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What if the US was invaded and the original Constitution stolen, and put on display? I think it would eat at any patriotic American's heart a little.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
More like, 'what if the US was invaded, and someone's nice vase was stolen'. I'm sure some would be miffed.
qiqing 8y ago
I agree with you. It would be as though the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, most of the contents of the Smithsonian, and almost all the contents inside the White House were looted and then put on display elsewhere, and it took the looters 3-ish days to finish burning what they couldn't carry with them. And followed by claiming a bunch of US land as their own territory in the aftermath. It would be pretty awful, and I would never wish that experience upon anyone, even people I disliked.
- pnathan 8y ago
  Colonialism was a bad experience for the colonized. :-/ You seem to be very up on current Mainland thought - do you have any web sites in English you'd recommend for a genuine (not exoticized) information source?
AcerbicZero 8y ago
Losing an item is also a part of history. Should we have sent the British a bill for burning the White House back in 1812, and be demanding payment to this day, or was rebuilding it, and enshrining the history of its burning in our culture the better decision? I'd argue the later. I guess my point is that the objects aren't the history. Ideally there would be a more open system to allow the study of older artifices, but in the end I think maintaining a link to the history is more important than possessing the actual object. Of course if that became the norm its likely at some point most objects would be repatriated over time anyway, excluding those where the location become historically relevant itself.
- pnathan 8y ago
  I would suggest that it's not appropriate to tell other people how to view their own history, particularly history that is recent enough that living people either remember it or spoke to those who did. I do think there's definitely a real debate about when an artifact passes from "hey, that's ours, give it back" to "what a fascinating bit of world history, belonging to the world". There's also a very real history of literal colonialism going on here, that simply can not be discarded. It is probably an accurate concept to contexualize this as part of a country decolonizing itself and asserting that it has a valid history. Contextualizing for American audiences, the Summer Palace was burnt in the same time period as our civil war, and those ghosts are not near laid to rest. Anyway, like I said: if someone stole the Constitution, I'd generally be sore about it and see it as a patriotic good to get it back. even tho' there are a ton of copies everywhere, and the value is in the ideas.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

More like, 'what if the US was invaded, and someone's nice vase was stolen'. I'm sure some would be miffed.

qiqing 8y ago

I agree with you. It would be as though the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, most of the contents of the Smithsonian, and almost all the contents inside the White House were looted and then put on display elsewhere, and it took the looters 3-ish days to finish burning what they couldn't carry with them. And followed by claiming a bunch of US land as their own territory in the aftermath. It would be pretty awful, and I would never wish that experience upon anyone, even people I disliked.

pnathan 8y ago
Colonialism was a bad experience for the colonized. :-/ You seem to be very up on current Mainland thought - do you have any web sites in English you'd recommend for a genuine (not exoticized) information source?

AcerbicZero 8y ago

Losing an item is also a part of history. Should we have sent the British a bill for burning the White House back in 1812, and be demanding payment to this day, or was rebuilding it, and enshrining the history of its burning in our culture the better decision? I'd argue the later. I guess my point is that the objects aren't the history. Ideally there would be a more open system to allow the study of older artifices, but in the end I think maintaining a link to the history is more important than possessing the actual object. Of course if that became the norm its likely at some point most objects would be repatriated over time anyway, excluding those where the location become historically relevant itself.

pnathan 8y ago
I would suggest that it's not appropriate to tell other people how to view their own history, particularly history that is recent enough that living people either remember it or spoke to those who did. I do think there's definitely a real debate about when an artifact passes from "hey, that's ours, give it back" to "what a fascinating bit of world history, belonging to the world". There's also a very real history of literal colonialism going on here, that simply can not be discarded. It is probably an accurate concept to contexualize this as part of a country decolonizing itself and asserting that it has a valid history. Contextualizing for American audiences, the Summer Palace was burnt in the same time period as our civil war, and those ghosts are not near laid to rest. Anyway, like I said: if someone stole the Constitution, I'd generally be sore about it and see it as a patriotic good to get it back. even tho' there are a ton of copies everywhere, and the value is in the ideas.