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I'm tryin to work out how just this is as an action because I, at first, was pretty imprested that a statue of a wealthy slave trader was being tossed into the harbour, I had wondered how it had lasted this long but then again, I'm not sure if a government ordered disfigurement to the statue would've been more appropriate (I'm quite shocked the statue lasted this long here).

Also the police are looking to arrest the people who threw the statue into the river however that doesn't seem very fair and it could be argued the plaque that came along with it was provocative and thus was against freedom of "reasonable" speech laws (since it clearly provoked violence).

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There is the flip side of this though that he was a speaker on the board for the slave trade which was a very profitible endeavour and the excuse of "if I don't do it someone else will" might just be a similar grounds here since he seemed to follow local philanthropic efforts (according to his wikipedia).

Is it okay to deface property that does not belong to you? No.

It is okay to change public policy (the statute) just because a small number of people don't like it without the consent of the people? No.

It appears the insurrection is spreading from the US to other Western countries.

But it's been argued for years that the statue should either be taken down or have an additional plaque added to it. It was ruled in favour of the additional plaque 2 years ago and nothing has come of it.

I'd agree vandalising the stature is criminal damage however if they merely moved it, it's public property and wouldn't have mattered.

And there were at least hundreds in that crowd, no police seemed to intervene either. I can't think anyone would stand on the side of a slave owner especially in this country...

Lets stop pretending these people have any principles and stop excusing rioters.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/not-onion-blm-protesters-vandalize-abraham-lincoln-statue-london

What a Beautiful thing to see the Bristol tea party was. We are seeing a spark ignite around the world.  This may be the start of something special. 

Now that also has a valid reason behind it, wealthy countries spend far too long discussing how poorer and more volatile countries should be run for their own good that they fail to take into account each other.

The protests in the UK did aim to try to get the government to interact with the US government, it should continue escalating if they ;). We've been looking at the cells under the microscope for so long we didn't think to identify them by looking at what they were on.


It sure was different... We'll wait and see what can come of this now  ;)

My assumption is the mayor of Bristol ordered the police not to intervene.

I am not familiar with the person, or why there is a statue of him up, however, I would repeat my previous points that if the electorate believes it should come down, they should vote as such. I condemn "mob rule" no matter how bad a person the mob is attacking.

BLM is a racist movement it only cares about black people

I just want to start off by saying that I don't think this statue had a place in the city anyway, it really doesn't make sense to have a statue of a slave trader sitting in a city where that is being denounced now. I totally understand putting a statue like this in a museum or something along those lines, to be able to save the history behind it, but yeah a statue really isn't too fitting.

But -- I do think it is important to note that there are legal ways to go about having this removed. Like going to city council meetings, starting a petition, lobbying government officials, voting for officials that vow to remove it -- and so on and so forth.

Not a good precedent to set to just start destroying things, as there is a legal way to go about this. Even if it isn't the easiest way to remove it, it's still possible and should be followed to set a good precedent.

I also disagree with the decision to tear down the statue without official permission. The more unauthorized decisions there are, the scarier the consequences. Tomorrow one of the protesters may decide that someone in the city behaves unworthyly and is lynched.

I'm not sure I would go this far with this sort of line of thinking, though I do have to agree in saying that this steps a bad precedent of lawlessness and that anarchy is the only way to get what you want.

Does this maybe show that the democratic process of having things removed is too slow and should be speed up? Yes. But it doesn't show that vigilantes should go around and destroy things because they think it should be destroyed.

As I said before -- I think it should be taken down too, but the legal means should've been followed to do so.

I don't understand how someone can be as stupid of destroying a library or a piece of history instead of the police station in exchange.
In this case the statue might represent something undesirable but markets and stores haven't done much either.
Actually quite a bit.

No, it shows that mobs are dangerous and easily used as weapons and they need to be stopped early or else the cost will be unimaginable.

Was it ok to toss the Tea into the Boston harbor?  No.  But also yeah.

Please stop equating destruction of property with the destruction of human life. It comes off as being an apologist for white supremacy.  There is nothing more democratic than a large group of citizens, skipping bureaucracy and changing public property themselves.  The people needing permission from an official about what is acceptable on public property is not democracy.  

What?

What?

What?

You do understand that an angry mob of people doesn't equal the majority of the voting population of the municipality where this occurred, right? What happened was undemocratic because we were unable to see what the voters of the area wanted.

The end result was the destruction of this, while it could've been put into a museum -- a much nicer ending if you really care about wanting to save the history behind what happened instead of just destroying it.

This wasn't democratic at all.

The Boston tea party was an act of war against a dictator (monarch). I would think twice before comparing what is happening to the Boston tea party. I don’t think these thugs would win in a war.

You can hardly compare today to being ruled by a dictator.

I do not divide people by color of skin or religious affiliation, as in any nation there are both good and bad people. I divide people by their deeds and the destruction of a monument is the destruction of cultural heritage no matter how much you like this monument. Therefore, I consider such actions unacceptable.

Ok.

What about the civil rights movement, or the protests against the Vietnam war?

Why do we have a federal holiday for this guy:

https://i.gyazo.com/b3b7868fe1c3d7ba3cddc8e253773171.png

https://i.gyazo.com/815a7b4c2a9a08a9c8afd6b6bcc60e16.png

because america is bigotted towards black people and black people try to keep that privilege and don't want justice, and trump tries to change that make america truly multiracial and a republic for all and not a mob democracy only caring about black gangbangers

I don't think any of those people ever set anything on fire...

