Don’t touch Confederate statues; war was not about slavery

Democrats raced to condemn the president’s comments, and many of his fellow Republicans criticised them harshly as well.

We should all begin by listening to Mark Heyer, Heather Heyer’s father, “I include myself in forgiving the guy who did this”, he’s solemnly declared, “I just think about what the Lord said on the cross, ‘Forgive them”. It turns out some states see these as historic monuments and have laws on the books to protect them.

The monuments should be relocated to stitch us together again.

“Most of the time we portray Northerners, but sometimes we portray Southerners, depending on whether or not there are enough people on the other side of the field”, says Grays and Blues member Vince Chiarelli.

EARHARDT: So you’re in favor of keeping those monuments? This made all Confederate veterans equal to US veterans.

“I hate the erasure of history and my people’s history … people of European descent who built this country”, the 22-year-old said.

We see this not only in Charlottesville but also in North Carolina.

“Some contemporary political cause”?

What place in history, and in granite, marble and bronze, should he and his fellow Confederates be given?

State Sen. Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, said the issue is important and he would favor changing the state law to allow local governments to decide whether to keep or remove the monuments, and some might never take up the issue. If you want to honor Gen. Robert E. Lee, read his words and you’ll find he cared nothing about statues. Visited Gettysburg and other Civil War battlefields. (That’s my own idea.) Ask yourself if the defenders of the current statue – and of flying Confederate flags in public places – would approve of our replacement. Let’s let history stand and get on with respecting one another. This too is completely ludicrous. After Dylann Roof murdered nine African-Americans in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, we should have removed the statues that are coming down now. If we did, there would be statues to O.J. Simpson and Balloon Boy. Statues were placed in public areas to intimidate and demonstrate the power of white supremacy. Not from a textbook or a statue, but from a person that influences their life.

Self-described born-again Christian Allen Armentrout went viral after he was pictured in Confederate uniform, armed with a semi-automatic handgun and an AR-15 rifle alongside the statue.

Confederate monuments have some historical value. Many of these men saw slavery as a national sin that could only be expunged through bloody sacrifice – theirs, if necessary.

The most recent comprehensive study of Confederate statues and monuments across the country was published by the Southern Poverty Law Center past year.

In other words, opposition to Confederate monuments is an unpopular position, held primarily and nearly exclusively on the Left. Move all the Confederate statues and rebel flags to the museums.

Not long ago, one of your readers wrote that those who voted for Trump were bigots and racists.

College students who participated in the white supremacist rally were not kicked out of their colleges if they were state-run, but private colleges do not have the same rules.

Statues of Confederate icons appear to be dividing the nation nearly 150 years after the Civil War ended.

But it’s time for some moral clarity.

The Civil War forced hard decisions on both sides. What we don’t do is celebrate it.

“They have no other reasons than ‘you are erasing our history.’ Their reasoning is flawed”.