Free Republic

We’re so damned stupid. For the second year in a row progressives in America have taken to retroactively trying historical figures in the 2020-2021 social justice tribunals. All historical context is expunged and those in the dock are judged as if plucked off the streets this year rather than when they lived their lives hundreds of years ago, when a lot of other stuff was going on. Now it is Hannah Duston who faces justice. There is a statue of her wielding an axe in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Last year, every self-important progressive did what they could to declare their virtuousness...

An installation by sculptor Péter Szalay, dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement, was pulled down on Friday morning in Hungary just a day after it was put on display. Standing at just a metre high, the 3D-printed work, which depicts New York's Statue of Liberty in rainbow colours, has already sparked controversy in the country among the government of Viktor Orbán. Erected on Thursday in the capital Budapest, Lady Liberty is portrayed bending the knee, stretching her right fist in the air and holding a plaque that reads: "Black Lives Matter".

CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A group deciding the fates of dozens of Chicago statues and monuments met for the first time Thursday night. The Chicago Monuments Project advisory panel is weighing opinions and considering arguments for and against statues, like the Columbus statue. After protesters tried to pull down the Columbus statue in Grant Park last summer, the Mayor had it and others removed, at least temporarily. Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said at the time it had to come down. ""When you have a statue in a place of honor, you are saying that is someone that should be celebrated....Christopher Columbus...

Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley Cavedo and former GOP U.S. Senate candidate Daniel Gade have reached a settlement in Cavedo's defamation suit over Gade's assertion in a debate with Sen. Mark Warner that Cavedo was a "racist judge." Gade has retracted the statements he made about Cavedo during a debate with Warner at Norfolk State University. “During the second of our three debates, I criticized Mark Warner for appointing Judge Bradley Cavedo to the bench in 2002," Gade said in a statement. "In this exchange, I attacked Judge Cavedo based on incorrect information. I retract my statements about Judge Cavedo,...

Video

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is attempting to erase the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan from Chinese history according to a report this weekend by human rights magazine Bitter Winter. Genghis Khan founded the Mongolian Empire in 1206. It was the largest contiguous land empire in world history at its peak, spanning roughly nine million square miles of territory from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Danube River in the west. During Genghis Khan’s reign, the Mongolian Empire posed a serious challenge to China’s powerful Jin dynasty.

The Archbishop of San Francisco performed an exorcism Saturday at the site where rioters ripped down a statue of Father Junipero Serra last week. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone conducted the ceremony in front of approximately 150 people outside the St. Raphael Catholic Church in San Raphael, which is north of San Francisco. The ritual consisted of Latin prayers and the sprinkling of holy water on the site of the ruined statue, as well as on the surrounding bushes, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The group later conducted a scheduled march to a nearby Planned Parenthood clinic.

Trump tosses away a paper with a Commission request to remove statues of Founding Fathers. “This is what we’re dealing with folks.”

Sean Lennon just can’t imagine why protesters would try to take Abraham Lincoln down. The son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono got on Twitter Monday to ask his 307,000 followers: “Can someone explain why it appears a Lincoln statue was toppled in Portland? Asking for a friend.” The 45-year-old musician was responding to Sunday night’s protests in the Oregon city — billed as an “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage” — over the Christopher Columbus holiday, in which a crowd toppled statues of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Lennon then appeared to mock the protesters by sarcastically suggesting that...

What began Saturday as a three-day “occupation” of the Santa Fe Plaza by Native activists and their supporters culminated on Indigenous Peoples Day with protesters toppling a controversial war monument. About 50 people used a rope and chains to bring the obelisk down. Santa Fe police officers monitoring the scene Monday made at least two arrests following earlier incidents but left before the obelisk’s collapse as protesters swarmed around it. Late Monday, the city announced Dylan Wrobel, 27, had been arrested on suspicion of battery on a peace officer and resisting an officer. Also arrested was Sean Sunderland, 24, on...

<p>A former Democrat congressional candidate claimed on Twitter to have participated in the toppling of two statues in Portland, Oregon, Sunday night. The former candidate tweeted, “We brought down 2 statues.” During Sunday’s “Day of Rage” event, “peaceful protesters” vandalized buildings and tore down statues of former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.</p>

President Trump reacted to demonstrators who toppled statues of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in Portland overnight, saying "Biden fools” and "Antifa radicals" were responsible as local Democratic leadership failed to bring in federal law enforcement. “These are Biden fools. ANTIFA RADICALS. Get them FBI, and get them now!” Trump tweeted Monday, responding to a video depicting the toppled statue of Lincoln in Portland’s South Park Block. The words “Stolen Land” can be seen spray-painted across its concrete base. The president also responded to another video depicting a statue of Roosevelt, who is shown riding horseback, as someone in the...

