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On September 16 2017 01:22 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 01:07 Danglars wrote:... I'm saying what you said However, it does indicate that the charge of racism has sufficient basis to be at least credible, which is the more relevant charge with respect to "white supremacy" anyway.
Given that, I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to say that "white supremacy" plays a non-zero part in the reason why Jefferson has the amount of respect which he does. is a totally unreasonable and foolish thing to say. You would deny important figures in a nation's founding and cover up their statues because they were insufficiently revolutionary, and call people who actually respect them for what they did somehow tinged with white supremacy. I'm not suggesting that the statue should be covered up forever, and as far as I know neither were the protestors. I do not deny that those figures existed or the good things they did, and as far as I know neither do the protestors. I would say that the people who respect them for what they did without being okay with acknowledging some of it wasn't good have an intellectual honesty problem which is related to white supremacy and racism in general. >>>l do not think most of those people are white supremacists.<<< (I won't make any claims about what the protestors think on that score. People do think some silly things.)
The protestors claim he's an emblem of white supremacy. You're only point is "There must be racists that like Thomas Jefferson, hooray let me point them out." You have no point and look foolish. Bring statistics if you have them. Otherwise, you're making logical leaps saying this mythical group of people exist and are worth mention.
Show nested quote +It makes me think Australia for you must be a horrid place because you can't carve out the thought that instituting a nation that stands the test of time is a logical reason to make a statue and feel a sense of pride seeing it. Fuck your nation's founders, am I right? Usually a proper education would teach you where the respect is usually sourced, and any chortling racists are so minuscule to be properly ignored. As an Australian, I'm proud of what my nation is. I don't need some story surrounding its origins to feel proud of it. (If we're going with personal attacks...) What does that say about you and your country?
It says you don't allow for others to be proud of the great men that mattered in the nation's founding. You must add that there's racists among them. And you have to look down on people that know the story of its origins. I really do want to know what it is about your relationship to Australia that brings you here to spy out racists among people that look up to the nation's founders. It boggles the mind, it's anti-intellectual, and serves no purpose.
Show nested quote +Unless you want to go to the lengths of "Aquanim spends so much time finding white supremacy mixed in, he's probably feels a non-zero measure of support for Antifa. He should really be protested for supporting such a violent fascist hate group. Same logic. You have entirely misunderstood my point of view. See the bolded above.
The logic is the same. You stand among a non-zero amount of Antifa that see white supremacists everywhere. I can't believe you find common cause with a violent, fascist group.
I didn't say you need to see the implications of what you're alleging for it actually to imply what I said.
Show nested quote +But you confuse statues with imputations of virtue and have ignored my attempts to explain the nature of complex human beings. I've ignored them because I don't need you to explain them to me.
You're the one that literally said "Personally I don't really consider "founding father" to be a particularly virtuous title inherently." Uhh, you're confusing what I said with saying they're virtuous. I explained the nature of what respecting their accomplishment meant, you deflected to virtue. Read what you wrote again?
Show nested quote +Also foolish. If he's worthy of respect in his own right, don't say he'd be respected less if not for white supremacism. He's either worthy or not. The amount that you flit about from deserved respect to probably revered because white supremacy makes me think your real point is "I don't like Thomas Jefferson, so people that respect his achievements are probably partly doing so out of white supremacy." Respect is not a binary concept. I have a great deal of respect for the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence. That respect is diminished a little by his (alleged, I'm not a historian) behaviour regarding slaves.
This is fine and good. And then you follow up "that respect is dimininished by this" ... "and people that respect him include this scum of society" ... which I feel needs to be pointed out now, because I like linking respecting the founders to white supremacists in their midst. Either show sources saying that this numbers more than six ten-millionths of America, or prove relevance. I can go around saying there's a nonzero amount of people in BLM that want to assassinate Trump, but I'm a fool if that justifies a conclusion drawn from it.
Show nested quote +And I'm getting a good laugh out of comparing "covering up a statue" with "contextualizing it." Hiding it is a sign of a psychological phobia. Marching around it with actual speech, like Jefferson owned slaves or whatnot, is contextualizing it. Much like contextualizing a speaker is protesting outside, not taping his mouth shut. Well, let's check what the protestors actually asked for: Show nested quote +... Jefferson's statue was "an emblem of white supremacy" that should be "re-contextualized with a plaque to include that history". That seems fairly clear to me.
