Public Opinion on keeping or removing Confederate monuments

[Andersonh1]

WRAL News poll: NC residents say keep Confederate statues, make sheriffs work with ICE

https://www.wral.com/wral-news-poll...AYiH1GkMgRMy2NhziHbq-ud_gpRTnoxA2tSElNrS_bt74

In an age of border walls, immigration sweeps and protests over Confederate monuments, race relations remain a divisive issue as North Carolinians consider the upcoming primary election. Results of a new WRAL News poll bear that out.

Although fewer than half of the 2,760 people surveyed statewide said race relations have changed over the last four years, clear distinctions could be seen between those who say they have improved and those who say they have deteriorated, according to the exclusive poll by SurveyUSA.

SurveyUSA conducted the scientific poll between Feb. 13 and Sunday, and the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

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Confederate monuments
Race and political ideology also were major indicators regarding the ongoing debate over what to do with Confederate monuments, such as "Silent Sam" at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Nearly two-thirds of blacks polled said the statues should be moved to Civil War cemeteries or battlegrounds or removed from public display altogether, while only 12 percent said the statues should be left alone. Another 14 percent said they should remain where they are as long as plaques or other materials are posted nearby to put them in historical context.

By comparison, 45 percent of white respondents said Confederate monuments should remain as they are, and another 25 percent called for putting them in historical context. Only 23 percent said they should be moved or taken down.

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[jgoodguy]

I prefer surveys where folks respond with the last time they took a family trip to visit a CSA monument.

 

[Viper21]

I prefer surveys where folks respond with the last time they took a family trip to visit a CSA monument.

 

[jgoodguy]

We can assume the folks that claim to love Confederate Statues don't want to take the family see one but don't mind telling others to.

 

[Viper21]

We can assume the folks that claim to love Confederate Statues don't want to take the family see one but don't mind telling others to.

You'd be wrong.

I've taken my family to see some of them. I know Anderson has as well.

I personally know many folks, who have taken their families to see Confederate statues, & monuments.

 

[jgoodguy]

You'd be wrong.

I've taken my family to see some of them. I know Anderson has as well.

I personally know many folks, who have taken their families to see Confederate statues, & monuments.

Which ones?

 

[jgoodguy]

You'd be wrong.

I've taken my family to see some of them. I know Anderson has as well.

I personally know many folks, who have taken their families to see Confederate statues, & monuments.

If there was sufficient demand to visit the statues, then local businesses would force their protection. Simple economic.
If there was sufficient demand to see them, the SCV could buy them and make a mint in fees to see them.

 

[Andersonh1]

Jgg, you want a current poll, I find a current poll. Now the current poll isn't good enough, you want a poll with very specific wording. Where will you move the goalposts next?

Which ones?

Last weekend while in Columbia SC we went by the State House to see the monument there, which I like to do when I'm in town. While in Lexington, Virginia a month ago the family and I went to see Stonewall Jackson's grave and Lee Chapel. I've been to Abbeville, SC for the dedication ceremony of a monument to the men who signed the SC secession ordinance, and contributed a little money to help fund that one. Any time we're traveling and pass a monument on a courthouse lawn somewhere, we take a few minutes to stop and take pictures before moving on. Every since I've become aware that these monuments are out there, I take the time to look for them. Many are quite beautiful, with very moving sentiments expressed on them.

 

[jgoodguy]

Jgg, you want a current poll, I find a current poll. Now the current poll isn't good enough, you want a poll with very specific wording. Where will you move the goalposts next?



Last weekend while in Columbia SC we went by the State House to see the monument there, which I like to do when I'm in town. While in Lexington, Virginia a month ago the family and I went to see Stonewall Jackson's grave and Lee Chapel. I've been to Abbeville, SC for the dedication ceremony of a monument to the men who signed the SC secession ordinance, and contributed a little money to help fund that one. Any time we're traveling and pass a monument on a courthouse lawn somewhere, we take a few minutes to stop and take pictures before moving on. Every since I've become aware that these monuments are out there, I take the time to look for them. Many are quite beautiful, with very moving sentiments expressed on them.

If you see crowds visiting monuments, then they are safe. If only pigeons like them, not so much.

There are 1503 CSA monuments in the US, 300 in VA, GA and NC, 223 in Virginia alone. Yet you only remember visiting 2.

 

[Andersonh1]

How many public monuments around the country are a tourist attraction? The ones on the mall in Washington DC come to mind, and not much else. I'd be interested if you have an actual data suggesting that tourist support for a monument is ever crucial or important to maintaining it. I doubt that's ever been a realistic criteria for preservation. But then we haven't lived through an iconoclastic era like this before, were people were hell-bent on removing so many memorials either.

 

[jgoodguy]

How many public monuments around the country are a tourist attraction? The ones on the mall in Washington DC come to mind, and not much else. I'd be interested if you have an actual data suggesting that tourist support for a monument is ever crucial or important to maintaining it. I doubt that's ever been a realistic criteria for preservation. But then we haven't lived through an iconoclastic era like this before, were people were hell-bent on removing so many memorials either.

We seem to be in agreement that under classical economic theory mostly ignored monuments are at risk.

 

[Andersonh1]

We seem to be in agreement that under classical economic theory mostly ignored monuments are at risk.

I believe all monuments that don't match someone's racial or social criteria are at risk. Economics have nothing to do with it. Look how much money is spent moving a big piece of stone and metal that offends five people.

