White supremacists and counter protesters clash in Charlottesville

[Brian37]

Everyone here knows I am hardly PC, but no, sorry, this isn't about free speech, this is about clinging to institutionalized racism. Leaving those statues up in the context that they were put up, to glorify what they defended to keep, is not what our nation should seek to keep.

I can see them as part of a museum of what not to do, but to leave them up knowing why they were put up in the first place to paint them as heros is vile. Leaving them up in that context is no different to me than glorifying Andrew Jackson and what he did to Native Americans. 

Slavery was a horrible part of our history. Lynchings were a horrible part of our history. Segregation was a horrible part of our history. Nobody back then who supported that should be represented in such a way as those who made the statues back then supported or the actual men who supported it.

Nobody should erase that past nor pretend it never happened. But I am not talking about erasing history but putting those figures in the context of what humans should not do to other humans.

Why shouldn't the town have a say, it doesn't violate any constitutional rights and if the people there want the statue then they should be able to keep it, as well as if they don't want it then they they should be able to remove it. Slavery is bad no doubt about it, but that's not the issue here, the issue is should towns not be able to display statues of people who fought for the confederacy.

^^^^^ Is like saying, "Why cant Islamic countries throw gays off rooftops and deny women equal rights?"

This is about the pure fact that government property is the property of everyone, not one group, not one political party and should not be used to promote or glorify cruelty to other humans. Those who conducted the war in the south were not heros, they were the enemy.

You would not say that say, if Iran had a civil war, and out of the ashes a western democracy rose but some still kept the statues of those who clung to the past. 

If you defend the town/city in that fashion then you have no value for the bloodshed and struggle of those who supported the likes of MLK and what he did and died for to end segregation. To leave up statues of those who apposed the progress he died for is vile. 

The only context those statues should be kept around like I said, is in a museum of what not to do to your fellow human being.

You are not defending free speech by arguing like this. You are defending a vile history that nobody should want to glorify.