OVERWHELMING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR KEEPING STATUES

This was originally written the day before Charlottesville as a comment on another blog. I expanded it a bit and it seems appropriate for this essay.

The destruction of Southern Heritage in this politically hysterical age is a moral and historical crime not a whit different than the destruction wreaked by the brainless mohammedans periodically catalogued on the news. The only difference is that the dervishes do it with more physically destructive methods. Our homegrown destroyers do it in a more cowardly, though just as effective fashion.

The minions of historical erasure are morally certain (as they always are) that what they are doing is somehow righting historical wrongs, which betrays a generally obtuse mindset and vividly illustrates the nascent authoritarianism present in the majority of these hand-wringing, pearl-clutching pinheads. This sort of willful ignorance of the nuance of history demonstrates the paucity of rational thinking among a significant portion of the American population.

It is all about “feelings” now. A typical syllogism for these historical illiterates would progress something like this: Slavery bad. South had slavery. South bad. It is a child’s understanding of history. The left believes that by rubbing out the symbols of the past, they are paving the way for the egalitarian, monochrome future for which they all pant. The project is breathtaking in the scope of its ignorance, but that never stopped them before.

The seemingly insatiable desire by the perpetually aggrieved in this country to balance the scales of historical “justice” on the backs of Southerners is shameful in its intellectual dishonesty and dangerous in its execution. Demonizing Southern heroes and tearing down the physical expressions of Southern pride will not produce the desired response of humble acceptance and self-flagellation. In fact, such actions are actually sparking hatred so profound and driving that hatred so deep into the hearts and spirits of a goodly number of Southrons that when the greater reaction inevitably comes, it will not be pretty. The recent dust up in Charlottesville is likely just an early tremor indicating the coming earthquake. If you wanted to plant the seeds of future violence in the hearts of Southern men and women, just keep telling them how evil their history is and how awful are the heroes of their past. Keep pulling down their monuments. Keep erasing every vestige of a past that, as with all history, contained both good and evil. Keep telling them that their past is the exception. Theirs is one of only evil. The attempt to erase Southern history is a travesty of liberal proportions. The reaction will likely be severe.

Next will come more calls for reparations. Not only do they want to erase the past, they want you and I to pay for it. Listen up all you evil southern racists. Here is the bill for all the evil racism of your forebears. You will need to settle up before we finish bulldozing your history. You can be sure it will not stop there. After all, there is the rest of the country to shake down for supposed past injustice. The fact that there has not been a slave or a slave owner in this nation for over a hundred and fifty years counts for nothing.

As a Northerner, I have an easy answer for the sons-of-bitches when they tell me I owe some ghetto rat for the imagined sins of my fathers. I will tell them to go to a small museum in a northern town and take a gander at the picture of my Great-Great Grandfather Lorenzo. He is in his Union blue holding a rifle and bayonet taller than he was. A Confederate musket ball shattered his ankle. He was from Maine. He was fifteen years old.

Sorry assholes, you might get away with trying to erase history for awhile, but take your collection plate somewhere else. My family settled that bill a long time ago.

You see, I remember and honor my heritage. I guarantee that my Southern brethren do as well, whether or not a single statue remains to commemorate it.