Let the Dead Past Bury It's Dead

"Let the Dead Past bury it's dead!  Act--act in the living Present!  Heart
within and God o'erhead!       Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The past two weeks have been fraught with emotions from all sides.  There
have been protest marches in major cities and small towns across the globe
in sympathy with Black Lives Matter here in the United States.  The approval
rate for BLM has risen to over 70%, even amongst those who feel the president
is handling the protests correctly, there is a dichotomy if there ever was one.

I, for one, agree with the majority of the demands that are being made, and I
agree that changes must be made.  Even if it is only the outward appearance of
fairness, since I don't believe you can legislate morality.  You cannot tell a bigot
that he must love his neighbor, but you can tell him it will cost him money and
jail time if he discriminates against him.  In other words, you don't have to do it
with a smile, just do it!

There is one thing that I am very much opposed to though, and that is the demand
that statues and representations of Civil War veterans be removed.  You cannot
change history nor erase one evil deed by denying that it ever happened.  Having
lived in the South for a number of years, I am familiar with Confederate Flag Day,
Robert E. Lee's birthday, January 16 - Martin Luther King, who is he - Decoration
Day and a host of other days set aside to remember the 'War of Northern Aggression'.
I am not talking about that, that will never change until the old guard is long gone,
and perhaps not even then.

I am talking about the current spate of wanton destruction of memorials and statues.
They are being defaced, and in many instances, torn down from their foundations.
And not just in this country, but in the UK also.  In the town of Bristol, the statue
of Edward Colston, a slave trader, was defaced, torn down and dumped into the
harbor.  In Poole Harbor, England, activists attempted to tear down the statue of
Lord Baden-Powel, the founder of the Boy Scouts, because he was a supposed racist
and supporter of Adolf Hitler.  Several adult Scouts surrounded the statue and preserved
it.  And to those of you who remember the Beatles fondly, will remember their hit song
"Penny Lane".  When I was in Liverpool, I walked down Penny Lane from the famous
bus stop to Strawberry Fields.  You will be sad to hear that there is a movement afoot
to change the name of Penny Lane, why, because it was named for James Penny, a slave
ship owner.  Tell me, will that make one bit of difference to those poor souls from the
sixteen-hundreds who were captured and sold , to change the name of that street?

In Madison, Wisconsin there is a section of Forest Hill Cemetery called Confederate
Rest, it is the last resting place of the 140 Confederate POWs who died at near-by
Camp Randall.  It was their resting place, at least, until 2017 when some people
thought it wrong to honor them with a plaque commemorating their service, so the
plaque was removed, and if that wasn't enough, the cenotaph with their names was
also removed.  It appears there is no forgiveness even in death.

Did removing those mementos erase the fact that there was a war that nearly tore this
country asunder?  No, it only means that in the future years, we as a nation, will have
forgotten those who gave their 'last full measure of devotion'.  Right now, there are
nine statues in Statuary Hall in the United States Capital Building depicting 'heros'
of the Confederacy.  Nancy Pelosi wants them removed; it is not up to her.  Those
statues were donated by the states that they represent.

Our National Cemetery at Arlington was part of the estate of Arlington House, which
overlooks the cemetery.  Arlington House was the home of Robert E. Lee.  Want to
change that name also?  Ten prominent military bases in America and overseas are
named for military personnel from the Civil War.  There is a hue and cry to have them
renamed.  And for once - oh god - I agree with president 45.  It was there that the 'Worlds
Greatest Army' the one that saved the world for Democracy, trained.  The names did not
diminish their resolve, not the resolve of the thousands of troops who followed in their
footsteps over the years.

Let us say we take down these representations of what we consider nefarious infidels.
Once we start, where do we stop?  Our founding Fathers were all slave owners, do we
take Washington off the dollar bill?  What of Jefferson and his slave mistress who bore
him several children, do we strip him off the two-dollar bill?  It wouldn't matter much
as no one uses a twoie anymore.  When they drafted the Constitution, they said all men
were created equal, and they meant men, and only white men.  Do we strike such language
from that document?  Yesterday, a mob took down the statue of Christopher Columbus,
and in UK they took down a statue of Sir Winston Churchill, he saved England from the
Nazis for goodness sake.

At what point do we say that the good that a man does outweighs the evil, or is there no
balance to the scales of justice anymore?  And who is to judge?  Let him who is without
sin cast the first stone.  Who of us has not crossed the street to avoid a group of young
black men on a dark night?  Did we make a moral judgement there?  And the bible says
that because Eve tasted of the fruit from the tree of knowledge, all men born of women
will be born through pain.  That's a long time to hold a grudge.  Sorry, but that doesn't seem
too fair to me.

                                                               I am just sayin'