 

[jgoodguy]

I believe all monuments that don't match someone's racial or social criteria are at risk. Economics have nothing to do with it. Look how much money is spent moving a big piece of stone and metal that offends five people.

Really? Still economics. It's not the amount, it's the demand. Them that love monuments keep them. Otherwise at risk

 

[Andersonh1]

Removing New Orleans' Confederate monuments cost $2M-plus in public, private money

https://www.nola.com/news/article_e01ceae5-f5a4-5f4d-b5ce-5aecfbc0abdc.html

It's not about the money. It's about ideology.

 

[jgoodguy]

Removing New Orleans' Confederate monuments cost $2M-plus in public, private money

https://www.nola.com/news/article_e01ceae5-f5a4-5f4d-b5ce-5aecfbc0abdc.html

It's not about the money. It's about ideology.

Economy. The removal folks came up with 2M$+. The heritage folks did not put their money where their mouth was.

 

[5fish]

This is a great little article about taking down statues throught history. There a word for it....

http://origins.osu.edu/connecting-history/top-ten-origins-monument-takedowns

Because, of course, memorials are more than just bronze and marble. “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield and the second time in memory,” writes novelist Viet Tanh Nguyen. Clearly, the Civil War’s origins continue to be contested a century and a half after Appomattox.

Memory is a battlefield, and monuments are built on this contested ground. They are fronts on political theaters of war: sites where vying factions negotiate history, a society’s identity, and, consequently, its political future. Victors often erect monuments memorializing the heroes of their conquests, working to promote stories about the past that legitimize their authority. Power, though, tends to invite challenge. Those who do not share the political visions inherent in such shrines sometimes engage in iconoclasm, altering or destroying monuments.

 

[Andersonh1]

Economy. The removal folks came up with 2M$+. The heritage folks did not put their money where their mouth was.

As the people who took them down have told us, they did not do it for the money. In fact it cost them a lot of money. They did it for ideological reasons. That's the opposite of doing it for the economy. I doubt any of the locales that removed monuments care one bit about whether they've gained or lost revenue in the absence of historical memorials. It's not a factor to them.

 

[jgoodguy]

As the people who took them down have told us, they did not do it for the money. In fact it cost them a lot of money. They did it for ideological reasons. That's the opposite of doing it for the economy. I doubt any of the locales that removed monuments care one bit about whether they've gained or lost revenue in the absence of historical memorials. It's not a factor to them.

Ideology doesn't pay the bills. Economics and the economy are not the same things.

How about a poll that asks how much will you pay in taxes to keep a CSA monument.

 

[Andersonh1]

You'd find fault with that poll as well, I'm sure. And what upkeep does a monument need? It sits there. I know when a local activist tried to get the Greenville CS monument removed, one of the things the city attorney said in his refusal letter was that the monument cost the city nothing in upkeep. It just sat in a small park right outside the cemetery and no city tax revenues were spent on it. I'm fairly sure your question does not reflect the real-world situation for most of these monuments.

 

[jgoodguy]

You'd find fault with that poll as well, I'm sure. And what upkeep does a monument need? It sits there. I know when a local activist tried to get the Greenville CS monument removed, one of the things the city attorney said in his refusal letter was that the monument cost the city nothing in upkeep. It just sat in a small park right outside the cemetery and no city tax revenues were spent on it. I'm fairly sure your question does not reflect the real-world situation for most of these monuments.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/costs-confederacy-special-report-180970731/

The Mississippi legislature earmarks $100,000 a year for preservation of Beauvoir. In 2014, the organization received a $48,475 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for “protective measures.” As of May 2010, Beauvoir had received $17.2 million in federal and state aid related to damages caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While nearly half of that money went to renovating historic structures and replacing content, more than $8.3 million funded construction of a new building that contains a museum and library.

The day we visited, 16 men in Confederate uniforms drilled in the quiet courtyards. Two women in hoop skirts stood to the side, looking at their cellphones. Though Alabama state parks often face budget cuts—one park had to close all its campsites in 2016—Confederate Memorial Park received some $600,000 that year. In the past decade, the state has allocated more than $5.6 million to the site. The park, which in 2016 served fewer than 40,000 visitors, recently expanded, with replica Civil War barracks completed in 2017.

Alabama laws, like those in other former Confederate states, make numerous permanent allocations to advance the memory of the Confederacy. The First White House of the Confederacy, where Jefferson Davis and his family lived at the outbreak of the Civil War, is an Italianate mansion in Montgomery adjacent to the State Capitol. The state chartered the White House Association of Alabama to run the facility, and spent $152,821 in 2017 alone on salaries and maintenance for this monument to Davis—more than $1 million over the last decade—to remind the public “for all time of how pure and great were southern statesmen and southern valor.” That language from 1923 remains on the books.

An average of $18,000 in county monies each year since 2011, plus $80,000 in state renovation funds in 2017 alone, have been devoted to this memorial to Toombs, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States after the war and fled to Cuba and France to avoid arrest. Upon his return to Georgia, Toombs labored to circumscribe the freedom of African-Americans. “Give us a convention,” Toombs said in 1876, “and I will fix it so that the people shall rule and the Negro shall never be heard from.” The following year he got that convention, which passed a poll tax and other measures to disenfranchise black men.