The Monumental Problems Facing our Country

Business is booming. Job productivity is up. Despite the
left-wing lies that coal was not coming back, miners are mining like never
before. Industry is rebranding and expanding, and educational reforms are
underway with Betsy DeVos and her team in the Department of Education. Trump
has trumped the media yet again, refusing to cave to calls of racism or demands
for an apology because he did not immediately condemn the smattering of white
supremacists at the Charlottesville, Virginia rally. Why should Trump care? The
race card has become so played out, and new media reports are debunking this
narrative.

Instead of talking about Fat Boy Kim Jong Un backing away
from his bellicose rhetoric, or the massively declining illegal immigration
problem which used to overwhelmed our borders, the media are hyping up the
fading White Supremacy movement and discussing whether to take down Post Civil
War era monuments. Our country is fracturing, but it’s more like a necessary
corrective, like a new generation of Americans breaking out of their shells. But
let’s talk about the explicitly monumental problem for a few minutes.

The leaders of Baltimore, Maryland decided to remove statues
in the city which commemorated Confederate soldiers, officers, etc. Honestly,
it makes sense to remove these statues. These men acted in open rebellion to
the United States. They explicitly defended slavery and wanted to rip the
country apart. It’s no secret that Democratic lawmakers after the Civil War
wanted to champion their inveterate confederates. Take them down! These statues
do not represent our country or the state of Maryland.

I just read today that the Maryland State legislature decided
to remove the bust of Supreme Court Justice and Maryland native Roger Taney.
This man was the politically slanted Justice who decided that “Negroes are a
subordinate class of human beings with no rights which a white man was bound to
respect.” A Democrat and a slave owner, Taney’s temper tantrum in the 1857 Dred Scott decision further divided an
already distempered country writhing over the slavery issue—one which had to be
resolved by bloodshed on fields of battle all over the nation, including the streets
of New York City.

Monuments are not exactly the best way to preserve our
historical heritage, anyway. Nietzsche pointed out in his seminal text “The Use
and Abuse of History” that monuments allow man to commemorate great deeds, but
cover up the hard work and pain which major historical figures encountered to
accomplish what brought them great fame. Monuments can give a community a false
sense of pride. We celebrate what they did, but are we willing to fight for and
defend their principles with the same vigor?

I would further submit that monuments have this inevitable
tendency to enshrine what is good about someone without recognition for their
failures. Why else would anyone build a monument to another, if they would have
to remind the present and future community about their failings? Battles
deserve to be commemorated, though, because they helped forge the values and
identity of the country which they fought for. There is no greater show of
devotion than a man laying down his life for his homeland. President Trump
rightfully donated his salary to preserve Gettysburg. I hope that the non-stop
guardians for the Unknown Solider remain vigilant.

Ultimately, monuments are about ideas, not just about the
people depicted. Martin Luther King Jr. received an extended honor at the
Washington Mall, even though Maya Angelou felt that one quote on the marble
piece was poorly placed. It was welcome news that
liberal Seattle mayor permitted the removal of a statue of Vladimir Lenin.
That monument should come down! Ronald Reagan demanded that Gorbachev “Tear
Down This Wall!”, a symbol of Soviet oppression. On the eve of the American
Revolution, colonists tore down monuments to King George III. The Iraqis
gleefully removed statues to Saddam Hussein. Following exposure of his
complicity with covering up child sex abuse, Joe Paterno’s statue was also
removed from Penn State. Aren’t we glad that they are gone? As new revelations manifest
about the truth and error of our status as citizens, we learn more about our
history and the legacies we want to celebrate. It makes sense to tear down or
remove certain statues.

But won’t these sudden removals obliterate our society’s historical
knowledge? What I have learned is that the harder that nefarious interests try
to hide or cover up historical humiliations, the more evident they become.
Adolph Hitler once quipped “Who remembers the Armenians?” referring to the 1915
genocide. The answer? The growing cohort of Armenian-Americans along with the
entire nation of Armenia, and historians around the world. Holocaust denial may
have reached a fevered pitch, but proof of the Holocaust has become more ample
than ever.

Ultimately, The Battle of the Monuments is really the
desperation of the Democratic Party and their new domestic terrorist wings (including
Antifa) to undermine the President and force an ongoing narrative that
Republicans, conservatives, patriots are racists, and those “racists” must prove
otherwise. This line of attack is never-ending, an arrow in the quiver of
Cultural Marxism to further undermine our culture of life and liberty.

If Republicans in Washington had more backbone instead of
supine spine, they would applaud the removal of these Confederate monuments,
reminding the country that these were all Democratic slavery sympathizers. They
would also praise President Trump for standing his ground, blasting the
violence on both sides at Charlottesville, particularly from the Alt-Left. Trump
even predicted then condemned where this monument-bashing movement would lead
to: “Are we going to take down George Washington’s statue next?” My response is
an emphatic “No!” Why? Even though he did own slaves, Washington fought to
establish a new country, conceived in liberty, dedicated to a political culture
which would eventually set slaves free and ensure the longest-lasting
constitutional republic in world history.

Republicans, not just elected officials, should follow
Trump’s lead. Imagine how quickly the argument over monuments would dissipate
from the national forefront.