I have been watching the removal of Confederate statues and memorials with fascination and horror. They are certainly politically incorrect when treated as symbols . In some cases [not that many] they are also genuine art. To some degree, they honor local heroes. They are no worse than the monuments and statues honoring Union soldiers that can be found on many squares in the Northern states. At the gatherings after the Civil War, the soldiers who fought on the various battlefields greeted each other in a comradely manner.

I completely condemn the neoFascist marchers and KKK members who accompany them and use these removals as an excuse for violent protests. I do not believe, however, that erasing our history will change these vermin. They will just go underground. For good or ill, this is a remembrance of part of our history.

In the Middle East, al-Qaeda destroyed a pair of ancient statues of the Buddha ISIS has destroyed a at least one major world heritage site, which they condemned as idolatrous. The Palestinians are destroying evidence of pre-Muslim history in an effort to deny the existence of any culture before theirs. All of these are history, which may or may not be pleasing to the current denizens but represent facts.

Rather than saying that these people fought for slavery and were therefore evil, we should be saying that these people fought for a cause which was defeated and we must never repeat these sins. On both sides, many soldiers were draftees. Does this make them reprehensible?

What set off this rant is the article linked below reporting calls for the destruction of the Stone Mountain sculpture. Yes, there is unpleasant history here. This also, though, a genuine work of art. Having worked with a major artist, I have learned that art does not have to please everyone. It may even offend. If this current wave of political correctness persists, will we see Washington and Jefferson removed from Mount Rushmore because they owned slaves?   Will Fort Bragg be renamed because Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general? Where will it end?

As much as I hate the current atmosphere, all of these people are exercising their First Amendment rights. We need the people to change, as well as the conditions which create their hate and fear. We should not change the law. I am increasingly questioning whether we should make any of these decisions quickly to satisfy popular opinion.

What needs to change is the attitudes that cause violent behavior. When that happens, the memorials and statues that survive will return to simply being a remembrance of our shared history both nice and not so nice. As any archeologist can tell you, most of the world's art has been destroyed either by the ravages of time or by human action.

Stone Mountain threatened

Will Confederate faces on Georgia's Stone Mountain be removed?

www.msn.com

There are an estimated 1,500 Confederate symbols on display in the U.S. More than half a dozen of them in at least four states have been taken down since Saturday's violence in Charlottesville. Proposals have been made to remove several others including one on Georgia's Stone Mountain, America's largest Confederate monument. Manuel Bojorquez reports.