I'm the first one to agree that comparisons of modern political figures to Hitler are often overblown and without merit. But putting that aside, can you just imagine the outrage if such were to come to pass, Germans celebrating Hitler with statues as an important component of German history that needed to be preserved in bronze in public spaces? Other than a few right-wing, brain-dead fanatics, modern-day Germans would simply not stand for such a thing.
Now ask the following question. Why is it acceptable to erect statues to traitorous American slave holders like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, who prosecuted a treasonous war that killed a higher percentage of adult American males than any war in American history, all for the purpose of preserving the institution of slavery?
Don't. Just don't try to tell me that preserving slavery was not the cause of the American Civil War nor its ultimate aim. Only fuzzy-thinking college professors and Southern apologists push their theories of States Rights and Northern economic aggression. Don't. Just don't. Instead, read what elected state legislators said themselves as they announced their decision to secede from the Union.
Here are the second and third sentences of Georgia's secession statement: "The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." Even more telling is the second sentence of Mississippi's statement: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world." Both Texas and Virginia refer to the grievances of 'slave-holding states' throughout their declarations.
I submit that the memories of the rebels who have been honored with statues throughout the United States do not deserve preservation. I submit that their statues deserve the same fate as the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2003 or the statue of Josef Stalin in Budapest during Hungary's October Revolution in 1956 or the statue of George III in Manhattan in 1776 just days after the Declaration of Independence was ratified.Have no fear. The guiding lights of the Confederacy will not be forgotten. They just need to be relegated to the place where they belong, the trash heap of history, covered in contempt rather than gilded bronze. Pigeon shit is too good for them.
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