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You cannot defend what these people did. Nor can you defend any of the riots.

and the funnier thing is. people now want to fish it out of the river and put it into a museum so that people can remember the history..

um wasnt that the whole point of the statues purpose.. just done so in public without needing to buy a museum pass to be reminded of bad history

Some people are saying some false things here.  The statue was not to "remember the bad history" the statue was made as a celebration of Edward Colson which most of the people do not. Its a relic from a racist time.  This is like saying nazi statues should stay up in Germany. 
That was back in 1895.  I doubt a majority today would choose to publicly celebrate the life of a slave trader.  It should be easy to see that it is no longer socially acceptable.  You also don't see the people on the other side with nearly the amount of hurt and passion towards the loss of the statue.   The people have spoken. 

Museums also should not be celebrating the life of a slave trader.  Maybe they can replace it with a statue of a slave being brutalized by the UK in order to properly remember the history.   

What % of Bristol residents did you are sad they can no longer celebrate the life of a slave trader publicly?  If its anywhere near 50, then we have a racist society that still doesn't value the lives of black and brown people which validates the riot either way. 

Museums don't "celebrate", they show stuff of historical (in this context) significance, good or bad. You can visit a gas chamber in Auschwitz - that doesn't mean you're celebrating what it stands for.


There was a poll in 2014 and well above 50% wanted to keep the statue. Granted the attitudes may have shifted recently but in no way does it validate a riot or violence of any kind.

@suchmoon thst was the poll with only 1000 voters and 56% were in favour and 44 weren't?

Also @franky1 and suchmoon, I assume at the very least it'll probably get a blue plaque if it hasn't already and like almost everywhere in the UK, where a wealthy person was a street, square and building(s) will be named after them so all isn't exactly lost here...

Yes, I think we're talking about the same poll. 1000 is a very typical sample size, nothing wrong with that.


I don't disagree that the statue had to go, just perhaps not the way it was done. I've seen a few statues toppled back in the early 1990s for really properly serious reasons, such as people risking everything to fight a dictatorship, so this collective stupidity of destroying public or private property in a wealthy democratic country seems absolutely hollow to me. It undermines and distracts from peaceful protests that have an actual important message.

Many people do not understand that monuments are part of history. If we demolish all the monuments, it does not mean that the pages about the slave trade or some terrible event will be crossed out of history.

BLM = Black African racist violent and looting MOB

I knew you'd use sloppy logic and Marxist dialetic to get around to the punch line.

Banksy has come up with a solution ?
Banksy has suggested pulling the statue out of the water and putting it back on it’s plinth BUT, with this time adding a rope round his neck and having 4 statues of protesters in action of pulling it down !
Here’s a pic

I suppose we can argue that this is preserving old and recent history

Read the full article here -
https://news.sky.com/story/banksy-reveals-suggestion-to-replace-edward-colston-statue-toppled-by-protesters-in-bristol-12003505

+1 to this.

As I've said time and time again in this thread, there's noting wrong with wanting these statues to be taken down, but there is something wrong with not going the legal path to having this removed and saved in a mueseum. All you're doing if you just destroy statues you don't agree with is that you're destroying history.

Not all history is something that we're going to look back at and say -- wow, all of that was amazing -- all of us know that slavery is wrong and that we shouldn't have statues for slave traders. But ya know -- we'd like to save these in a museum so we're able to look back on the mistakes of our past and use what we learned from these mistakes.

Luckily future historians will be able to find these statues with google maps.

https://i.gyazo.com/46b39b511157031481b1e4c8aae3500c.png

This is all remarkably identical to the Maoist Cultural Revolution, their tactics and methods. Infiltrate universities, get gullible students to rally, have a cadre bring destructive methods, violence included, into those "protests".

Oregon protesters took down a George Washington statue and set it on fire today.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-oregon-protesters-tear-down-staute-20200620-mthldo4zjjcura4e53c5tnifry-story.html

Classy stuff.

There is a difference between peacefully protesting and rioting but both play a big part in American history.

What's going on now is similiar to what was happening in the 60s as the civil rights act was debated and passed.

64 Philadelphia Race riot: Cops beat a pregnant black woman to death. Riot for almost a week.  Over 200 Stores damaged or destroyed.
64 Harlem Riot: White cop killed a 15 year old black kid.  They rioted for a week, plenty of looting and beatings.
There were over 150 riots in the summer of 67.  Detroit had one of the bigger ones, almost $50 million in property damage left 5,000 people homeless, 43 dead, jails full.

Then you have the protests like where MLK was arrested in Alabama and then the protests with a few riots scattered in all over the country after he was assassinated.

Of course the first "American" riots were really against the British when the patriots did stuff like throw the tea in the river or torch the British ship in Annapolis.  Tons of propaganda on both sides of course to keep things exciting.  Man there have been a ton of them since.

Well I haven't read all of this thread, but I would like to point out that the guy used his wealth to help the local community, and when considering his slave trading activities, you have to consider the customs of the times. For example, will the woke exploters be going into Egypt to dismantle the pyramids, and chuck them into the sea? Or how about the Colosseum - that is a massive icon for slavery.?

In my opinion they should leave history alone, and concentrate on the modern problems of slavery. For example - the organ harvesting from muslims in China, the elite paedophilia slavery industry, the exploitation of illegal immigrant, the arab exploitation of some religious communities. Then of course, there is the world wide debt slavery that is being created by the bankers. It is important the people are aware of the abuses in the past, and then they can avoid them in the future. Burning books and destroying monuments and statues doesn't change the evil that is in the hearts of many national leaders today.

why are they not protesting against the slavery in the middle east that the left wing politicians have caused?

-> BLM = racist

If the citizens want a statue removed, than make a petition. It's not fair for the citizens who didn't want it removed to have some a holes forcefully remove it. It's somewhat similar to the Taliban destroying old things that they don't like.

no one cared about that statue either