Everyone, "Hey Britain, those aren't yours!" Britain, "So."

The Greek gentleman at the end who has lived in Britain for 11 years to me sums it all up. The marbles are only a thing because the Greek government needed a distraction from their failing economic and domestic situation. Had they gotten the marbles back they could turn to their people and say ‘look how great of a government we are, the marbles are back! But please ignore all the stuff that actually matters that we are failing at.’

Returning the marbles is a slippery slope. The only argument against it becoming a slippery slope is, it’s not a slippery slope. Returning the marbles under the terms the Greek government is demanding would open the floodgates of every nation being forced to return legally acquired items simply because a nation wants them back. If someone sells me their car and 10 years later demands it back, am I a terrible person for keeping it? Ridiculous!

 

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Why did you reply to me here?
You didn't even reference the books I talked about. I didn't post that link. I merely mentioned my appreciation of Stephen Fry.
Though, I do think that your debate is as flimsy as the audience in the video did.
Am I confused or are you?

 

The Elgin Marbles are reclaimed by Greece since the 1840s. Yes at that time Greece was surely broke, as she is today and as she has always been (in Hellenistic times Athens depended on Egyptian aid to feed her people). But you just cannot say Greece demands the return of these masterpieces as a distraction. Elgin did not honestly buy them, everything in his undertaking was questionable. It has been considered a shame by many people as soon as the early 1800s, even in England. I can quote some verses from Lord Byron's Childe Harold :
"Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!"

 

I remember during the sovereign debt crisis in Greece and the EU bailing out Greece in 2008-9 Greek politicians started demanding reparations from WWII from Germany. It happens a lot with countries with chaotic political situations - blame other nations for their present woes based on some event in the past.

 

Restitutor you have posted some real nonsense replies on this thread comparing the Parthenon marbles to a used car that was paid for just tops off this pile of garbage.