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The counter-protesters were not react with violence. They were not the ones who drove a car into the crowd, they were not the ones who showed up with weapons or wearing protective gear. The counter-protesters were the ones who were peacefully exercising their right to free speech.
And I do not agree that it should be left up to each individual community. If we left all of these issue up to each individual community, there were still be towns in Texas that segregated schools and businesses. That is not OK.
Your bias is alarmingly clear here. "The ones". It was one person. ONE. Not "the ones". This was an isolated singular incident committed by ONE. Get that straight. The rest of your post is equally non-sensical.
The counter-protesters were not react with violence. They were not the ones who drove a car into the crowd, they were not the ones who showed up with weapons or wearing protective gear. The counter-protesters were the ones who were peacefully exercising their right to free speech.
And I do not agree that it should be left up to each individual community. If we left all of these issue up to each individual community, there were still be towns in Texas that segregated schools and businesses. That is not OK.
I think you have your information wrong. There are a lot of eye witness accounts, including an LA Times article, with numerous interviews from many who were there, including reporters, that indicate people on both sides showed up jacked and ready to fight.
The permitted marchers, unhappy with a planned removal of a statue, who had a lawful right to assemble and express their opposition to removal, had bought their permit, paid the fees, etc., were blocked from the street path to Lee Park (that's still the name of the park with Lee's statue) that had been assigned to them by the authorities, by counter-protesters who had weapons, mace, paint bombs, and were shouting incendiary things at them. And of course, all hell broke loose and a lady is dead.
Thus, my question, "what would have happened had marchers been ignored and left to have their constitutionally allowed event?"
I guess removing statues in the dark of night is one way to avoid violence, but another would be for counter-protesters to simply not show up.
Here's my musing. As a graduate of UT, I would have preferred that any statues be of people whose pursuit of excellence is something to be admired. Scientists, scholars, writers, leaders in sports, the arts, Nobel laureates from Texas, and similar. And perhaps people who were central in establishing the university. If there are to be statues, the students should be able to look to them as examples of people who were exemplary in their fields and who advanced educational excellence. I think statues of war heroes from any side and from any war are really not appropriate for an institution of learning.
I don't know why anyone would want to celebrate and honor traitors who fought a vicious and unnecessary war to defend an inhumane and nefarious practice like slavery. Read the articles of secession by any of the confederate states and the defense of the institution of slavery is front and center of ALL of them, no matter the revisionism peddled by the "states' rights" liars.
I have a great uncle who was a fascist, literally, a member Mussolini's fascist party who became the mayor of his small town and was summarily executed at the end of the war. He was apparently a decent guy except for his terrible politics. He is spoken about in my family, but with shame and embarrassment. There not statues to fascist losers on the campuses of Italian universities, or to Nazis in Germany, though many of them died in the war... The ethical response to the misfortune of having evil ancestors is shame, and work to ensure that their evil ideas do not rise again, not to celebrate them by erecting statues to them in public places.
Most of these confederate statues were erected for explicitly political and racist agendas during Jim Crow and the era of Civil Rights in the interests of white supremacy. Why exactly were they put on the UT campus some 70 years after the civil war? And now the statues are rallying points for Hitler's American grandchildren...
It is a huge honor to have a statue of yourself in a public place. The removal of these racist, slavery-defending bastards is long overdue and the erasure of history argument for their remaining is slender alibi. They are going to a museum where they can be seen and studied, not celebrated and honored.
I am fine with them going to the Briscoe, though i think the fate of the statue of the dictator of Paraguay would be more fitting. leave them in place and do something like this to them:
My personal feelings are in line with Fenves and the student organizations. I think the statues are more appropriate in a history museum, and not as ornaments in the busiest part of campus. So I am happy with the relocation. And great timing -- the night before a news cycle that would be dominated by the eclipse, presidential war speech, and then who knows what will happen on Tuesday with the Phoenix rally.
However, I do fear that the whole statue issue is relatively minor and a distraction compared to other serious discrimination problems that are starting to rear their ugly head again. I'm sure if you talked to some of the actual affected populations, they'd have a big list of things which are more important to them than the removal of these symbols. I worry that focusing so much on these statues may detract from other important battles in preserving equality and tolerance as important American values.
