Treatment of statues and other relics is a slippery slope, as TOC notes. If we remove statues of Confederates who supported a cause, why stop there? Why not ban the flags that support or are associated with those causes, too? Why not tear down every former plantation where slaves once labored, many of which are historically preserved today?
We already see this in many countries such as Austria, Germany, France, etc where it is illegal to publicly display a **** Germany swastika flag. Will America be next? I hate what the swastika and Confederate flag represent, but I don’t want them banned just as I don’t want statues banned. Where is the line drawn and how much history is erased? Do we want to keep nooses hanging from trees to remember not to have lynchings? Well, no, obviously not. But a statue honoring someone who may have espoused ugly and unpopular beliefs today? Not so much. How many freedoms and liberties will be chipped away before we say no more? I think what we see now is a bit reactionary due to the current climate.
For the record, the swastika has been banned since WWII in Europe. You're not talking about a situation where it was NOT banned, then neo-***** started using it for hate purposes, and THEN it was banned. The swastika was already banned 75 years ago.
Also, for the record, I am NOT a fan of the slippery slope argument. I do believe that we are capable of drawing distinctions, I was trying to be sarcastic.
Again, I would point out the factual distinctions between Confederate "monuments" and ACTUAL HISTORY. I realize that you gave a polite reading of "a statue honoring someone who may have espouses ugly and unpopular beliefs today". But you have to look at the overall context.
As I have mentioned in other threads, if the TRUE intent was to "honor someone", that is usually done with a marble statue. Marble is more permanent, it holds up better. You put up a statue for a "hometown hero". You make an effort to note the historical significance of the monument or statue. But those are not the things that happened in the South.
What actually happened is that towns all over the South went out and purchase cheap zinc statues, not of local heroes, but of certain Confederate generals and/or anonymous Confederate soldiers, very frequently in a battle pose with a sword drawn. No effort was made to explain the historical significance. No effort was made to say "this should never happen again", which is, in fact, the primary contextual feature of former German concentration camps or WWII graveyards in Europe. Thousands of cheap zinc statues were put up in public squares throughout the South, nowhere near any legitimate site such as a battlefield or a museum.
And then ask yourself, where in the world are there, literally, THOUSANDS of statues for the losing side of a war? There are not thousands of statues in Germany to commemorate the brave ***** who "espoused ugly and unpopular beliefs". There are not thousands of statues in Italy to commemorate the Fascists. There are not thousands of statues in Japan to commemorate the Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor or any of the brave, brave kamikaze pilots.
I have seen dozens of Confederate statues in my life, and I have never learned a single bit of history from seeing them. Largely because...no effort has ever been made to imbue those statues with any sort of history lesson, outside of reminding black people in the South of what Southerners were capable of doing.
"Unconditional Surrender" Grant was a nice guy, he let the Confederates keep their horses and sidearms. And ever since that time, a lot of Southerners have been trying to rewrite history and assert that the Confederacy "would rise again".
Statues are not history. History is history.
