Opinion
September 27, 2017
FEATURE: Confederate statues have stood until 2017 and should continue to stand
Confederate Statues and monuments have stood in America’s parks and public squares ever since the Civil War. However, in the wake of the violent clashes in Charlottesville,Virginia, people have suddenly started calling for the removal of Confederate statues arguing the statues advocate racism.
“The attacks on Confederate Statues are not entirely about the Confederacy, they are an effort to abolish the past and declare it morally worthless and worthy of respect,” said Tucker Carlson on Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” This is very true. Many people couldn’t care less about the Confederacy. They care about the ideas of the past that they disagree with and they wish to banish them.
A recent Reuters poll found that 54 percent of Americans think that Confederate Statues should remain and only 27 percent said they should be removed. The rest said, “I don’t know.”
The common argument against the statues is that all remnants of slavery must be removed from U.S. history because of the dark past they represent.
The sudden calling for the removal of Confederate Statues has unearthed cries from some voices on the far left to put founding fathers and notable Americans like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson on the chopping block. For example: political commentator Angela Rye said this on CNN on August 15th this year. “ I don’t care if its a Thomas Jefferson statue, a George Washington statue or a Robert E. Lee statue. They all need to come down.”
Some far left people have even gone as far as vandalizing statues of Columbus and busts of Lincoln. A Columbus statue was vandalized in New York’s Central Park where Columbus’ hands were spray painted red. The Lincoln Memorial itself was vandalized and a pillar was spray painted red with vulgar language.
These statues are offensive to certain people for sure, but why should they still stay up?
Because they are part of history.
The history of the United States should never be forgotten nor altered. The U.S. is a work in progress. Leaving these statues up is important because they are a reminder of how far our country has come. The statues stand as a testament to the nation’s origins, and how far we’ve progressed from our often very backwards ways.
Nobody has to honor the Confederacy or the brutality of the Civil War, but these statues remain a reminder of our nation’s past.
Antifa, a far left militant group, and others on the far left want to hit the reset button and erase the history that they don’t agree with. They want to restart society themselves as a perfect utopia. This is a silly, ignorant idea.
Also important to note is that each statue has its own historical context. Some of the statues were created by the Union to act as memorials to their fallen American comrades of the Confederacy, not to act as proponents of racism.
On the other hand, many of the statues in question were created during the 20th century to intimidate African-Americans. These statues belong in a museum.
Great civilizations from the Egyptians to the Chinese to the Greeks and Romans were all slave owning societies. The Great Pyramids, the Great Wall of China and the Colosseum were built by slaves. These monuments are historical and should not be removed based on the the fact that they can be associated with slavery.
These historical artifacts weren’t meant to honor slaveholders. Instead, they are memorials of beauty and ancient history. Today they inspire awe and wonder at the accomplishments of ancient civilizations.
The American South remembers its days of the confederacy. It is part of their heritage.
The heritage of others and the stone and bronze figures attesting to their past should be the least of America’s worries with the North Korean and terrorist threats affecting our present.
