In the midst of ongoing legal battles over Charlottesville City’s reckless, lawless attempt to remove state-protected war monuments from public spaces, the monuments themselves have been integrally damaged.
Charlottesville’s cultural anarchists—previously openly plotting to “tear down” monuments to Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan Jackson—appear to have switched tactics. Mirroring attacks on Civil War monuments in other communities, hammers and/or chisels appear to have been used on the granite bases of the Lee and Jackson sculptures in downtown Charlottesville.
Noses, a sword, a shield, and toes have been damaged on the Jackson monument, while a hammer was taken to the beak of an eagle on the Lee monument.
While widely discussed on social media, the intentional physical destruction of bases upholding these monuments seems to have escaped the purview of local mainstream media and local law enforcement
Recent spray paint vandalism of the statue bases has received broad news coverage. Lee has been cleaned of the paint, while Jackson awaits the attention of City cleaning crews as of September 18.
Those who ignore history……
It is time for federal investigation. Men went to jail for taking tarps off, but cant catch people with hammer and chisels, bullsh.t
Rob,
I don’t live in Charlottesville. I did for almost 25 years
and was not always proud of what happened there.
Those in charge should be ashamed of what they have
let this once beautiful, well thought of city become.
It saddens me to hear the remarks that are made of what
was done by Antifa and others. Nothing was done.
Charlottesville is a city in crisis, but those in charge
do not realize what a laughing stock they are to the
entire country. What happens in Charlottesville does not stay in
Charlottesville. McAuliffe,Wes Ballamy, the Mayor, the City
Council should all be hanging their heads in shame for
destroying a city that so many fought and died for.
Those that have damaged the statues should be prosecuted
to Itthe full extent of the law.
Sad. Some of these problems are perhaps due to the funding of Antifa and other groups by George Soros and Sons. He most likely funds others. He also has funds to buy judges and law enforcement officer s to do his bidding. Further complicating is reluctance to put cameras (cheap solution) on the areas being vandalized. High numbers of marxist/communists in the area does not help.
Whoever damaged these statues should be prosecuted and jailed. But there is a clear and obvious difference between ignoring history and honoring the dishonorable parts. The root of the trouble is that you guys still can’t admit that “the Lost Cause” was dishonorable.
I should add that I’ll bet most proponents of moving the statues agree with me in abhorring their defacement. But like all extremists, you want to see everything in black and white, and paint everyone who opposes you as an extremist. This is just one more example of your fear of the truth.
LoL, I see our arbitrator of truth and morality is here with his typical lecture on the blind partisanship of the right and the bipartisan virtuosity of the left. I would suggest that you don’t place a lot of value on that bet you appear to be willing to make. If the anti-stature folks felt as you appear to believe, we would not be where we are today. They want the damn things down and are willing to do whatever it takes to get them gone. After all they (the statues) represent racism, bigotry, white supremacy, white privilege, toxic masculinity, and all the other sins committed by the evil white men since humans walked the earth.
Charlottesville is full of progressives, isn’t that what you guys always say? If the majority of these people didn’t believe in the rule of law and weren’t opposed to defacing the statues, the statues would be attacked every week. (And why would city government, which you also complain is unfair to you, bother repairing the damage?)
Lots of people on the Right deplore both Trump supporting and Trump excusing populists on the Right and Antifa types and Antifa excusers on the Left. Read Peter Wehner and Michael Gerson in the Post. Read Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens in the Times, or Andrew Sullivan in New York magazine.
These are writers who know how to criticize a political faction while still giving it its due, yet while they acknowledge and share your complaints about the Left, they forthrightly name your hypocrisy on morals and ethics, your indulgence of resentment in the name of Christianity, your complicity with an ignorant, unbalanced, corrupt would-be autocrat, and your abandonment of democratic principles, all the while you proclaim yourselves patriots who are upholding the American Way. It’s extremists on both sides who will be the death of it, if anyone will.
Al Morris, there will always be those who attempt to paint issues with a veneer of moral equivalency. I recall the Baltimore mayor saying, during the frequent riots of the Obama presidency, that the rioters “needed to vent.” Like those who battered Reginald Denny during the 1990s in LA, the rioters had little to do with the issue at hand.
Ruth Carroll, you are correct; I lived there for 19 years. I was sitting in a diner in Maine when I heard a guy say: “Jesus, look at what’s happening in Virginia. They’re rioting in Charlottesville.” I was in a surreal world when I looked at the images. Now, though, I see the entire picture (having been there for two decades) and knowing McAuliffe quite well. To this day, the moral equivalency crew tries to “balance” the “complex, nuanced event” that was Charlottesville. That is a classic tactic: cite how complex a simple issue is to make those who do not agree with the party to sound simple, pedestrian and, in this case, Neanderthal.
Now I live near Frederick, Maryland. DC/Beltway sensibilities are moving into this city. Look to the “Frederick Fair Killing” in the news to see how that is panning out.
Remember folks, when the city is being burned down by any party: This is a complex issue and must be dealt with by those with vast wisdom. (Bellamy, Northam, etc.)
Ken, why is there always a “but” with you. This story is about vandalism, plain and simple. Vandalism is wrong, correct? What does admitting that the lost cause was dishonorable have to do with this criminal activity. A bit of advice, sometimes, you don’t need to post, you can refrain. Why pour gasoline on the fire?
Vandalism is wrong, plain and simple, but Rob’s post and the other responses to it are about a lot more than vandalism. There is a “but” because most things in life aren’t simple black and white.
Lost Cause rhetoric in no way justifies vandalism, but the rhetoric and vandalism are both wrong. Take the beam out of your own eye, someone once said.
Racism is the fire; Lost Cause rhetoric is the gasoline. Don’t Southerners have anything else to be proud of, anything else to hold onto as heritage? If you have criminal ancestors, do you proclaim yourself proud of what they did? If slavery isn’t evil, if subjugation (which the statues were in part erected to enforce; read the history) isn’t evil, what is?
Don’t just condemn the vandalism (and conflate the vandals with the law-abiding majority of statue opponents) – understand what drives them.
Nice try blame shifter but slavery was promoted by your democratic party. Where is all of your shame? Your party controls the cities where blacks are stuck in perpetual dependence inside their government assisted hellholes. They been indoctrinated into believing they are there because of white republicans. They graduate from high schools lacking every basic skill required to thrive in the workplace. Read the tirades of the ex NFL wide receiver widely considered to be the best in the league. He is one of too many that have gone thru K12 and some years of college yet still write or talk coherently. Maybe it’s because their politicians are more interested in promoting and taking care of illegal immigrants and tearing down historic reminders of a horrific war that happened because both sides locked themselves into non-negotiable positions. The South considered abolishing slavery as the death of their economy leaving them helpless to the whims of the North. The North considered the South to be devils incarnate for refusing to abolish slavery.
Only the smug self righteous refuses to see that we are doing all the right things to have reason and understanding thrown to the side in a fit of moral superiority.
Al, do you have any thoughts of your own? Because I have plenty, and you haven’t demonstrated any ability to respond to me and my views instead of some fantasy caricature you hear on Fox and the Schilling Show. Zzzzzzzzz.
[…] Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee monument was vandalized overnight—another in a long string of illegal defacements. […]