Deserving of monuments

Monuments to General Robert E. Lee, other "heroes" of the Confederacy and to the Confederacy itself are being taken down across the land.  Here in Southern California, a monument at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery was ordered removed by the group that owns and maintains it, because of threats against it.

The violent removal of such monuments by those angered by their presence is wrong. 

The person who climbs the ladder to facilitate the destruction of the statue is Takiyah Thompson.  She has been arrested and faces felony charges for her role in the event captured in this video.  While I agree that there is no need for monuments to the Confederacy or its "heroes" to exist in public spaces, a unilateral decision to destroy them is just wrong.  The fact that statutes and other such monuments are celebrating those who defended slavery does not justify violence or vandalism.

Meet Otto Skorzeny, a member of Hitler's Waffen-SS during World War II.  He was awarded the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves.  The Knights Cross (technically the Knights Cross of the German Iron Cross) was the highest military honor the German military had.  The Oak Leaves indicated a second award. 

Obersturmbannführer (equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel) Skorzeny was involved in a number of extremely dangerous missions.  Here is another photo of Skorzeny.

He was accused of war crimes for wearing and having his men wear the uniforms of the Allies.  The successful defense at his trial was that he and his men wore their own uniforms beneath the Allied ones and removed those Allied uniforms before combat commenced.  It was ruled to be a legitimate ruse de guerre.

After the acquittal he was being held in prison while the "denazification" program was going on and he wound up escaping.  He would go on to be involved in neo-Nazi activities and while he was ultimately denazified in absentia, he never renounced his Nazi beliefs.

Like Skorzeny, Robert E. Lee was indeed a hero during his military service for the United States.  Also like Skorzeny, we judge Robert E. Lee for what I like to refer to as his "Last, Worst Act."  That Last, Worst Act was to take up arms to defend slavery.

Slavery may have been legal at the time, but that doesn't make it right.  I often point out that when something is legal but we perceive it to be wrong, we need to change those laws.  We as a nation did just that, thanks to the leadership of President Abraham Lincoln, and others.

The people who criticize the wanton destruction of monuments as we have seen, are right.  But they are wrong to talk about the desire to remove such monuments through the proper channels as being a slippery slope that will lead to the removal of others.  The Long Beach chapter of The United Daughters of the Confederacy released a statement including this:

"The purge won't end until every Monument from all American wars are gone...Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were both slave owners, and their monuments will be next."

Someone please lean over and hit the "False Equivalency Alarm" button.  Yes, Presidents Washington and Jefferson owned slaves.  But neither was around when the Civil War began and did not take up arms to defend the "right" of one man to OWN another.

Those who support the beliefs of the founders of the Confederacy (which are clearly articulated in their Constitution, which contains the word "slave" ten times) circulated a meme a couple of years back:

It is accurate on its face, but highly misleading.  Grant owned one slave. Lee did not personally own slaves, but fought against abolition. Lee oversaw the slaves owned by the Custis estate from 1857 through 1862. "He was a more stringent taskmaster than his predecessor." Lee wrote the following in a letter to his wife: "...In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institut...ion, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence." A man opposed to slavery would not describe the subjugation of blacks as "necessary."

We are bombarded daily with photographic memes that are often misleading. It is true that Grant owned slaves. He owned one. It is true that Lee did not personally own slaves. But he was the executor of an estate that owned slaves and in that role he was a more cruel overseer than most. Is the meme "true"? You tell me.

Any American who believes it is right to own other human beings clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.  Hatred and bigotry are learned behaviors.  The problem is that each generation of bigots inculcates their offspring in those twisted beliefs.  It is a cycle we cannot break with destruction and trying to counter demonstrations with violent counter-demonstrations. 

Peaceful protest needs to be just that.  We must work together to stop those few people present at such protests who are there to commit acts of violence.  We must get law enforcement to step up and enforce all laws, including those prohibiting the incitement of violence.

I won't help tie a rope around a monument to the Confederacy and pull it down.  But I will assist any effort to work towards its removal through due process.

BTW, direct descendants of General Robert E. Lee are opposed to the violence and do not oppose taking down those statues and putting them in museums.