Generally speaking, with respect to Confederate statues and monuments, I reject the idea that they are there to honor the dead of the Confederacy, period. The reason why is that the vast majority of these statues and monuments, nationwide, were built during the 20th century. A good proportion of them were even built and dedicated after World War II and during the Civil Rights Era. They were primarily erected as a symbol of times past.
Additionally, it's interesting (and not surprising) that so many people will twist themselves in knots trying to find other reasons for the war itself other than slavery. Yes, of course there are always going to be ancillary reasons outside of a major war goal that you go to war. But anyone who has read the articles of secession of Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, and South Carolina, where all of them mentioned explicitly slavery as the reason for their secession (often no later than the third sentence of the document) will know that's not the case. The states that didn't explicitly name slavery as the reason for their secession generally didn't name anything as the explicit cause for secession - those states did much simpler articles that simply expressed said state's independence from the U.S., with little further explanation. The war was about slavery - the states rights argument primarily surrounds the right of the slaveholding states to own slaves. Let's stop acting like the southern states didn't realize that slavery underpinned their agricultural economy and that its abolition would lead to economic turmoil - give the leaders of that day more credit than that. They weren't that stupid, and neither are we today who recognize their motivation for what it was.
Also, this whole argument about "erasing history" is spurious to me. No one is going to advocate for getting rid of George Washington memorials (for example) because he was a slaveholder. The crux of the argument is that those who rebelled against their country and committed treason in order to fight for the right of state sanctioned slavery do not deserve positive recognition. The argument is NOT that any slaveholder throughout history should not be honored for anything whatsoever. That is a red herring. Do we not already have a National Civil War Museum? (We do.) Do we not already have a Confederate museum? (We do.) What's wrong with using these museums or even (gasp!) building others to display this history, controversial as it is? I have zero problem with that personally.
What I do have a problem with is all of these dishonest, misleading arguments that people are making now - they are just throwing **** against a wall to see how many people you can mislead. I personally would like to see Confederate monuments relegated to museums and private hands and they are free to show them and educate people about the history. I do not think, generally speaking, that they are appropriate for public spaces because they do glorify those from the past who didn't deserve to be glorified then, and certainly don't now. Do Germans cry and whine about their Nazi ancestors not being recognized in the country?
And those saying "but are you saying you're ashamed of your ancestors?" If your ancestors were some slaveholding zealots at the eve of the Civil War, a time when only Spain survived as the final colonial power permitting slavery on any level, then yes you should be ashamed of your ancestors. They were on the wrong side of history and if you glorify them, so are you. The only way I'd be convinced that the vast majority of people defending these monuments aren't doing it for racist and "Lost Cause" type reasons would be if they would agree to add some additional memorials to every Confederate one, such as perhaps Malcolm X or Cesar Chavez statues. We know that'll never happen.
As far as realistic solutions, I think a reasonable compromise could be agreed to if the Federal Government would agree to either renovate and expand the existing Confederate museum in Charleston, or open one (in either DC or Richmond probably) to support the preservation of this history. I have no problem with people learning about this era and I agree it's important. But this isn't about some people's feelings all of a sudden being hurt. It's about stopping the ongoing construction of monuments that glorify slavery, treason, and the oppression of a people.
The counter-protesters were not react with violence. They were not the ones who drove a car into the crowd, they were not the ones who showed up with weapons or wearing protective gear. The counter-protesters were the ones who were peacefully exercising their right to free speech.
And I do not agree that it should be left up to each individual community. If we left all of these issue up to each individual community, there were still be towns in Texas that segregated schools and businesses. That is not OK.
You forgot to add 'until it turned violent on both sides', but that is so typical of your kind.
When Trump said there were fine people on both sides, you and I both know he was referring to regular everyday people who either did not want the statues removed or did want them removed and neither of these two specific groups had any weapons of any kind. That got completely misconstrued of course, by the media (and people like you) to twist it around to suit your hate filled agendas. No surprises here.
