I keep wondering how it's logical to pluck historical figures out of history and apply modern ideas & beliefs to them and then hold them accountable for not being and believing whatever is today's politically correct ism.
We're having our own issues with monuments down here ...
It's ALL rubbish in my mind. History is history. It's purpose is for us to learn from... not for us to copy. If they did it wrong, then we need to be doubly sure to do it right and REMEMBER what and how they messed up so badly.. and to be sure that our children's children's children remember too.
Really sad isn't it. History is history, there's both good and bad, hopefully we learn from both. Sweeping the bad under the rug, pretending it never happened is going down the wrong path. If all is erased what stops future generations from repeating past mistakes.
Added emphasis mine... and I couldn't have said it better.
Political correctness has given petty, spiteful, ill-informed people a tool to attack anything & everything we respect or idolize. The majority of those protesting do not even know - or care - about the facts & historical context of the issues they are protesting; they are just parroting someone else's regurgitated talking points. It is tempting to look backward, to retroactively find fault with those who built this nation (or others) and attempt to judge them by our standards - but those people lived within the laws & morality of their time. Like us, they felt they were doing right at the time... and who's to say we will be judged any better by our descendants? There were errors made, and great injustices, but ultimately we learned & evolved as a nation. The wonderful thing about a free nation is its ability to improve itself over time. The danger is that we will forget what that freedom means, and how easily it can be lost.
Re-writing or erasing history is the first step to forgetting it, and for the sake of our children, that should never be allowed to happen. It is important to look beyond the current slur of "nazi", to remember what that actually stood for, how the Third Reich began, how they seized power over the population - and to ensure we never go down that path. It is important to remember the conflicts & politics which led to the Civil War, and when we consider monuments, to remember that both sides fought for what they thought was right. Wars are fought when efforts at peaceful resolution fail; and given the present divisions in our nation, we need study the past to find a better way forward. It is important to remember the injustices committed against the indigenous peoples, and against those of different races.
But it is also important to remember that many of those past injustices have been corrected, and our nation moved on. Those who would protest a past they have never personally experienced should move on as well.
It deeply concerns me that a whole generation who lived through World War Two, and who experienced first hand the oppression of Communism, is passing away. Those people can tell us of
real crisis,
real persecution, and the dangers which are possible when the world forgets what evil men can do.
