We don't need a society of vandals

When demonstrations triggered by the death of George Floyd spread to Philadelphia, vandals defaced a statue outside City Hall of an old white man. They spray-painted the words “colonizer” and “murderer” on it. But the statue was of Matthias Baldwin, a 19th-century businessman and abolitionist.

Baldwin was a vocal opponent of slavery decades before the Civil War. He founded a school for poor black children and paid the teachers’ salaries for years. He also advocated voting rights for black people well before the enactment of the 15th Amendment. None of this spared his likeness from today’s Jacobins.

Nor was the Baldwin episode an isolated case. Boston protesters painted graffiti all over the Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial, including the phrases “Black Lives Matter,” “No Justice, No Peace,” and “Police are Pigs.” Yet that memorial honored the men who comprised the first blacks to fight in uniform for the Union Army during the Civil War. Their heroism was captured in the 1989 film “Glory,” for which Denzel Washington won an Oscar. In Philadelphia, too, vandals defaced the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution, with the graffiti “Committed Genocide.” Overseas, Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square was defaced and then covered for its protection by a large metal box. The British government cannot be confident that the nation can celebrate the leader who, more than any other, stood up to fascism.

The debate over symbols of the past is legitimate, but what we have are indiscriminate attacks on all elements of our shared history. Today’s vandals are not really attacking evil; they’re attacking the past. It’s one thing to argue against honoring the Confederacy either because it fought against the United States or because it fought to preserve slavery or both. It’s quite another to destroy things simply because they date back to a time you cannot remember and cannot be bothered to find out about. The first is a reasonable argument; the second is nothing but malignant violence.

Debates over removing monuments should happen in public, overseen by elected officials. When the debate is given over to the mob, you get the sort of general vandalism that we see now. Taking down statues of Confederates is different from targeting those of America’s founders, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves but are celebrated for other achievements in the nation’s founding and for the advancement of liberty.

Wanton attacks on symbols of the past are partially rooted in ignorance. Given how much schools and colleges focus on racism in America’s history, it’s no surprise that the mob assumes any old statue it sees must be of somebody irredeemable. The trend also fits the concept seen in other revolutions from the French Revolution to the Khmer Rouge of trying to erase the past and starting over from Year Zero. Today’s street vandals call the police “pigs,” but who are those displaying porcine ignorance, and who behave most like the pigs of “Animal Farm,” making no distinction between innocence and guilt?

In a civilized debate, people can discuss the nuances of who we choose to honor and who, because fellow citizens want to honor them, we should accept in the interests of reconciliation and national unity. Such a debate would recognize that history is messy and that some people who achieved great things were also deeply flawed. It would also provide an opportunity for all sides to feel heard and make any decisions more sustainable. Lawlessness short-circuits this process, which is part of the extremists’ purpose.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

Less And Less Middle Ground

Nothing troubles me more than the sheer volume of politicians and municipal administrators who find themselves, by virtue of their party affiliation, forced to support the minority faction of sanctuary cities. There’s less and less middle ground for both Democrats and Republicans in today’s political world.

Adding insult to injury, our youth are being educated and indoctrinated by far left educators. Young people deserve to be taught both sides of current social issues and allowed to decide for themselves. Instead, they are exposed to little or no history, civics or Constitutional law and theory. All of this, over the last 50 years, has produced a faction of the electorate, and the electorate to be, that is seriously challenged when confronted with making informed, educated decisions. In many cases, this faction’s opposition to any opinion contrary to their own results in filibuster, with loud, vulgar and disruptive protests designed to drown out the opposite viewpoint. This lack of understanding of the meaning of the First Amendment, freedom of speech, is one of the most dangerous issues confronting modern U.S. culture. This filibuster also takes the form of the liberal news media. This helps grow the politically challenged faction to even greater size. This is concerning. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist 10, a “Majority Faction” is the greatest single threat to a Republic.

Despite all of this, the economy is strong, the stock market stable, unemployment is low and more companies gave bonuses last year than in the prior ten years. The president’s strong stance on North Korea has brought them to the negotiations table. Illegal immigration is at an all-time low since statistics have been gathered. The steel and aluminium tariffs are bringing all players to the table, which will result in better trade deals for the U.S.