I have no use for racist hate and that encompasses all of it. This should never have been an issue, but par to the course, it has been blown up to become a major issue and while it has some people who have nothing better to do than head on down to the protest march to mingle around on whichever they they see themselves as favoring, it is basically a show for all the crazies of both sides to put on. Key word - crazies - which therein lies the bigger problem of potential injuries or deaths and as you see, one woman lost her life in VA. .
People have been walking by these statues for decades and never saying a word about how they bothered them. No, and you know why? Because they didn't, regardless of how loud they deny that at this time. Never in my life have I ever heard one person utter one word about how oh my, they offended them. I've asked countless people if (since this has became our red hot issue) anyone of these statues had ever offended them or anyone they knew or had they ever heard anyone ever say a word about them being offensive. The answer is always NO. But now here comes a few other people (on this liberal forum) trying to make it into a whole different story now. Now that someone has initiated this big up roar, why, they are coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches and saying how, oh my, just walking by the statue of Robert E. Lee 30 years ago made me so uncomfortable. Another one of the ilk chimes in, meee tooo! Stuff this asinine should be funny as hell, but not these days with all the loonies. Hell no, it life and death serious.
Slavery is wrong and I think we all agree on that, but when was the last time you saw a slave here in Texas or the rest of the country? Huh? Tell me.
How is it that people have become so programmed to just go to pieces at the slightest thing and keep on about it until it takes on a life of it's own?
It's my opinion whoever got this deal going about these statues is one of those who are hell bent on destroying America however they can (inside or outside, no matter as long as it gets done).
Most people don't understand the war occurred because the South stood up for their rights (regardless if they were right or wrong, it was their rights) and the North had bowed up and said, no, we're changing things and we are doing away with your rights to own slaves.
The South's very existence (in their minds at that time) depended mainly on agriculture (no factories like the North had) and they firmly believed in order to keep that livelihood sustainable, they had to use the cheap labor of slaves. As time progressed (after a period of hard adjustments) we of course realize this wasn't true, but the South did go through hard times and resentments lasted because of it.
But people need to understand, these folks went to war to defend what they considered their very own livelihood. The generals were looked up to as great leaders defending their cause. I'm not trying to white wash a damn thing regarding slavery and I'm glad I didn't live in that time, but I'm also glad I'm the age I am now and not going to have to live an entire lifetime with the silly little crybabies who think everything in life should not only be handed to them at no cost whatsoever, but wrapped in satin and tied with fancy bows to boot. You want it (no matter what is it, removal of anything that offends you, free healthcare, hey the sky's the limit) all you have to do is protest, demand and thou shalt receive. amen, sayeth Uncle Sam. No harsh realities for these folks, oh no, just all love, kisses, cuddles and go play, Uncle Sam is going to take care of everything and make your life a fairy tale.
As far as I'm concerned, take down every statue, every monument, every street sign, every building name, destroy every book, erase all memories of any bad memories because the surest way to repeat history is to forget history, but hey, at my age, that's ok with me if it makes all you sweet righteous darlings feel better about yourselves.
I do have a question for all you, up-in-arms, going to right all the wrongs of this land, people though. Why in blazes aren't you organizing, marching, protesting against vehicles now? Just look at the killings of late and you'll see cars/trucks, vans, etc. are the killing weapon of choice, not (gasp) guns. So, what's the difference? If it were guns being used, there would already be protest marches being held, the media would be non-stop reporting gun control yada yada. Oh, silly of me to ask, I know why, you do own cars, you don't own guns. lol Yep, the loudest and most self righteous always turn out to be the biggest hypocrites. and this is our world today.
One more thing for all you people who want to do away with symbols of oppression. When the good people in North Texas decide it is inhumane to use immigrant or homegrown laborers (and they use the children of those people too) to work in your fields down in the RGA and declare war on you if you do not stop such practices, what you gonna do when they come for you? Think it can't happen. Hah! I'm telling you, there's not a darn thing too farfetched or off limits these days as you can see for yourselves.
Hot damn, it's like having a front row seat to the biggest show on earth.
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Oh, silly of me to ask, I know why, you do own cars, you don't own guns. lol Yep, the loudest and most self righteous always turn out to be the biggest hypocrites. and this is our world today. 
