People keep picking the scabs of our past injuries so they’ll never heal and the resultant sepsis could kill the patient in body, mind and spirit because of the lack of patience causing the pursuit of a false cure.
Okay; so the Confederate Battle Flag is something offends some people and they want it banned. There are protesters demanding the monuments to Civil War commanders and participants be torn down and removed from the sight of those whose ancestors were subjugated to chains. This should be ranked up there with Book Burning, Forced Labor and eradication by race, religion or place of birth. It, in many ways, harkens back to when old Adolph goose stepped his way across Europe. Should we destroy the monuments and edifices devoted to those killed at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Sobibor?
This is the supreme balancing act to come. If you’ll deny the monuments to one group’s heroes, you must by the simple balance of Yin vs. Yang, remove the statues and monuments dedicated to those fought on the Union side. Those proclaiming Southern Heritage say the war was an act of Northern Aggression seeking to secure the supremacy of the Federal government over the rights of the states assured under the 10th Amendment. Should we tear down the flag of the United States because some diehard Confederate finds the past to be painful?
The southerners feel aggrieved. They feel today’s troubles result from the Union exerting heavy-handed post-war policies meant to punish and whip the Confederates back into alignment with the then victorious Union. Shall we tear down every monument to those who “wantonly” killed southerners simply because they wanted to be self-governing as defined by the 10th Amendment?
I’m from New England. If you tore down all of the monuments across that area, there’d be a well-defined desolation and dearth of any monuments. You can’t go anywhere in that area you don’t find a memorial to some dead guy or guys died far from home and for ideals found sufficiently important to risk their mortality. This doesn’t even account for all of the memorials to servicemen and women died in conflicts since Lincoln allegedly chained us to a federal government claiming more and more dominion over our personal rights and liberties. Should we tear down those memorials because somebody hates war and feels the monuments glorify the evil of war?
You can’t change history. And, as George Santayana’s old adage goes; “those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” One of the dangers of this adage and the fact it puts across is people don’t ever see themselves as being the next Hitler. They never see themselves as being despotic and oppressive. They don’t see the children of former slaves of any color, nationality or race can change the societal positioning to a point where they may enslave, subjugate and enchain another group. They fail to recognize slavery is a societal element practiced by the stronger of the two entities: the victor enslaves the vanquished. Members of the same race have always enslaved their opponents after conquest and the result is no less evil than another race enslaving a different race.
Slavery is conducted by the powerful over those less powerful. It can be racial, religious or governmental as THE State commands obedience to the dogma of those alleging to hold governance over (when really they want to rule) those people based only on their self-serving want and without right.
We’re a highly refined and intellectually based people. That doesn’t make us smart. We apply our emotion to our issues and drive home the past pain suffered by our ancestors as though that trial and travail is ours to have been suffered. People seek reparations today for crimes committed over a hundred years ago. It’s at that point the sense of entitlement takes a dump on the righteous desire to experience equality. By seeking the practical self-aggrandizement of monetary gain over the righteous demand for that equality, the protagonists cheapen the cause they say is righteous.
This issue of trying to deny history and the monuments making us remember our past injustices and pursuits of principles drove men and women to suffer a great conflict, is being pursued not out of a desire for truth and honest discussion, but moreso as a springboard for the politically adept to push agendas we may or may not believe in.
This entire debate and the demands for one group’s rights to honor over those of the opposition is a disease growing unchecked on the body politic. Where the danger comes in is the body politic is encased in our national “skin”. The debate causes wounds needing to heal.
But people keep picking the scabs of our past injuries so they’ll never heal and the resultant sepsis could kill the patient in body, mind and spirit because of the lack of patience causing the pursuit of a false cure.
Let’s quit picking the scab.
Thanks for listening
