UK Politics: Black Lives Matter Here Too

[Heartofice]

24 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Are you really going to do this? Make the comparison of suffragettes to slavers? You've made some wild stands before but this may be the wildest yet. 

That isn’t what I was doing. Obviously. 

Im asking when is it ok for random members of the public to pull down public statues. Is it only when it’s a cause you personally agree with or can anyone do it if they feel strongly about something 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

How does that relate to what I’ve said? Please pay attention.

 

Anyway, my point is really whether we are all ok with bunches of people going around destroying property and pulling down statues because they don’t like them. Should we just applaud it in cases where it happens to be a cause we agree with, what about ones we don’t agree with?

For instance, what if a bunch of crazy MRA types decided they didn’t like feminism and so pulled down a load of statues to suffragettes? By the same token that is totally ok, those ‘people’ didn’t like the statues and so you can’t arrest them for pulling them down. 

 

Of course you can arrest them. It’s technically criminal damage. The only question that matters is is it in the public interest? Do people want them arrested?

 

Would there be a national outcry against the removal of suffragette statues? Yes, presumably. Same for Churchill I imagine, and he was much more morally ambiguous. Has there been a national outcry against the removal of this statue? No not really, aside from Priti Patel. That’s all that matters.

 

Complain about it if you like, you’re perfectly entitled to and you’re not alone, but the fact of the matter is that if the majority of people are OK with this, then it’s OK. It’s just a statue and no one got hurt (that I’m aware of). Even the mayor of Bristol has come out and said that they’ll probably fish it out at some point and stick it in a museum but they’re not in a hurry.

[A wilding]

23 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

He wasn’t comparing them, he’s asking where you draw the line on how popular the cause is to whether we blame them for pulling down statues. The Churchill statue was also defaced in London, how do we feel about that? Was he racist enough to let those who defaced it off the hook?

I would say that there is a fairly solid distinction to be made.

The Colston statue has been massively controversial for years. There is a strong argument that its core defenders are an all white, better off, privileged minority determined to minimise slavery. The sort of people who would deny that there is any racism in the present day UK (and may genuinely think that true). These people have fought a largely successful long running delaying action to preserve the statue in the face of majority opinion. The statue has therefore become the symbol of something wrong, analogous to some statues of US Civil War status in southern US.

It is difficult to see how a statue of a feminist could become such a symbol.

(Defacing the Churchill statue is more ambiguous, but as it was only defaced it hardly come into the argument.)

[DaveSumm]

7 minutes ago, A wilding said:

I would say that there is a fairly solid distinction to be made.

The Colston statue has been massively controversial for years. There is a strong argument that its core defenders are an all white, better off, privileged minority determined to minimise slavery. The sort of people who would deny that there is any racism in the present day UK (and may genuinely think that true). These people have fought a largely successful long running delaying action to preserve the statue in the face of majority opinion. The statue has therefore become the symbol of something wrong, analogous to some statues of US Civil War status in southern US.

It is difficult to see how a statue of a feminist could become such a symbol.

(Defacing the Churchill statue is more ambiguous, but as it was only defaced it hardly come into the argument.)

Oh for sure, I’m not disagreeing that they’re a long way apart. But how we take that and convert it into a hard and fast rule for whether or not it’s OK to pull down statues is another matter.

[Heartofice]

I used the suffragette example because if would be a statue nobody would want to pull down ( if I’d said Churchill I’m sure a couple of people in here would be all for it) to demonstrate how far you could take the principal.

On the above point that we should decide after the fact if something is right or wrong based purely on how big a public outcry is caused.. is that how it works? Just do stuff first and see if there is an outcry 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I used the suffragette example because if would be a statue nobody would want to pull down ( if I’d said Churchill I’m sure a couple of people in here would be all for it) to demonstrate how far you could take the principal.

On the above point that we should decide after the fact if something is right or wrong based purely on how big a public outcry is caused.. is that how it works? Just do stuff first and see if there is an outcry 

Generally destruction of public property is wrong, but if the destruction happens and the general consensus is that it was a good thing, then what’s the issue? In the vast majority of cases, people are rightly against damage and destruction of property by protesters, and such damage should be discouraged and punished if appropriate, just not in this specific case.

