Irony is dead

I had to double check the photo to make sure they weren’t parked on the memorial.

Adam, I’m not sure if you’ll post this but these are my early morning thoughts.

Perhaps the most poignant part of this image is what’s not there but always in my mind’s eye when I see the Old State House from this angle - the crowd that forms every July 4th for the reading of the Declaration of Independence from the balcony. A tradition dating back to 1776 - from a building still adorned with the icons of the Crown, the symbols of the government they were rebelling against.

Will there be armed soldiers at this year”s gathering? Aside from the guys toting muskets, I’d guess not.

How about the irony of the document itself and hypocrisy of its primary author? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...”. The author being as out of touch with reality back then as that simple ideal remains out of our grasp today. Truly disheartening.

Civil unrest is a good thing. The fact the image in this article exists is a good thing.

Let the peaceful protests grow and continue for as long as it takes. Make things uncomfortable. Make every American take a hard look at their own life, what they’ve been taught, how those may differ from the experience of others, and what they want for their fellow citizens.

Perhaps then we can collectively make this country”s founding ideals and Dr. King’s dream a reality.

The police caused this problem when Officer Friendly was fired and robocop was hired. Many police officers show contempt for citizens who ask for directions or assistance with accident reports or the location of where their car was towed.

I think the reason that there is a Humvee there, and that last summer police charged protesters and started beating them at that spot, isn't that the Boston Massacre happened there.

Rather, the Boston Massacre happened there because it's a natural spot for that stuff to happen.

The fundamental geography of that area hasn't changed that much in the past two hundred and fifty years. If a protest gets rowdy and security forces get violent in response, that's just, geographically, a place that it's likely to happen. I don't know why -- if my supposition is right, then I'm sure there's something about how streets funnel into each other or whatever, and someone who studied ... whatever branch of study would cover that question ... would be able to say why. But I strongly suspect that the reason stuff happens there is because it's a natural place for stuff to happen.

The actual marker is on that traffic island in the extreme left of the photo. Ok, the marker changes every time the traffic pattern does, but still.

If you install a historic marker that's flush with the ground, making it easy to miss and easy to park over, eventually someone is going to park over it.

People drive over the Commander Elm marker in Cambridge every day.

The ignorance being expressed by many here is outstanding -- top of the heap -- can't be surmounted

Try reading some non-PC non-Revisionist History about the city in which you are residing [physically or virtually]

The Guard is there precisely because of what happened on that spot March 5, 1770 [250 years ago + a couple of months a few days and some hours]. It's not so much a monument to an event as a battlefield -- think Gettysburg, or perhaps the North Bridge in Concord.

There is nothing remotely connected between Soldiers of the King of England who shot the first Martyrs of American Freedom and the Massachusetts National Guard standing guard over a place of great honor.

Try reading some non-PC non-Revisionist History:

11-year-old Christopher Seider [or Snyder or Snider multiple possible names] was the prelude to the Massacre -- he was killed in February by a Bostonian Loyalist [who sided with the King of England on the matter of the protests over the Stamp Act and the ensuing boycott of British Goods being imported through the Port of Boston]. His death and the trial of the accused cranked-up the existing tension between the people of Massachusetts Bay Colony and the town of Boston in particular and the British troops occupying Boston under Military Governor General Gage.

Crispus Attucks or Atticks [multiple spellings] was an American Patriot whose life was taken because of his participation in a demonstration against the occupation of Boston by the British Army. Despite the fact that most probably his participation was non-Non-violent -- He was shot dead by the power of the King of England -- whose subject Attucks was at the time of his death.

Attucks and his fellow martyrs [including Samuel Gray and James Caldwell], and eight others were wounded [Two of whom: Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr, later died of their injuries] -- making five victims became a rallying point for the seeds of the revolution. Samuel Adams held funerals for the Boston Massacre victims who were then buried in Granary Burying Ground [where they remain today.]

The Boston Massacre, skillfully manipulated by Samuel Adams led in-inexorably to two key things which we cherish:

1 John Adams defending the accused soldiers in a Courtroom -- the right even of a person hated by the public to have a fair trial and to be acquired if not guilty -- a key part of the Massachusetts Constitution and ultimately the Bill of Rights

2 the United States of America and the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights including specifically:
1st Amendment -- specifically Lawful Assembly
2nd Amendment -- the Right to Beare arms
and the 3rd, 4th -- directly connected with the British Occupation of Boston
the 5th, 6th, 8th -- directly connected with Adams' defense of the British Soldiers and Captain Preston

Of course the 2nd required a long chain of events many of which we are commemorating as happened 250 years ago -- beginning with the Boston Massacre this year

and many of which happened in downtown Boston other neighborhoods and the surrounding cities and towns:
Bedford, Lincoln, Lexington, Arlington [Menotomy], Cambridge, Woburn, Sudbury, Concord, South Boston [Dorchester Heights], Somerville, Bostpon Waterfront, Charlestown, etc. -- and many which involved names far more well known than Attucks [some of whom are buried just feet away from him].

Just perhaps that National Guardsman -- who might be from Boston itself -- perhaps even grew-up just hundreds of feet from the Old Statehouse -- was there to protect the Circle in the pavement and the building behind it from an attack by people ignorant of history or willfully desiring to erase it from our lexicon.

PS: if the ignorance shown in renaming Dudley Square to Nubian Square [despite any significant connection to Nubia] could be undone -- a great honor could to be bestowed on Attucks -- by naming it Crispus Attucks Square with a bigger than Life-size statue placed in the center of the square.

PPS: about the stone circle
In 1887, a marker dedicated to the victims of the Boston Massacre was placed on the exact spot where Crispus Attucks fell. However -- due to construction including the Scollay Square urban renewal and T-related projects, the marker has moved many times over the years -- but is in the general area where the massacre occurred.