Confederate Heroes Should Have Never Had Statues To Begin With

     I am a student of WWII, maybe a bit of a WWII nerd, and I know something of the Nazis. The Nazis affected my outlook on life so much that I doubted the existence of God for several years because their deeds in history were so barbaric. So I say, with hesitation but bolstered with an urgency to stand up for what's right. it is my understanding that most of the protesters in Charlottesville were protesting the removal of a confederate memorial.  This is not a Nazi monument and in most pictures  I see confederate flags not swastikas.  These people did have a permit to protest and although many of them no doubt have offensive and disturbing ideas about race,  they had a permit to protest as they did and even had the ACLU defending them in court to get the permit.  Can you get any more liberal than the ACLU?   The violence was started by counter protesters that DID NOT have a permit and they provoked the right wingers with violence.   Hopefully I don't have  to say this didn't justify running over those poor people and killing the one young lady.  The President is blaming BOTH sides for the unfortunate events of this past week. He's only stating a fact of the matter, and as blunt and bombastic as he is with the media, I think he's right.

     As for the monuments themselves ?  i have always been a little puzzled by Confederate statues.  Didn't they lose the war ?  Why did the US allow confederate statues after such a horribly bloody war ?  I think the north was anxious to get past the war and move on, so they decided not to step in to stop any aggrandizement of the Confederate  heroes  lest they provoke the south.  I can understand it, but in a way they dragged the whole thing out and it might have been wiser to not allow anything other than memorials to the war dead.  This would have allowed for a place of honor for all those families that surely were grieving.  I think looking back it would have been better to have never allowed them to be erected  at all under the auspice they were leaders of a traitorous rebellion against the country.  Of course the south would have gotten huffy over the restriction  but they would have gotten over it.  General Lee himself is known to have been opposed to any statue or tribute to him and expressed a preference that the nation move past the painful Civil War.  Today we have to deal with the issue and understand there are a lot of people who still feel strongly about their southern heritage and see the Confederacy as a stand against an oppressive federal government.  The process needs to be sensitive so that we can, in consensus, finally get the Civil War behind us and move forward together as a united country.    

The Endangered Dixie Relic

By Chuck Marshall

   There has been much talk recently regarding relics of the Civil War.  State capitals and cities and towns all over the south are discussing the removal of the confederate flag from government buildings.   The state of SC is considering removing it from its capital and some towns here in Florida have already removed the flag.   To  southerners the confederate flag is often said to represent the "spirit" of the south and I've been told it should not be taken as a negative.  It's "southern pride" I've heard all my life.    White people from up north seem to see it as a quaint relic of Civil War history- nothing to be taken seriously.   African Americans usually see it as offensive and believe it represents a hate and/or disrespect for their race.   This  issue and the conversation around it is a good one and allows something positive for us to do in honor of the 9 people murdered in Charleston last month.   I can fully understand that African Americans are often offended by the symbol of the confederacy.  A symbol says a lot.   The Swastika of the Nazis is a good example of a symbol that creates instant disgust in most good people.  It is a good conversation to have for all American citizens, and especially southern citizens. 

     As is often the case, however, the issue is getting blown out of proportion.  What was a good conversation regarding a symbol perceived as hateful has turned into an exaggeration of other  Civil War relics that we’re told we should all be removing from our lives lest we be seen as defenders of slavery.   Case in point is confederate memorials.  There is a Confederate Memorial in a park in downtown Orlando that has been the focus of much more attention than it has probably had since it was erected.    There is a petition to have it removed.   But this is a memorial to the soldiers that fought in the Civil War, not the Confederacy itself.   Those were individuals who - in their mind- were defending their homeland.   All young men were and are expected to march into battle under such circumstances.   The dead  were 300,000 southern brothers, and fathers and uncles and sons.  It  dishonors the individual,  his family, and his descendants to suggest all he was doing was fighting for slavery and so all confederate memorials must come down. 

       Some memorials were erected to celebrate men who turned out to be bad men  like Nathan Bedord Forrest- the founder of the KKK.  These are the memorials which I agree should be removed and rolled over to the nearest museum.  But it's important that we uphold the soldiers who fought bravely and died in defense of their people even if it goes against our contemporary sensibilities about the "right" or "wrong" of what it was the fight was about.   Let's not dismiss these young men as we look down from our high horse in the 21st century.    Slaves were owned by the large plantations of the south and I seriously doubt these  young men marched forward with such gusto to defend the rich man’s right to own slaves even if we se e the connection today.      

In My Humble Opinion.....