Trump weighs in on tearing down Columbus statues: 'What's next? Has to be stopped'

[Eugene]

Source: ABC News

Trump weighs in on tearing down Columbus statues: 'What's next? Has to be stopped'

By MARK OSBORNE • Oct 18, 2017, 4:43 AM ET

President Donald Trump waded into a new statue controversy on Tuesday night when he called out people who want to tear down statues of Christopher Columbus.

"We believe we should preserve our history, not tear it down," Trump said in remarks he delivered Tuesday night at the Heritage Foundation's annual President's Club gathering. "Now they are even trying to destroy statues of Christopher Columbus. What's next? Has to be stopped, it's heritage."

Calls for Columbus statues to be torn down have flared up around the country in the wake of similar calls for Confederate statues to be removed. The threat of the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia incited riots between supporters and protesters and left one woman dead in August.

The Columbus controversy has been most prominent in New York City, where a 76-foot tall statue of the Italian explorer rises over Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park. The monument, designed by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo, was officially unveiled in October 1892.

In the wake of the Charlottesville incident, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio commissioned a 90-day review of all the statues in the city.

-snip-

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-weighs-tearing-columbus-statues-whats-stopped/story?id=50553722

[Corgigal]

1. Lexington Kentucky

took 2 down last night, quick and now in storage. Trump can buy them and put them on his golf course.

[SHRED]

2. He thinks statues are "history"

Because he doesn't read.

[doc03]

3. For once I agree with tRump. What is next? We blow up Mount Rushmore or the Crazy Horse

Memorial. Ohio will have to change the name of our capitol now I suppose. Well we will have to
blow up Grant's tomb because it offends southerners. We have to tear down the Lewis and Clark statue
in St. Lewis because they explored the west and that led to thousands of native Americans getting killed.

[lagomorph777]

4. Yes that is exactly what's next (not Crazy Horse though) and it's about damned time.

We should be ashamed of our genocidal history and work to remember it as a wrong to be righted, not a glorious thing to be celebrated.

[doc03]

5. Well what about all the white people Crazy Horse was

responsible for killing? We have a memorial and other things honoring General Custer near my place, we need to destroy those.

[lagomorph777]

6. Can you see a distinction between defending ancestral land, and conquering it?

There is no moral equivalence.

Do you know why the bison were nearly wiped out? It was deliberate genocide, to starve the plains Indians.

[doc03]

8. But the Indians came from asia and I am

sure they did their share of killing each other before any white men were here.

[lagomorph777]

11. Hey, cool so it's perfectly OK for us to exterminate people.

Awesome.

[Drahthaardogs]

14. Monteczuma once had 84,000 sacrificed over a few days

In honor of himself.

Some say his blood just had the Aztecs far in decline when the Spaniards arrived.

[LanternWaste]

12. which statues are you alleging have been blown up rather than simply removed?

Your fallacy 'reductio ad absurdum' is both popular and trendy among the dogmatic and irrational.

It does however, beg a question implicit in your premise: which statues are you alleging have been blown up rather than simply removed?

[MoonRiver]

7. FU, Demented Asshole!

[trotsky]

9. "preserve our history"

Columbus never even set foot in what is now the USA.

What an idiot.

[TBA]

10. Keep the satutes

and add a sign correctly depicting what he did (wiping out the natives) and correcting the myths. Use them to educate.

[Vinca]

13. I hope Dear Leader knows if anyone has the bright idea to put up a statue of him we'll be out in

force personally taking it down. I'd risk jail time to topple a Trump statue . . . unless, of course, we're talking about the "naked Trumps" that appeared during the election. Those were fabulous.