Why Were Our Historical Monuments Really Moved or Distroyed

On 18 June 1940, Winston Churchill spoke these words in his “Their Finest Hour” speech to the House of Commons: “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”

Because I could not recall any recent statue removal or destruction stories, I found myself asking why that emotional wave had ended so abruptly. Perhaps it is true that the general public has a short lived attention span. Perhaps the listeners and viewers were no longer consumed by the shocking and mind grabbing headlines and they had become disinterested and the income the media harvested suddenly evaporated as well. Perhaps the new stories about powerful men taking liberties with women who were unable to protect themselves proved more exciting to the folks on the street and the money began to flow to the media outlets in even larger amounts. Perhaps the demonstrators had met or exceeded their demonstration goals. For me, the last observation seems to be the most compelling. Do not forget the acts or the actors and do not simply move either of them into the category of old news. It is not a question of if they will return but when and how. They may take a different form but the messages and the tests will remain consistent.

Consider the possibility that the assaults on all of the monuments were a staged and highly choreographed, quarrel with the past for effect. The real demonstration targets were not the statues of specifically chosen Civil War heroes and/or our nation’s founders. The real targets were the hearts and minds of the people of color who are living in the present and want the past to have never happened. Carefully note that the highly publicized actions by these activists did not change the past or improve the present but they did nudge all of us toward a different kind of future. I believe the activists decided to remove the statues not because they were offensive to them but because they wanted to test the limits of a rewriting of history itself. The destroyed and removed statues were simply visual reminders and symbols of our historical truths, events, mistakes made and lessons learned.

Be wary of the continually developing revisionist history. That history is being written to replace our past and the lessons we have learned with a created history that will be presented as something far, far better. The removal or destruction of these statues told us a great deal about the activist’s teachers and the lessons they taught and teach in today’s college classrooms. Both events showcased which lessons the activists clearly learned and applied. I believe these teachers and students are now much more likely to seek ways to remove and replace all written and widely accepted truths in our founding documents beginning with the Bill of Rights. I also believe they will also continue to test, in public arenas, their own guiding principles and values as well.

Following the lead of these activists puts you and our nation at risk but you can protect yourselves by making personal decisions and efforts to learn freedom’s lessons by reading and understanding your true history and foundation documents. Focus on the future you certainly want but could well lose.