 

Statues are by their very nature individual, so you cannot make a blanket rule for them beyond “destroying them is normally bad.” This situation is an exception, but because statues are so individual you can only identify the exceptions to the rule on an ad hoc basis, in my opinion, which is what has happened here.

[Heartofice]

12 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

Generally destruction of public property is wrong, but if the destruction happens and the general consensus is that it was a good thing, then what’s the issue? In the vast majority of cases, people are rightly against damage and destruction of property by protesters, and such damage should be discouraged and punished if appropriate, just not in this specific case.

 

Statues are by their very nature individual, so you cannot make a blanket rule for them beyond “destroying them is normally bad.” This situation is an exception, but because statues are so individual you can only identify the exceptions to the rule on an ad hoc basis, in my opinion, which is what has happened here.

The problem is how you quantify the public outcry , at what point is something acceptable and when is it not?

The Churchill statue is a good example, I’ve seen equal amounts of people who were supportive of it being defaced and those who were outraged. 
 

What do we do in that scenario? It’s a tie so we do nothing? 
 

It just doesn’t seem to work as a method for building a legal system. Do you just apply the principal to property damage? What about other crimes.. is murder of a deeply hated person ok if there is little outrage?

[A wilding]

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It just doesn’t seem to work as a method for building a legal system. Do you just apply the principal to property damage? What about other crimes.. is murder of a deeply hated person ok if there is little outrage?

No time now, but the quick answer to this is that we have a jury system as a check and balance for the law. If a jury won't convict, then it does not matter what the law says. As far as I know this has never happened for a murder, but it has happened in other cases, and has deterred many prosecutions from even being brought.

Similarly the wider court of public opinion does (or should) act as a check on our government.

[Heartofice]

I’d be interested in a jury that acquits someone of murder because the victim wasn’t very popular and there was little outrage about it.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I’d be interested in a jury that acquits someone of murder because the victim wasn’t very popular and there was little outrage about it.

So you would agree then that it’s silly for you to compare a murder to this situation?

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

So you would agree then that it’s silly for you to compare a murder to this situation?

No because the principal remains the same. Do we just not arrest people for crimes because we ‘guess’ that there is little outrage around it. 
 

Do you need to put out a public poll every time to decide whether something is a crime or not?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

No because the principal remains the same. Do we just not arrest people for crimes because we ‘guess’ that there is little outrage around it. 
 

Do you need to put out a public poll every time to decide whether something is a crime or not?

I am so glad that you apply the same standard here, as you did when Cummings violated lockdown restrictions, and didn't buy into this best for his families car drive to test his eye sight nonsense.

[maarsen]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

How does that relate to what I’ve said? Please pay attention.

 

Anyway, my point is really whether we are all ok with bunches of people going around destroying property and pulling down statues because they don’t like them. Should we just applaud it in cases where it happens to be a cause we agree with, what about ones we don’t agree with?

For instance, what if a bunch of crazy MRA types decided they didn’t like feminism and so pulled down a load of statues to suffragettes? By the same token that is totally ok, those ‘people’ didn’t like the statues and so you can’t arrest them for pulling them down. 

 

Well there was that bunch of crazies that dumped a boatload of tea into the harbour to protest injustice. How would you deal with them? 

[DanteGabriel]

6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

How does that relate to what I’ve said? Please pay attention.

 

Anyway, my point is really whether we are all ok with bunches of people going around destroying property and pulling down statues because they don’t like them. Should we just applaud it in cases where it happens to be a cause we agree with, what about ones we don’t agree with?

For instance, what if a bunch of crazy MRA types decided they didn’t like feminism and so pulled down a load of statues to suffragettes? By the same token that is totally ok, those ‘people’ didn’t like the statues and so you can’t arrest them for pulling them down. 

 

Does it make a difference if Colston's heir says it was okay to dump the statue?

(I actually have no idea if this is Colston's heir but it's a pretty funny tweet)

As for your concern trolling about a theoretical threat to any statues of suffragettes (one wonders where to find "a load" of such statues) please let me know if you hear of marginalized communities agitating for years to pull them down, as was the case with the Colston statue.

