
Source: Conservative Cowards Are To Blame For Falling Statues
“But here’s the thing: after you write your little op-ed about how of course the evil Confederate statues have to come down, they still think you’re a racist. They just think you are a spineless one.”
There are times when you really hate to be right, to have to be the one who says, “I hate to say I told you so… but I told you so.” I have been saying since 2015 – and more than once on this blog – that regardless of what you think about Confederate statues (and flags, and other iconography, like street and school names), you’d better not be indifferent about their destruction, or removal, or alteration, or replacement.
Because love them or hate them, they’re not the goal, they’re just the low-hanging fruit for the Leftist mob. The real goal was, and is, different and bigger: the destruction of America and the West, its political and social institutions, its government and economy, its customs and traditions, its history and heritage, and their replacement with a collectivist, totalitarian Marxist utopia.
Looked at objectively, the Left has played this all too brilliantly: go after the Confederate statues and iconography, because even the so-called “conservatives” will be afraid to defend them, for fear of seeming racist, or like they’re defending slavery. Or even “anti-American,” since the Confederates were rebels and traitors… right? Well, not by their lights:
“When the South raised its sword against the Union’s Flag, it was in defense of the Union’s Constitution.” — Confederate General John B. Gordon
“I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.” — Confederate President Jefferson Davis
“I loved the old government in 1861. I loved the old Constitution yet. I think it is the best government in the world, if administered as it was before the war. I do not hate it; I am opposing now only the radical revolutionists who are trying to destroy it.” — Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest
“All that the South has ever desired was that the Union as established by our forefathers should be preserved and that the government as originally organized should be administered in purity and truth.” — Confederate General Robert E. Lee
None of that matters, of course, to the Left. Their playbook is consistent:
Ignore or deny the fact that slavery was only one reason – and not even necessarily the biggest reason – for secession, and had nothing directly to do with sparking the War Between the States. Ignore or deny the fact that more than 260,000 Confederate soldiers died to defend their homes, families, and land from an illegal and unconstitutional invasion.
Ignore or deny the fact that there were 50,000 civilian deaths during the war, that the overall mortality rate for the South exceeded that of any country in World War I and all but the region between the Rhine and the Volga in World War II. Would Southerners have been willing to incur such casualties to defend the right of a small minority of the population to own slaves? Not likely!
Ignore, for that matter, the fact that there were four slave-holding states (plus the District of Columbia, where slavery was also legal) in the Union itself, and that Lincoln repeatedly offered that any seceded state which returned to the Union could keep its slaves (or that there were more free blacks in the South than in the North, and some of them had slaves).
Just focus on the fact that the Confederacy was made up of “slave states,” and you’ve made it impossible for good, “moderate” conservatives to object to the removal and destruction of statues and other Confederate iconography, and keep banging the drum that anyone who does object is “far-right” (and therefore “fascist”) and a “racist.” It was a brilliant plan, and it has largely succeeded.
And in the process, the Left has successfully – or seemingly so – softened up the nation for attacks on others, including (inter alia) Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Francis Scott Key, and even Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, along with a host of lesser luminaries.
Because of the way American history has played out, all have the Achilles heel of “racism,” colonialism, or both; and by the Leftist narrative, that invalidates anything else positive they might have ever accomplished, including the creation of a nation which is so open-minded and tolerant as to allow even lunatics and seditionists like the current Left to function without being shot, beaten down, and/or imprisoned, as they would in a less free and open nation… such as the one they want to create.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day-by-day and minute-by-minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
— George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
In an again brilliant example of sociopolitical aikido, they have found the soft spots: 1) that everyone in history has had something that was less-than-perfect about them, and that if compared to current mores (the historical fallacy of presentism), it often has to do with favoring one’s own people – defined today as “racism” – and 2) that no one wants to be seen as defending racism, so protests to the removals, destruction, and desecration are sporadic, muted, and easily dismissed as a “fringe.”
But if the tactics of the Left have been remarkably if dismayingly creative and effective, the response from most mainstream conservatives has been feeble and incompetent, if not missing-in-action entirely. As the quote with which I opened this put it,
“But here’s the thing: after you write your little op-ed about how of course the evil Confederate statues have to come down, they still think you’re a racist. They just think you are a spineless one.”
It is as I have said before: don’t let the camel’s nose in the tent; don’t give an inch, because if you do, they’ll sense weakness and fear, and come at you all the harder. Bullies always do. But they often run from a spirited defense – something of which there has been a notable lack, of late.
There have been some notable exceptions, but as Marcus points out further down in the linked post,
“The so-called conservatives who have been coddling mindless calls to destroy public art know who they are. So do the rest of us. These are the reasonable conservatives, the good ones, ever so careful not to be called racist. They had a compromise in mind because they always do. Throw the Confederate statues under the bus and we can save the rest…
“Do you know who is to blame [for the continued destruction]? It is not the hordes of progressives with ropes and chains; it is every conservative who thought those Jacobin lunatics could be appeased by just tearing down certain statues. It is a metaphor for the fecklessness of an American right too cowed to stand up for itself.”
They should be ashamed.
Leaving aside the complete philosophical and ethical surrender it represents, this roll-over-and-play-dead response is not even an effective tactic.
“Feed the hyenas and maybe they’ll eat us last” is not only ineffective, it’s actually counter-productive, because it leads them to expect a free meal, and thus emboldens them. The results can be seen in far too many locations throughout this once-great land.
In fact, the destruction we are seeing in American cities today is reminiscent of the Nazi Kristallnacht, the French Revolution, or a slew of Communist ones over the last century-plus. Irreplaceable elements – tangible representations – of our history and heritage (many of which are superb works of art in their own right), are being damaged and destroyed in the name of an unconscionable fallacy: the idea that the past must be judged by the standards of the present.
(Sadly, that is not the worst of it. History shows us repeatedly that where there is violence against icons, sooner or later there will be violence against institutions, and against persons. If the present chaos is left unchecked, the situation will only go from bad to worse.)
And where are those who claim their philosophy is to conserve – to protect, preserve, and transmit unimpaired to future generations – that history and heritage? Too often, silent, or entirely absent. As I say, they should be ashamed!
Here’s Marcus again:
“… what are the wages of these sad genuflections? What did you get out of the deal? Are they going to come support you now that the Founding Fathers are up against the wall? Nope. They will throw you right up against the wall with them as you insist how reasonable you are.
“To these fair-weather friends, I have a message: This is your fault. And you were well warned. For years, those of us with the courage to open our eyes knew exactly where this was going. It was never about the Confederacy, or slavery, or racism. It was always about destroying the very concept of America and replacing it with a Marxist utopia. That’s who you decided to compromise with.
“What’s done is done, but it is not too late. Now that you have seen the miles the left takes when offered an inch, you are welcome to get back in the fight for freedom. They burned you, made you look like fools. Be angry. Otherwise your silence is complicity with mobs that would destroy not just statues but the very foundations of our liberty.”
Amen.