Confederate Statues

There's an old saying "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".  This is one of the reasons I oppose removing statues of Confederate heroes.  How are people supposed to learn from history if  everyone is pretending it never happened?  We should emulate Germany - they start teaching kids young about the Nazis.  It's virtually impossible for that to happen again.

The men being memorialized in these statues do have redeeming qualities, too.  Some of them were military geniuses.  Many of them lost everything for The Cause, misguided as that cause may have been, and some of them were even against slavery.  The old chestnut about the Civil War being about State's Rights does have a basis in reality.  Robert E. Lee was a slaveholder, yes, but he fought on that side because Virginia left the Union.

White Supremacists look up to them for all the wrong reasons, and I understand that this is a problem.  How is tearing down these statues and banning a flag going to stop them?  It isn't.  It's like forbidding your teenager to date someone you disapprove of - it will just make them more determined to do it.  A far better course, in both cases, is patience and respectful communication.  The days when the scientific community believed one race was better than another are gone.  The days when people shrugged off hatred are gone.  Today, a business that refuses service to someone (except troublemakers) is vilified.  White Supremacy is on the way out.

We can learn from history.  We can look up to Lee for reasons that have nothing to do with race relations, or even take into consideration the times in which he lived.  But not if we pretend he never existed.  Not if we insist upon focusing on his faults.

By today's standards, Lincoln was a racist.  Grant owned slaves.  Most of our founding fathers owned slaves, as far as that goes.  Several past presidents, including some scarily recent ones, allowed cultural and physical genocide of indigenous peoples.  Shall we tear down all those monuments?  Ban all their flags?

Leave the statues where they are.  Erasing the past is incredibly dangerous.  Stop ignoring the strengths and contributions of these people.  Don't ignore the faults but look at all sides of the proverbial coin.  And let them rest in peace.  Even the worst of them deserves that.