[Derfel Cadarn]

This is linked to the discussion of Scottish crime author James Oswald from the Lynch thread in literature.

He has ancestors who were involved in the slave trade thiugh the statue of a James Oswald in Glasgow’s George Sq refers to an abolitionist.

Edit -Also an ancestor. James is apparently a popular name in his family.

https://twitter.com/sirbenfro/status/1269732184971231240?s=21

 

[Alarich II]

Of course, demolishing public or private property because of "public" opinion is not something that should or can be condoned as a general principle. However, when deploying public ressources to uphold the necessary rule of the law, not every damage to public or private property will be considered equal. I.e. there is a difference between a mob going on a Kristallnacht-style rampage, destroying lives and livelihoods and a handfull of overeager lads pulling down the statue of a fairly controversial person and chucking it in a river; it is entirely possible to accept that pulling down / destroying statues is and should be against the law and at the same time accept that in this special instance it is a justified decision to not devote further public ressources to pursuit of this matter or even to accept this as a necessary sacrifice to deescalate a situation that might have otherwise escalated into bodily harm.

[polishgenius]

The statue thing is great because the kind of people getting outraged by the icon of a slaver being pulled down are exactly the types of people who deserve to be outraged and so can fuck off.

Churchill is a bit more ambiguous but if someone is so oblivious or self-centered that they can't understand why someone would scrawl on a statue of him then they too can fuck off, and if they genuinely don't realise then this is a great time to find out what the issue is.

[Spockydog]

4 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

The statue thing is great because the kind of people getting outraged by the icon of a slaver being pulled down are exactly the types of people who deserve to be outraged and so can fuck off.
 

Indeed.

This piece from David Olusoga absolutely nails it.  

Quote

 

The fact that a man who died 299 years ago is today on the front pages of most of Britain’s newspapers suggests that Bristol has not been brilliant at coming to terms with its history. Despite the valiant and persistent efforts of campaigners, all attempts to have the statue peacefully removed were thwarted by Colston’s legion of defenders. In 2019, attempts to fix a plaque to the pedestal collapsed after Bristol’s Society of Merchant Venturers, the high priests of the Colston cult, insisted on watering down the text, adding qualifications that, it was felt, had the effect of minimising his crimes. Yet what repulsed many about the statue was not that it valorised Colston but that it was silent about his victims, those whose lives were destroyed to build the fortune he lavished upon the city. 

The long defence of the figure and Colston’s reputation was overt and shameless, but not unique. In other British cities other men who grew rich through the trafficking of human beings or who defended the “respectable trade” are venerated in bronze and marble. In Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square, on a pedestal 150 feet high, stands Viscount Melville, Henry Dundas, another of history’s guilty men. His great contribution to civilisation was to water down and delay attempts to pass an act abolishing the slave trade. Historians struggle to estimate how many thousands died or were transported into slavery because of his actions. Already social media is ablaze with calls for Dundas to be thrown into the Forth.

Today is the first full day since 1895 on which the effigy of a mass murderer does not cast its shadow over Bristol’s city centre. Those who lament the dawning of this day, and who are appalled by what happened on Sunday, need to ask themselves some difficult questions. Do they honestly believe that Bristol was a better place yesterday because the figure of a slave trader stood at its centre? Are they genuinely unable – even now – to understand why those descended from Colston’s victims have always regarded his statue as an outrage and for decades pleaded for its removal? 

 

 

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I used the suffragette example because if would be a statue nobody would want to pull down ( if I’d said Churchill I’m sure a couple of people in here would be all for it) to demonstrate how far you could take the principal.

On the above point that we should decide after the fact if something is right or wrong based purely on how big a public outcry is caused.. is that how it works? Just do stuff first and see if there is an outcry 

Andrew Adonis wants it replaced with a statute of Tony Blair.  I'd prefer Margaret Thatcher.

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Andrew Adonis wants it replaced with a statute of Tony Blair.  I'd prefer Margaret Thatcher.

I’d like a statue of Andrew Adonis constructed so I can throw it in a lake.