More Evidence We Live in a Sick, Sick World:
 

yea I saw that...F$cked up is right!

A particularly sick country in a sick world.

There's another thread about this in the Watercooler section.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=345569

The theft was discovered shortly before Black History Month. But Lutz said in an interview after the news conference that he was hopeful the motive wasn't racial, but that the thieves just saw the bronze as monetarily valuable.

Not sure how this makes any sense. If the thieves just saw the statue as monetarily valuable, then why the hell was it found burned up in a trash can?

Send the asteroid

It is hard to say for sure, but one possibility is that it was taken for scrap value or with the thought of selling it on the secondary market, but once the the culprits realized all the heat and attention on the theft, they decided to ditch it. Setting it on fire might have been an attempt to destroy the evidence.

Of course another option is that it was racially motivated, but if that was the case why not just deface the statue or simply set it on fire where it stood in the park? That would've taken nearly the same amount of time as cutting it off at the ankles and trying to haul it off.

I guess whether they were criminals or racists (or both), they were idiots, and who knows what type of reasoning goes through an idiot's mind.

You also have the remote possibility that this was some type of hoax, or just something to get attention in the news for whatever reason.

+1
I would guess its low brow knuckleheads being of the "lets steal copper pipes out of homes" breed, but the other option is that tearing down statues has become the norm in the last 10 years.

I have no affiliation with it but there’s a go fund me to replace the statue. They are pretty close to their $100k goal. I saw a post on social media encouraging $42 donations. https://www.gofundme.com/f/replace-o...obinson-statue

Absolutely disgusting.

-Al

Sad

It is plausible. Not the first time I’ve seen a thief dump something valuable. The thieves could have realized that they don’t have the ability to melt it on their own, and going to someone to do it could lead to their capture.

I’m in Richmond, Va. where apparently we like to rip down statues of Confederate soldiers and Christopher Columbus. So sad that we just still can’t get along.

I weep for the future.

The vast majority of everyone gets along just fine. There's other factors at play.

This is the answer.... The longer we allow the narrative the fringes are everyone the longer we will be at a loss

I don't. Being around young people gives me great hope for the future (I won't be here for). They have more respect for other people and the Earth than prior generations ever did. By a lot.

Biggest issue this country faces is getting people with antiquated values out of the way and gone. Like the people on school boards in Florida who don't want kids taught the horrific abuse the Robinsons and other blacks faced in Florida. Would be "woke" or "anti-white" or something.

Refusing to educate kids on what Jackie and others endured is a lot worse crime than cutting down a statue.

There’s no doubt that the vast majority of people get along just fine. My comment was directed more towards the small groups who are still hanging on to hate and division. They’re the ones who just need to let shit go and get along with everyone else. Unfortunately, they’re the ones that get all the press.

Well said!

Have you ever been on social media? Or recently tried discussing current events with a stranger? Hate and division are widespread in this country right now, largely because of how lucrative it is and how easily manipulated many people are.

I can't imagine it has anything to do with racism unless the news decides to run the hype-train per usual. It has everything to do with crime, stupidity, selfishness, and disrespect.

Sadly theft of statues, bells, and bronze work has been commonplace for years. It is so common of late in my area that the bronze plaques for historic sites are so hard to keep up with replacement that many are now missing. Several years ago an 8 foot statue of Jesus was removed from a cross a stolen from a local church overnight that was mounted at the pulpit, not outdoors. The sad part was it was made to look bronze, it was not.

I have a friend whose family owns a large cemetery, they have had to hire 24 hour watchmen to stop the theft of the decorative bronze urns or statuary in the historic graves.

The Detroit police now require a call from scrapyards of any deliveries of new copper (stolen from job sites) and decorative bronze items (again stolen). The thieves now just sledgehammer the items to unrecognizable chunks to sell, or like in this case...bonfire and try to melt it to an unrecognizable state.

This is the next step after the scrappers have already stolen all the copper and fixtures from any home that sits unoccupied for a bit too long. There are hundreds or likely thousands of stories in the city of people just leaving for work and returning to every centimeter of aluminum sliding removed from their home.

It's amazing what people do for an easy payday and to avoid a 9 to 5.

Thanks for posting that...I hope it's legit. I donated $42


.

I blame a certain divisive political party for that nonsense.

And the mainstream media who love to keep us divided (on purpose).

Agreed 110%

Love this. I was disgusted when I saw this story. I hope this is legit and the statue is replaced.

Here's a story about the donations

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-clubs-t...obinson-statue

+1 on every word of this. Well said, and true.

MLB has stepped in and is going to replace the statue.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20Fuckers.jpg

I blame stupid people. In general. For everything.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...d%20People.png

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...ize/morons.png

"These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."

https://media.tenor.com/E5cO8U3p4qAA...-stupidity.png

That's great. So now what happens to the $150K+ in donations that were raised already?

I am sure someone already had plans for it and it will go to a great cause.

