Paul Frantizek
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

OK, although I can’t see this going well, I’ll bite…

You would lose that bet. At best the ratio of Civil Rights monuments to Civil War monuments is 1:10.

LOL, it figures that some SJW would use a tendentiously parsed statuary-only definition of ‘monument’ to generate some inane 10/1 ratio (Something which completely beggars belief, given all the schools, libraries, parks, etc named after people like MLK, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, George Washington Carver, Fredrick Douglass, et al). Needless to say, although you buy it, I don’t.

We also need to be honest that the Confederate’s primary motivation was the retention of slavery.

Flatly stating that slavery was the ‘Confederate’s primary motivation’ is definitely contestable. While slavery was without a doubt the primary casus belli of the war, it probably wasn’t the average Confederate’s motivation for fighting, given that only a small minority of the people in the Confederacy actually owned slaves. I’d venture to guess that the majority of Confederates were motivated more by loyalty to their own state (keep in mind that 19th Century America was a far different culture in that respect than what came to pass in the 20th Century).

That, is just one of the many shameful histories of our country that we must reject and condemn in the strongest voice we can, so as to refrain from repeating those attrocities.

The one thing I’d point out here is that, far from the ‘atrocity’ talk, Lee did make sure that the surrender was conducted in an orderly and honorable manner — even adversaries like Grant and Chamberlain admitted as much — something all reasonable Americans ought to consider worthy of respect. People don’t appreciate it now, but the nation could have easily degenerated into a Bleeding Kansas style confrontation, spread across the south and lasting decades — it was largely through the example of Lee and other Confederate officers that the US avoided such a horrifying outcome.

That said there still seems to some appreciation for the fundamentally honorable way the Confederacy conducted itself during the war and its aftermath; even now Americans favor maintaining the status quo re: Confederate monuments by a substantial margin.

Of course, all of this Civil War debate is disingenuous, really just a distraction. The prog-left has made it clear through their actions that this isn’t simply a matter of outrage over the particular sins of the Confederacy — the real motivation is a broadly anti-American, and even anti-Western, sentiment:

This to me is the bottom line. Although it may be tempting to think we should just agree that the Confederacy is a divisive subject in our nation’s history so we’ll just eliminate any public commemoration of it and move on, that really isn’t what’s at work here. In reality the Confederacy is just the most immediate target of opportunity and once the left revisionists get their way on that, they’ll move on to their next historical bugbear, most likely either commemorations related to ‘colonialism’ (e.g. Columbus and figures like Junipero Sierra) or the treatment of native population (figures like WT Sherman, Phillip Sheridan and GA Custer). It really isn’t the Confederacy these people hate, it’s the totality of American History.

All that said though, I don’t expect you to agree with a single word I’ve written, I’m simply offering you the courtesy of a reply.

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