A group of protesters toppled statues of former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in Portland’s South Park Block late Sunday before moving into other areas of downtown, smashing windows and engaging in other acts of destruction. Police declared the event a riot and ordered people in the area to disperse but did not directly intervene until nearly an hour after the first statue fell. The crowd scattered when police cruisers flooded the area, and officers appeared to make several arrests. Protest organizers had promoted the event on social media as an “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage.” Monday is the...

While the city of Washington, D.C. has openly promoted tearing down statues of America’s Founding Fathers, Hillsdale College’s Liberty Walk stands in distinct contrast. Hillsdale College, a small liberal arts college in southern Michigan, hosts an increasing array of original statues honoring men and women who have stood courageously for freedom.Walking Hillsdale College’s Liberty Walk, one sees statues erected to founders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as well as others who have fought for liberty and equality such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ronald Reagan, and Winston Churchill. Hillsdale also has the only statue in North America of...

Mayor Bowser charged the District of Columbia Facilities and Commemorative Expressions (DCFACES) Working Group with evaluating named DC Government-owned facilities and making recommendations as to what, if any, actions need to be taken if the namesake is inconsistent with DC values and in some way encouraged the oppression of African Americans and other communities of color or contributed to our long history of systemic racism. The Working Group tasks were divided into three areas. Working Group members were assigned to an area and committees led by staff from District agencies: Engagement Committee engaged District residents and stakeholders to obtain feedback...

Racism and Jew-hate were second nature to socialism's Godfather. Reprinted From the American Spectator. In a cancel culture targeting everyone from Confederate to Union generals, Columbus to Winston Churchill, Francis Scott Key to even Abraham Lincoln and all of Mt. Rushmore, and where the racial statements and attitudes of every historical figure are scrutinized, it’s funny who gets a pass. A 16-foot-tall bronzed Vladimir Lenin stands unscathed in liberal Seattle, and a new monument to the Bolshevik godfather just went up in Germany. Particularly curious, one wonders why Karl Marx goes untouched. There are monuments to Marx in Europe, one...

The Editor I am not a Southern Partisan (even though I hail from southern Minnesota, the tropical part) nor am I a political partisan having renounced party affiliation in 1988, so I have no particular dog in the fight over historical monuments. That said, I discern some unfortunate (and I hope inadvertent) parallels between the anti-historicists of our current time and numerous misanthropic regimes of the past. In this matter I draw on the wisdom of philosopher George Santayana, who famously said, “Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes.” This debate is not about the “offensiveness”...

The Junipero Serra statue at the Serra Retreat Center in Malibu was discovered to be vandalized the night of Aug. 6. The statue was smashed and broken in half with the priest’s head laying at the base of the statue. Serra is an 18th century Franciscan Friar who led the development of the California mission system during the period of Spanish colonization. In 2015, the Friar was controversially canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. A Junipero Serra statue in downtown Los Angeles was similarly brought to the ground by activists on June 20, who reasoned that the statue represented social...

A Virginia state senator and several NAACP officials were slapped with two felony charges over their alleged roles in the destruction of a Confederate statue by a mob in Portsmouth, Virginia. A protester received life-altering injuries in that incident when a statue fell on his head. "As the result of our efforts in this matter, we have identified and secured arrest warrants of numerous individuals who conspired, organized, and participated in the felonious acts on June 10th. This investigation yielded the same results of holding individuals who commit crimes in our city accountable but was done in a safe manner...

There is very little new under the sun. The monument and statue destruction that we are witnessing has been witnessed in other times and other places. A tyrant's first battlefield is to rewrite history. Most notable were the political purges of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet government erased figures from Soviet history by renaming cities — such as the Imperial capital of St. Petersburg to Petrograd and Leningrad and Stalingrad — and eradicating memories of czarist rule. Stalin's historical revisions also included changing photographs and history books, thereby distorting children's learning within educational establishments. Leaders of ISIS and the Taliban have...