Yet the faction still grows, caring less about facts or realities than about a singular fixation upon removing the president from office. It took time, money and the Supreme Court to overturn the erroneous decisions of the Ninth Circuit Court. What a breach of trust with the American taxpayer. These partisan, leftist judges have an obligation to be apolitical and uphold the Constitution. They blatantly refused. The FBI & DOJ are guilty of the same.

We may not be fighting in the streets yet but I fear we will be. We fought one civil war where a majority faction divided the country. Once again, our nation is being put to the test. In the second line of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, he states, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.” That is the question that every Republic must answer. This new civil war will be about an extreme leftist government dismantling our Bill of Rights one piece at a time. We are conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We must re-dedicate ourselves to the education of our youth in the fundamentals of our nation’s history and government or face a setback of enormous proportion.

This article was in the Star Democrat Newspaper. The author is  Craig Willis and he pretty much has hit the nail on the head.

The Dumbing Down of America

During the course of the past several months, I have seen and heard so much negative talk about Donald Trump {our elected president}, about the history of this great nation {The United States of America) and I, as well as a lot of Americans, am tired of hearing all the dumbing down of our history.. The local newspapers, like the mainline media, are about 90 percent against and only 10 percent for the president and nation.

So many people are out to change the history of this nation from one that has offered so much too so many to making this nation despicable with a history of slavery and treating poor people badly. Slavery is in our past unless you continue to bring it up through removing the statues that are a reminder of where we were as a nation and the great men who contributed a lot more than just their lives for what they believed in.

If many of these people have their way with every statue representing our past then the next ones to fall will be the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, the Supreme Court building and Mount Rushmore. Will there be an end to this absurdity and stupidity or an end to America for which many men and women died for our freedoms of speech and worship and a way of life unlike any other country on earth? What would these people say now if they could see the direction this country is heading.  

Where was all the outcry from the left about Obama pardoning Manning for a treasonous act or paid off Iran with millions of taxpayer dollars just to pacify the Democrats and Iran? How about when Hillary made a deal with Russia over uranium? All of this was harmful to America and when Trump does something good for America the left goes mad.  Sheriff Arpaio was doing his job in defending the laws of the land. He needed to be pardoned. He became a political pawn to be used by the liberal Democrats

Rewriting history, removing statues of any kind, refusing one to speak freely (unless it is you doing the speaking), religious liberties under attack by the left and so much more. If you don’t like this country, get out and don’t let the door kick you, leave all your goodies behind that our freedom has allowed you to have. Go to another country and tell them that they have to learn your language and your customs and see how long you will remain there. For sure it will not be long.

Well, I have decided to stop asking “How dumb can you get?” Many people seem to be taking it as a challenge. So, here is something that maybe everyone could do their best to practice. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Don’t think that you are any better than anyone else. Don’t repay evil for evil, but do what is right and honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peacefully with all. Don’t avenge yourself. Leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Portions of this article was taken from the Star Democrat Letters to the editor

Where is The Outrage

Regarding monuments, slaves and Civil War generals, folks should be reminded that slaves were brought here in the first place to labor at work no one else wanted to do, the same as today in the case of legal and illegal immigrants from our southern border. However, most people are not concerned about their food and housing ... and don't forget the exploitation of people (particularly women), in the "human trafficking" trade. So where is the outrage?

In the cemetery of the church, I once attended in the town of Urbana located in Frederick, Maryland, there is a mass grave of Irish immigrants who died digging the C & O Canal. No one cared about their welfare because they did not have the same monetary value as slaves. There was and still is much money to be made in human exploitation.

And regarding Robert E.Lee's "treason of the highest form" ... the U.S. Constitution includes the right for States to secede. Lee was first recruited by Abraham Lincoln but felt it necessary to remain loyal to his home state of Virginia. Whatever his choice he would have ended up betraying one or the other. In that era, people's loyalty to their state ranked very high. The South paid a high price in destruction and devastation and Lincoln had Lee's land confiscated and turned into a burial ground now known as Arlington National Cemetery.

Many years after the Civil War, veterans from both sides gathered at Gettysburg, shook hands and sat down together. It was over and no one else needed to die because of it.

ALICE LAUGHLAND

From the Easton Star Democrat