the left destroying statues

on tv tonight.. 9pm channel 4 . a documentary about the desire of those on the left to have statues removed of those that don't sit comfortably within their political correct viewpoint. so, yet another ridiculous thing we're copying from the usa. I hope we don't see images on tv of lefty weirdos pulling statues down while the police look on helplessly.

Who's statues are they going to topple? Nelson? he supported the slave trade. Although the majority of the statues in the UK are for some other benevolence and not erected under the same token as some of them in the U.S. Nelson's was erected because he was a great war general, he defeated the enemy, he won battles and is an important historical figure because of his victories which had a positive impact on the country.

The statues in the U.S (the confederate statues) aren't there because they won battles (erm they were defeated) but because of their beliefs which were also the beliefs of the erectors at the time. They symbolise white supremacy.

So the lefties can f*** off, if they don't like the statue don't go near it, i'm sure there are other ways around London they can take to avoid the area the statue is in

I didn't support the tearing down of statues in the usa. so many men died in the civil war ... most of them farmers ( especially on the confederate side ). the war was more about economics than the emancipation of the slaves. the republicans wanted to exploit the west of the usa and realized that slavery would destroy the incentive of people to travel west if slavery were to spread there.they wouldn't get paid employment so wouldn't bother trying to settle there.I think many of the rebs fought to defend their state ( state loyalty was big back then ) and didn't fight directly so that the rich southerners could keep slaves. I think their war statues should remain as a tribute to their sacrifice... getting back to London .. I heard a lefty woman say that she'd rather have nelson mandela on the column rather than lord nelson.

because he did what for this country? Don't get me wrong i'm not disputing Nelson Mandela's place in history but why does he deserve a statue (i'm sure there will be one somewhere) in this country?

To be honest i'm not terribly fussed about statues. If they are paid for out of the public purse then don't erect them i don't think the tax payer should be paying for them. Private funds they can erect what the heck they want.

In my area we have a number of roundabouts and they (the council) commissioned some statues to beautify some of the roundabouts at 100k a piece. 500k in total, now a couple of years later the council are in massive amounts of debt are talking about shutting down a whole host of amenities and raising prices for council tax (7% it went up i think) and i'm thinking when they had a surplus they should've kept it. But of course they can't, a surplus means less from central government the year after so they end up wasting it on s*** no one needs or wants

Rather than destroy these statues, just remove them from public lands and sell or privatize the land they are on.

Seems like a reasonable compromise that honors both freedom of expression and a separation of state and such expression.

you're spot on with that. my council go nuts in February and march with tons of roadworks ... desperately trying to use up the remnants of their funds.. net result is you can hardly drive for temporary traffic lights for about 6 weeks.

well, that would be the same result for those that admire and take some national pride in the public display of the statues.

Which statues?

Who says they cannot still be public ally displayed in this scenario?

In fact this compromise is so they can be.

nelson, Churchill, Rhodes.

the churchill one is in parliament square and the nelson one is in Trafalgar square. that's trafalger as in the battle of trafalger where nelson was killed.i'm no fan of Churchill but I believe his statue should be in parliament square.

Nelson & Churchill.... Yep, they are pretty compatible to our Confederate Generals who essentially fought a war in support of slavery.

Rhodes...? Wasn't he a rich guy who was "important" in South Africa or something...?

One of the problems in the USA scenario is that that there are so many statues of Confederate Generals. A lager number of them were placed in public places in the 1950-60's... during the Civil Rights movement (1954-1968) in the USA. These statues are not some great representation of our history that have been around for many hundreds or even thousands of years. They are not ancient art or architectural pieces. Many, if not most, were specifically and directly placed as statements against the Civil Rights movement during the Civil Rights movement.

(Note: One example is Jeb Stuart High School in Virginia (yes I know, a school not a statue) founded and named in 1959... the name was specifically selected as an insult towards black people (historical fact).)

Removing the ones in the USA has nothing whatever to do with "re-writing history". It has to do with correcting a direct and public insult to a group of people.

In addition, how many statues of Confederate Generals do we need in museums?

Should we build one great national museum for the Confederate Generals? Maybe we could have it placed in Washington, DC beside the US Holocaust Memorial Museum?

Note: To be "fair" there are some that want to remove statues of some of our founding fathers (like Thomas Jefferson) and famous leaders (like Theodore Roosevelt). Those are idiotic and should be ignored.

Churchill! Probably one of the most famous, and one may say the greatest prime minister this country has ever seen. What sensibilities is a Churchill statue upsetting in the wallflowers?

I thought it was idiotic when they first started doing it. I still think it’s idiotic. We cannot prosecute people from the past for making their decisions. The outlooks of the values we have were not the same as it was in the past.