Covering up the statue says you don't understand what it says. You're scared of people respecting the man and can't stand to gaze on him. If you want a plaque, agitate for a plaque. If you're scared to acknowledged flawed men of history, cover him up and ease your pain.
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On September 16 2017 01:56 KwarK wrote:
The bad news is that we've got a bunch of young men becoming actual literal Nazis. But the good news is we think we can spin this so it's actually the fault of feminists.
You use the word feminism in your argument, so it is now invalid. I don't make the rules, sorry.
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Norway28733 Posts
A protest is usually highly conscious about wanting to draw attention to something. Chances are imo pretty high we wouldn't know about it if the people involved had contacted the appropriate agency and agitated for a plaque rather than covered it up. And now instead, we're discussing it. 
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Jefferson was clearly a white supremacist judging by the plain definition of the word. He believed whites were superior to blacks.
Jefferson told his neighbor Edward Coles not to emancipate his own slaves, because free blacks were “pests in society” who were “as incapable as children of taking care of themselves.” And while he wrote a friend that he sold slaves only as punishment or to unite families, he sold at least 85 humans in a 10-year period to raise cash to buy wine, art and other luxury goods.
Destroying families didn’t bother Jefferson, because he believed blacks lacked basic human emotions. “Their griefs are transient,” he wrote, and their love lacked “a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.”
Jefferson claimed he had “never seen an elementary trait of painting or sculpture” or poetry among blacks and argued that blacks’ ability to “reason” was “much inferior” to whites’, while “in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.” He conceded that blacks were brave, but this was because of “a want of fore-thought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present.”
A scientist, Jefferson nevertheless speculated that blackness might come “from the color of the blood” and concluded that blacks were “inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind.”
The Jefferson hagiography is quite frankly a little perplexing. As far as "founding fathers" go he wasn't even in the top half probably.
I'd like to see some more statues of John Brown.
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On September 16 2017 01:56 Danglars wrote:
The protestors claim he's an emblem of white supremacy. You're only point is "There must be racists that like Thomas Jefferson, hooray let me point them out." You have no point and look foolish. Bring statistics if you have them. Otherwise, you're making logical leaps saying this mythical group of people exist and are worth mention.
I am not saying that liking Thomas Jefferson makes somebody a "racist", or even is strongly correlated with being a "racist".
I am saying that it is important when contemplating Thomas Jefferson to remember the bad things about him as well as the good, and that failing to do that is intellectually dishonest in a way that has some relationship to racism (but AGAIN FOR EMPHASIS, does not make somebody a "racist" or even more so a "white supremacist").
You appear to be completely unable to recognise that, and instead prefer to argue against the strawman you have built. The rest of your post is built on the same false premise so I won't bother replying to it.
Unless you're willing to discuss my actual argument, I see no purpose in trying to explain this to you further.
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On September 16 2017 02:04 IgnE wrote:
Jefferson was clearly a white supremacist judging by the plain definition of the word. He believed whites were superior to blacks.
Now you see, the history teacher in my is bothered by this phrasing. Jefferson had similar beliefs to those of the modern day white supremacist. There is no way to know how his multifaceted world view would shake out if he were suddenly injected into the modern era.
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The historian in me is fairly comfortable in saying that the US of A was built on white supremacy.
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I mean just to Godwin the discussion here, who knows how Hitler would have turned out if he had been born in 1990 in Scarsdale, NY.
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On September 16 2017 02:13 IgnE wrote:
The historian in me is fairly comfortable in saying that the US of A was built on white supremacy.
That is 100% correct. Peoples efforts to sanitize the founding fathers and gloss over them being slave owners has made it hard teach and talk about that subject.
Jefferson and Madison were slaver owners and pretty racist. It is hard to tell with Washington since he rarely wrote about the subject, but he set his slaves free when he died(well not true, his wife did that for reasons, but it was his plan). Even with the racism, the founding fathers were exemplary when compared to their peers in the era. People should stop trying to gloss over the slavery and racism, the founding fathers don't need the help.
