Americans’ historical ignorance and defensiveness about race have given the mob the upper hand. This must change or America will cease to exist.
Hardly a day goes by when we don’t hear about another historical monument or statue being vandalized, defaced, toppled, or destroyed by angry mobs of left-wing “woke” activists determined to exorcise from the public sphere alleged “racists,” “imperialists,” “bigots,” “misogynists,” and “traitors.”
This is grievously wrong. No matter how you feel about the relative merits of a particular statue or monument, no one has a right to destroy these artifacts of history.
If they are to be taken down, that should happen only after much deliberation and through the lawful and legitimate political process, not through violent, lawless, and destructive mobs.
Federal, state and local officials deserve our contempt for their knowing refusal to protect our nation’s historical monuments and statues from vandalism and destruction. This is nothing less than a rank dereliction of duty.
Wanton Destruction. Friday night, for instance, police officers from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. watched and did nothing as a progressive mob used rope and chains to topple a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike before setting the statue on fire.
It is fairly obvious that this entire Jacobin effort is aimed at deconstructing and delegitimizing the American Founding and Western Civilization.
The mobs, after all, make few if any distinctions. Thus they have targeted any and all historical figures found guilty, it seems, of sinning against 21st Century progressive orthodoxy.
Indeed, the list of targeted figures includes: George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Ulysses S. Grant, Francis Scott Key, Catholic missionary Junipero Serra, and Winston Churchill.
Historical Ignorance. Unfortunately, most Americans—even, and perhaps especially, those with elite academic credentials—are poorly educated.
That is because for decades now, secular progressive orthodoxy has infused American education, from kindergarten through college, with a self-hating, anti-American and anti-Western bias.
Consequently, most Americans are defensive at best and all-too credulous at worst when the progressive mob accuses iconic American and Western historical figures of being the moral equivalent of Adolph Hitler.
And of course, the worst thing that you can be called in 21st Century America is a “racist.” That is the ultimate scarlet letter in our politics today. For these reasons, the progressive mob is having its way and running amuck and unopposed.
Distinctions. Meanwhile, some public figures of good faith are trying to draw distinctions that they believe are legitimate, and which will protect, say, George Washington and Winston Churchill, while sacrificing more debatable figures such as Confederate War General Nathan Bedford Forrest.
I understand and respect this sentiment, but appeasing the mob is a mistake. This will only strengthen and embolden the mob.
Indeed, now is not the time to try and draw distinctions between allegedly legitimate and illegitimate statues and monuments. Now is the time to circle the wagons and to unalterably oppose the mob and its wanton acts of destruction.
Now is the time to try and understand our history and why these statues and monuments were created and erected in the first place. Then and only then should we consider taking down (not destroying) any of our historical statues and monuments.
The Confederacy. The most vulnerable pieces of art and remembrance are those that pay tribute to Confederate soldiers and generals. I will address these in a separate piece.
But what is worth noting now is that the vast majority of Confederate soldiers did not own slaves and did not see themselves as fighting on behalf of slavery.
Why, then, did they fight; and why do we have statues and monuments that honor them?
Isn’t that something we should understand, discuss and debate before removing these artifacts of history? And in any case, can we not all agree that mob vandalism and destruction of our nation’s history is unacceptable and will not be tolerated?
The End. If what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called The Vital Center doesn’t speak up soon in defense of the American experiment, then the America we have known and loved for more than two centuries will cease to exist.
Of course, that’s exactly what the progressive mob wants.
Feature photo credit: KTVZ.com—the toppled statue of George Washington in Portland, Oregon.