I thought money raised through GoFundMe had to be used for the purpose stated or had to be refunded. Can it be used for something else if the stated reason was for replacing the statue?

The Go Fund Me is being administrated by the League 42 Foundation directly and says the following:

Money donated will go directly to this cause. Any donations that exceed our goal will be put to use to fund our operational needs, including our four education programs.

Thanks for the info. Looks like they will still be able to put the donations to good use then.

100 percent

There a thousand statues that can be stolen and melted down/sold for scrap. There’s only one reason why you cut down and steal a Jackie Robinson statue: you are a scum racist.

“Biggest issue this country faces is getting people with antiquated values out of the way and gone.”

Right! Get rid of anyone whose worldview differs from yours. With all due respect, it’s such narrow-minded statements that epitomize our societal rot.

Sounds like you know without a doubt who cut down the statue. You're right about them being scumbags. How do you know they're racist? They could be a group of blacks that did this.

Lots of hot takes already about a crime without any actual evidence yet that it has any political utility for either side. A good rule of thumb is that whoever argues for huge swaths of the population to be made "out of the way and gone" is in the wrong. While it certainly makes getting ones agenda through easier if dissidents are eliminated, it should raise obvious moral issues and huge red flags. I agree with whoever isn't proposing that everyone who disagrees with them be made "gone" :confused:

Can we cut the political horse s**t, agree that the thieves are lowlife scum, and go on with our days, please?

I had a criminal case in NY once in which a WWII statue was stolen and the thieves chopped it up and tried to sell the scrap. Naturally, the scrap was worth next to nothing; all the value of the statue was in the art. When they finally made an arrest it turned out that it was a group of Mexican illegals who spoke no English and had no idea what they had stolen and destroyed. One of their bosses paid me to get them out of the mess they found themselves in, which I did.

Every act doesn’t have to be for political purposes; some people are just idiots who do stupid things. Similarly, trying to score cheap political points over this is idiotic. We can all agree that Jackie Robinson was a great man, no one disputes this. And Robinson brought people together, instead of dividing them. Maybe we can try that here.

Which is why you and I have businesses :D

I thank God for stupid people every day.

Yup. Saved me from a career of real estate closings…

This incident got so much notice because it was a Jackie Robinson statue. This sort of thing has been happening all over. This was recently reported in Los Angeles:

On Jan. 11, vandals robbed Lincoln Memorial of more than 100 bronze plaques, including one donated by champion boxer Joe Louis in 1949, according to Woods, one of the volunteers who run the cemetery. It is the second cemetery thieves have recently targeted in the Carson-Compton area, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The estimated damage and cost of the missing plaques is upwards of $2 million, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

A week before the incident at Lincoln Memorial, thieves targeted the adjacent Woodlawn Memorial Park. As of Jan. 9, they had identified nearly 300 graves that had been vandalized; headstones on 92 in-ground graves had been knocked over and smashed and more than 200 plaques had been removed from mausoleum walls.

The Sheriff’s Department will also investigate claims by residents that a third cemetery, the Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton, also has been vandalized. An employee at Angeles Abbey declined to comment.

Lt. Vincent Ursini of the Sheriff’s Department Major Crimes Bureau said authorities have not yet identified suspects but are chasing leads and reviewing security footage.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when you’re in your final resting spot and you can’t even rest in peace without somebody smashing your tombstone to get the metal off,” he said.

I understand and respect the point you're trying to make, but saying he "brought people together" is revisionist history. Honoring him now brings most people together, but there are still many, many deeply racist people in this country, some of whom would certainly stoop to stealing and burning a Jackie Robinson statue to make a point. Remember a few years ago how they had to make the Emmett Till memorial in Mississippi bulletproof after it had been riddled with bullet holes over and over again?

+1

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I’ve done them. They are low stress but rather boring.

I don’t think it’s revisionist history. Robinson’s existence in MLB caused many racists to reexamine their previously held positions on Blacks. And eventually Blacks in baseball became commonplace, allowing a once-excluded race access to America’s pastime. I don’t know how a statue today has even a fraction of the impact on race relations as Jackie breaking the color barrier back then did.

And yeah there are still racists in America. That is a fact which will remain regardless of the motive behind the theft of the statue, which still is unknown. The story I recounted in my post was designed to underscore that — when the WW2 statue was stolen it was presumed it was an anti-American statement when in reality it was nothing of the sort.

I agree with Jeff's point on Robinson's effect. Look at what Roger Kahn wrote about the reactions of 'mild' racists on the Dodgers once they saw him in action. He changed a lot of peoples' minds. Happy Chandler supported Dixiecrat segrgationist politics yet within months issued a stern warning letter to the Phillies to stop the racial epithets from the bench.

Maybe don't invoke Rodney King next time.

It is satisfying to see you try and deflect.