On September 16 2017 02:16 IgnE wrote:
I mean just to Godwin the discussion here, who knows how Hitler would have turned out if he had been born in 1990 in Scarsdale, NY.
Accurate in terms, my man. Just call people what they were known as at the time or say they hold views similar to modern day group's views. Don't put them in a camp that they could never be part of.
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United States43464 Posts
On September 16 2017 02:19 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 02:13 IgnE wrote:
The historian in me is fairly comfortable in saying that the US of A was built on white supremacy. That is 100% correct. Peoples efforts to sanitize the founding fathers and gloss over them being slave owners has made it hard teach and talk about that subject. Jefferson and Madison were slaver owners and pretty racist. It is hard to tell with Washington since he rarely wrote about the subject, but he set his slaves free when he died(well not true, his wife did that for reasons, but it was his plan). Even with the racism, the founding fathers were exemplary when compared to their peers in the era. People should stop trying to gloss over the slavery and racism, the founding fathers don't need the help.
It's worth noting that in the context of late 18th century Roman Republic fetishism in the young republic emancipation of slaves upon death was super fucking fashionable. It doesn't say much about how you feel about slaves, it says far more about how you see yourself and the parallels you're trying to make with Roman senators. It's called testamentary manumission and it was a big thing.
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On September 16 2017 01:09 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2017 21:37 ChristianS wrote:On September 15 2017 15:27 Danglars wrote:On September 15 2017 10:12 Slaughter wrote:
Is Danglers really getting his panties in a twist because they covered a statue in a shroud? Not even damaging it?
Remind me who the easily triggered snowflakes are again? Out: The statue thing is about neonazis and the confederacy. In: So BLM puts a black shroud on a founding father, what of it? The slippery slope and attendant slippery standards is the rule, not the exception. I don't recall your position on this, so I thought I'd just ask: what do you think about removing statues in general? I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) you don't like removing statues of Lee, but more broadly, when is it okay/good to remove statues? Does it just depend on how bad the historical figure (that is, is it okay to take down statues of Hitler? What about Nathan Bedford Forrest?)? Does it matter at all when the statue was erected, and by whom? Or maybe it's less about the merits of individual statues, and more about pushing against the slippery slope (e.g. "We shouldn't take down Nathan Bedford Forrest statues because if we do, soon people will be taking down statues of Washington/Jefferson"). It should be decided locally. But any comment on vandalizing the statue of the author of the Star Spangled Banner? And is covering up the statue with a tarp just a form of contextualizing it?
I mean, "it should be decided locally" doesn't answer how the decision should be made, and I'm sure you have opinions about that. Wouldn't you think it was stupid if a local government took down a statue of Washington because he owned slaves? I would. But I also agree locally is where the decision should be made. The harder question is how.
I'm not even sure why people are offended by Francis Scott Key? I also don't know what the goal is with covering up (edit: with) a tarp. If it's supposed to indicate they think his statue should be destroyed, I disagree. If it's just a form of protest, I guess it's kind of like burning the flag at a rally - I wouldn't do it, but I think people should have the right to do it and I'm not particularly offended by it when they do.
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On September 16 2017 01:56 KwarK wrote:
The bad news is that we've got a bunch of young men becoming actual literal Nazis. But the good news is we think we can spin this so it's actually the fault of feminists.
I wouldn't doubt these very young men also think women are out to steal their jobs.
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On September 16 2017 02:25 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 02:19 Plansix wrote:On September 16 2017 02:13 IgnE wrote:
The historian in me is fairly comfortable in saying that the US of A was built on white supremacy. That is 100% correct. Peoples efforts to sanitize the founding fathers and gloss over them being slave owners has made it hard teach and talk about that subject. Jefferson and Madison were slaver owners and pretty racist. It is hard to tell with Washington since he rarely wrote about the subject, but he set his slaves free when he died(well not true, his wife did that for reasons, but it was his plan). Even with the racism, the founding fathers were exemplary when compared to their peers in the era. People should stop trying to gloss over the slavery and racism, the founding fathers don't need the help. It's worth noting that in the context of late 18th century Roman Republic fetishism in the young republic emancipation of slaves upon death was super fucking fashionable. It doesn't say much about how you feel about slaves, it says far more about how you see yourself and the parallels you're trying to make with Roman senators. It's called testamentary manumission and it was a big thing.
