-wing professor Annette Gordon-Reed, who admits Jefferson's wrongdoing as a slaveholder but still wants the statue to stay up?

(I'm trying to put on the frame of someone who wants the statue removed)

Recall how impeccably leftist feminists rapidly became "TERFS" for dissenting one only one point?

Well, Ms. Gordon-Reed dissented on one point.

Maybe they'll ignore it and keep her in their good graces, but that's because they'll figure she won't repeat such behavior. If she says something else controversial, there will be less willingness to let it slide.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You wanted to know who the fellow travelers are on ending memorialization of the CSA but not founders and I gave you one. You could probably find similar views among most American historians, even the ones who are very direct about the moral failures of various founders.

[Cal Cetín]

She's a Girondin, her views no longer matter, I think that was my point.

I'll still advocate against honoring the Confederacy *qua* Confederacy, and for putting such monuments in museums and cemeteries. I mean, it's only fair, so long as it's done by voting, not toppling by force.

The Confederates are a perfect storm of badness not to be honored. But there are people (neoconfederates and commies agreeing with each other) who think there's a historical continuity between the Confederacy and other parts of American life.

[Gandydancer]

Maybe they’ll ignore it and keep her in their good graces, but that’s because they’ll figure she won’t repeat such behavior.

Nah, at this point she'd have to be a lot more "controversial" than this to be read out. She's black. If we let this get to the Gulag phase that will be different, but at the moment she still has totemic immunity.

[Bob from Ohio]

Woke liberals hate the Confederacy more than the people who fought it. Its safe virtue signaling from 150 years distance.

Grant treated Lee with courtesy, hosted him at the White House.

Two former confederate generals were US army generals in Cuba in 1898.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Woke liberals hate: seceding, betraying oaths, and fighting a bloody four year war to preserve and expand the institution of race-based chattel slavery. If that’s your standard for being a woke liberal, then that says a whole lot more about you than it does “woke liberals.”

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Woke liberals hate: seceding, betraying oaths, and fighting a bloody four year war to preserve and expand the institution of race-based chattel slavery.

LOL, fucking please. Since when have woke liberals had any sort of dedication to the US other than subverting it?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Well they don’t praise the people who nearly destroyed it for an odious cause, so at least there’s that.

[Libertymike]

Union, uber alles?

Was that one of the rallying cries of 1776?

The confederate cause was to disassociate itself from the growing leviathan championed by mass murderers like Abe Lincoln. That the cause included preservation of slavery does not thereby mean that confederates betrayed America.

[LawTalkingGuy]

JFC.

[Noscitur a sociis]

And I think we've just seen that particular point proved.

[David Nieporent]

“Most Volokh Conspiracy fans also, however, would support a new Robert E. Lee in uniform on horseback statue at the Capitol.”
Really? What are their handles?

Here's another one for you, Cal.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Funny how pointing out that there was more to the Civil War than just "Grey Uniforms Bad" is somehow Confederate apologia. The Lost Cause narrative truly has been replaced by The Golden Crusade.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Oh. Is this the new thing now? Abandon the “Lost Cause” mythology in support of the Confederacy and move on to attacking criticism of the Confederacy as being part of “A golden crusade” narrative that doesn’t actually exist.

[Noscitur a sociis]

So can you at least admit that the Grey Uniforms were, in fact, Bad?

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/04/the-civil-war-isnt-tragic/237888/

It's really simple for me. One group of Americans attempted to raise a country on property in Negroes. Another group of Americans, many of them Negroes themselves, stopped them.
...
Malcolm X was fond of saying that that there was no such thing as a "bloodless revolution." I don't know if that's true, but it surely was true of black people. The Civil War is our revolution. It ended slavery, and birthed both modern America, and modern black America.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Does this White, male, movement conservative blog generate racist Republicans . . . or merely attract them?

Does it much matter?

[David Nieporent]

Funny how no matter how awful someone is, stupid/evil people will defend that person by handwaving away criticisms of that person as "so-and-so bad."

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

LOL, the hysteric response to this shows just how hard it actually hit. The "Golden Crusade" remark was actually brought up in the same ironic manner during a panel at an academic conference I attended a couple years ago. Radical left-wing academics seem to have a more nuanced view of the Civil War than a bunch of neoliberal simps.

It's funny, because LTG was whining above about stolen land, yet seems to be ignorant of the Native American massacres by Union soldiers during the war, or that Indian troops fought with the Confederacy, or that New Mexico had a de facto slave system in place itself at the time.

[CJColucci]

Thomas Jefferson had precious little to do with New York - city or state. One of the oddities of the Columbia University campus is that it has paired statues of Alexander Hamilton, alumnus and quintessential New Yorker and Thomas Jefferson, lifelong Virginian having no connection to Columbia at all.

[Gandydancer]

Might have something to do with his connection to Columbia U. being in a country called The United States of America,

[Bob from Ohio]

Or his connection to the Declaration of Independence.

[CJColucci]

Then why not George Washington? Gouvernor Morris would work, being an actual New Yorker.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The statue at issue here was donated by by Jewish naval officer Uriah Levy (who received the keys to the city in recognition for it). Levy commissioned the statue, and the Jefferson statue in the capitol of which it is a copy, to celebrate Jefferson's efforts for religious tolerance. Levy also purchased Monticello and began restoring it in the 1830s, and his nephew performed additional work on the estate after the civil war.

[Cal Cetín]

I should have guessed (((who))) was behind this whole thing.

There's probably a secret weather-control device in the statue. The only way to make sure is to take the whole thing apart.

[Brophy]

Can we remove the face of this clown from the nickel and the $5 dollar bill?

[Bob from Ohio]

$2

Lincoln is on the five

[Leo Marvin]

Fake News.

[BadLib]

Presumably we will soon get far enough down the list to remove or rename all monuments, statues, buildings, streets, tunnels, parks, schools etc. honoring Lincoln or named after him as well as removing him from the five dollar bill and the penny. As well, we will presumably soon remove all mention of him, except disparaging and derisive mention, from all K-12 curriculum.

His statements in the Lincoln Douglas debate on Sept 18, 1858 surely justify such actions:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Clearly Lincoln was insufficiently woke for inclusion in today's public space and must be purged.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The tension between the Republican racists -- defending the Confederates and bigots stridently -- and modern Americans on this issue is fascinating.

The result, however, is predictable.

[Gandydancer]

It's not clear from that confused, vomited-up statement which side is supposedly suffering from false consciousness, or both, or neither.

No, I'm not interested in watching some stupid music vdeo for cles.

[Sarcastr0]

Weird how often the commenters on this blog keep tumbling over into slavery apologetics.

Might say something about the state of conservativism these days.

[Brett Bellmore]

Weird how often Sarcastro can't distinguish between opposition to mob iconoclasm and slavery apologetics.