Not really the first thing I think of when a statue is stolen. It could be my naivety, regardless of the nature of the statue itself. Everything has to be polarized

No one is invoking Rodney King, so I’m not even sure where you got that from and I’m certainly not deflecting. My point is the same. There are groups here in Richmond that seem to want to remember the Civil War and still try to fight it. I see it every day. There’s also groups who want to riot and tear down statues instead of doing things the proper way. Those are the groups at odds with each other, and the rest of us are just caught in the middle.

Those who preach tolerance are often the least tolerant.

And for those looking at this as a political statement, the reality is that there are extremists on BOTH sides that fit this description ... they're just intolerant on different issues. Blaming the 'other side' is a huge part of the problem in this country IMHO.

Regardless of the motive, cutting down that statue and burning it is despicable.

jeff

Well said.

Agreed. Generalizing and finger pointing have polarized the country. Whereas a small percentage, the outliers, seem to garner the most attention and people are "lumped" Into groups


The idiots tried to melt it in a trash can. Regardless of race creed or religion. They are idiots! Highly doubt it was race motivated. Although either side can likely find a ulterior motive once the person are caught. I won't pontificate on where the dividing line will be based on perps ethnic demographic

Occam’s razor? Probably can’t rule out good ole vandalism for the sake of good ole vandalism.

You just did.

Finger in your holster already?

Username checks out

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Nah, you've got it covered with your double-barrel action.

One for each side of the aisle!

There are pro-Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthi riots all over cities in America right now. There are Michigan religious leaders praising the Oct 7 terror attacks in Israel. Bridges, train stations and airports in NYC have been shut down by protesters calling for the genocide of Jews and the destruction of Israel and America. I'm fully armed walking to my office now, as there have been violent protests right in front of my building. If any of the protesters believed I was Jewish I'd be attacked in a second.

You'll excuse me if I find this more concerning than a fucking statue that was stolen, the political motive behind it still unknown. I can promise you that the people calling for my head outside my office last week were not Republicans. The country is divided, is my point, and the Jackie Robinson statue being stolen is not the best example of it.

If the people who absconded with the Jackie Robinson statue are bronze/brass/copper/aluminum scrapping meth addicts as I suspect then they are more than likely white.

Well, this thread has officially gone off the rails.

I certainly didn't have "I'm more persecuted than blacks are right now" on my stolen Jackie Robinson statue bingo card, but here we are.

For what it's worth, I have enough bandwidth to simultaneously condemn anti-semitic terrorism and acknowledge that racism against blacks is still a significant problem. Getting a raw deal isn't a zero-sum game.

If the Hank Greenberg statue outside Comerica is cut off at the feet and left in a burn barrel, I promise not to shout down any speculation that it could be something more than meth addicts looking for scrap. And if it turns out it really is just meth addicts looking for scrap, then I won't think any less of those who initially feared that it was motivated by animus.

Very well said and I completely agree.

This thread went off the rails when a series of politically expedient assumptions without a single shred of available evidence to support them were immediately made, and then quickly pivoted into openly arguing that people who don't share their leftist views should be made to be "out of the way and gone." I wonder how the elimination of dissenters would be accomplished? How does a political faction get "out of the way and gone" with huge swaths of the citizen population?

I am much more concerned by the growing open hope of the eradication of everyone else by the 'tolerant' than I am 3 dudes stealing a statue for unknown reason at this point in time.

Very well said and I completely agree.

Refreshing to read.

Gives me hope that more are awake than what it appears sometimes. :)

I knew right away where this thread was going when I saw the original post lmao this is why I stopped going on this board

Anyways here’s my favorite Jackie Robinson card that I own! Shoutout to the MLB for stepping up to replace the statue https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...5f4f3ec0f7.jpg


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It certainly doesn't help national unity by the House's position on the bipartisan Senate Immigration Bill, one of the best pieces of legislation to come out of Congress in some time.

Some want to reduce illegal immigration. Some want to expedite it by processing it faster.

What some people never seem to figure out is the concept of unintended consequences. Or, what message is being sent, and therefore what happens next.

Giving prepaid debit cards away free to people whom have crossed our borders illegally, and setting up and advertising such things as "sanctuary cities," create magnets for much much more of the same. These things do not solve a problem. They put a band-aid on the immediate crisis, but ensure the underlying problem will become much more severe.

You can look at a map of the world, and you see little lines around all the countries. These are called borders. Some wonder why we can't have these things called borders, without them being systematically erased due to bad policy.

Why do your job when you can get paid to do nothing and blame your inaction on someone else?

Leon, can you lock down this dumpster fire of a thread before it gets any sillier?

https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-conte...9-05.jpg?w=834

It's not a party until someone asks for the thread to be shut down.

I was hoping that before it gets locked they could clarify what exactly getting all of the population who disagree with them "out of the way and gone" means. Surely advocating massive scale violence breaks a rule :rolleyes:

Those who preach tolerance ...

jeff