I haven't read many primary source documents by Washington, but I would not be shocked if he was super into the Roman Empire. Especially the romanticized version of the Roman Republic.
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On September 16 2017 01:44 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 01:40 farvacola wrote:
Antifa hate pretty much everyone they can label an incrementalist, including Democrats, socialists, and pacifist anarchists, so your suspicion with regards to the "two sides" logic being presented is well-founded This seems like a caricature to be honest. I know antifascists who are amazing people, pretty much full of love for everyone except fascists. Is Antifa a very new thing? I feel completely out of touch when i hear descriptions like this because I know many anti-fascists in the UK punk scene and they are nothing like the way they are being portrayed in the USA right now.
This discrepancy can be chalked up to word use problems mixed with changing group cultures. "Anti-fascists in the punk scene" would fall into a different category than the one implied by current use of "antifa" in my mind, and among the folk that I know in those communities here in the US, being appropriately anti-fascist involves increasingly direct, proactive opposition to totalitarianism in all its forms, use of force by police included.
That said, there's a lot of variation at play when groups start playing label games with their ideology, so I wouldn't worry about feeling out of touch.
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They need to make police reform a priority and stop dancing around this problem. They are essentially above the law at this point.
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On September 16 2017 02:34 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 01:44 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 16 2017 01:40 farvacola wrote:
Antifa hate pretty much everyone they can label an incrementalist, including Democrats, socialists, and pacifist anarchists, so your suspicion with regards to the "two sides" logic being presented is well-founded This seems like a caricature to be honest. I know antifascists who are amazing people, pretty much full of love for everyone except fascists. Is Antifa a very new thing? I feel completely out of touch when i hear descriptions like this because I know many anti-fascists in the UK punk scene and they are nothing like the way they are being portrayed in the USA right now. This discrepancy can be chalked up to word use problems mixed with changing group cultures. "Anti-fascists in the punk scene" would fall into a different category than the one implied by current use of "antifa" in my mind, and among the folk that I know in those communities here in the US, being appropriately anti-fascist involves increasingly direct, proactive opposition to totalitarianism in all its forms, use of force by police included. That said, there's a lot of variation at play when groups start playing label games with their ideology, so I wouldn't worry about feeling out of touch.
compared to anti-fascists in the UK punk scene American college antifa is bourgeois lol. The only reason this is seen as particularly noteworthy is because platform based radical left politics is relatively new to the US.
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Taxpayer money continues to flow directly into Trump's pocket. There's nothing wrong with this at all.
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On September 16 2017 03:11 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 02:34 farvacola wrote:On September 16 2017 01:44 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 16 2017 01:40 farvacola wrote:
Antifa hate pretty much everyone they can label an incrementalist, including Democrats, socialists, and pacifist anarchists, so your suspicion with regards to the "two sides" logic being presented is well-founded This seems like a caricature to be honest. I know antifascists who are amazing people, pretty much full of love for everyone except fascists. Is Antifa a very new thing? I feel completely out of touch when i hear descriptions like this because I know many anti-fascists in the UK punk scene and they are nothing like the way they are being portrayed in the USA right now. This discrepancy can be chalked up to word use problems mixed with changing group cultures. "Anti-fascists in the punk scene" would fall into a different category than the one implied by current use of "antifa" in my mind, and among the folk that I know in those communities here in the US, being appropriately anti-fascist involves increasingly direct, proactive opposition to totalitarianism in all its forms, use of force by police included. That said, there's a lot of variation at play when groups start playing label games with their ideology, so I wouldn't worry about feeling out of touch. compared to anti-fascists in the UK punk scene American college antifa is bourgeois lol. The only reason this is seen as particularly noteworthy is because platform based radical left politics is relatively new to the US.
Bourgeois is probably the best way to describe it. From what I can see antifa in the US seems to be more a pro extreme left group than an anti fascist group. If a group only accepts their own narrow brand of politics its better to define them by what they are advocating than what they are protesting against.
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