Protesters want to rename Clemson for ties to Calhoun

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Fair question. I can only speak for myself.

Aug 18, 2017, 11:15 AM

I am worried about the current campaign to remove statues for the following reasons.

1. Mob rule is hard to control. This is not being done democratically. This is being done out of fear of violence and out of fear of avoidable controversy. Some governments are acting unilaterally, without the consent of the populace. And Antifa people are taking notice and this behavior will dramatically increase as a result. This is like ancient Byzantium during the iconoclast era. It's madness.

2. Irrational movements that are popular are a scary sign for the country. If Robert E Lee is being compared to Nazi's because he fought for a country with slaves, then George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are fair game too. If Ben Tillman is fair game because he was a white Supremacist, than so is Lincoln because he was one too. The history of the entire world, for over 90% of it involved people, of all colors, that believed slavery was normal and not, in an of itself, immoral. We would literally have to wipe away every monument past a certain point if we were being consistent and rational.

3. As a historian, it bothers me that so many people lack historical perspective. Hollywood has created a couple of generations who think that people in the past shared most of our values, and when they find out slivers of facts about people which are incompatible with modern values, they ignorantly jump to conclusions about the character of that person from the past. It's so anti-intellectual and someone has to stand against it. This feeds back into mob rule. The mob doesn't know what they are talking about. They are acting on emotional reflex, essentially in the dark. That's why we have government, to check this sort of mass madness.

4.... have to stop writing and get back to work.

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I said it over the weekend to. I think it is a shame that people are tying to tear down these monuments. My father is civil war buff and used to drag us around Virginia to all of the battle fields.

At the same time, and robert N pointed this, a lot of these statues went up during the jim crow era as a snub to the de segregation movement. Under that context I think a township has every right to vote on it as they did in charlottesville and have it removed. especially when you consider that it was in emancipation park which was intended to honor the freeing of the slaves. No battles were fought there, and Lee had not tie to the town or community. I think a lot of the people that showed up to protest its removal, most from other states, had no reason to see it turn to violence.

As far as stone mountain, I hope people are not being serious about that. It is a part of our history and visited and enjoyed by people from all over the country.

easy pickings

Fake outrage is what is driving the democratic party.

It goes both ways.

Yes. Media coverage, social media data, and

Yeah, but why are they so concerned that thir statue stay up

Fair question. I can only speak for myself.

Re: Fake outrage is what is driving the democratic party.

Re: Fake outrage is what is driving the democratic party.

I was NOT expecting that. I don't know what to do now.***

Re: I was NOT expecting that. I don't know what to do now.***

Stone Mountain will be defaced.

Stone Mountain is so massive compared to just...

Re: I was NOT expecting that. I don't know what to do now.***

So why worry that may come down?*****

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