Should Confederate statues stay or go?

Not so fast on removing monuments

Before we start condemning every park, street, monument, or public building named after a member of the Confederacy, it might be useful to review the entire record of that individual. For instance, Jefferson Davis served with distinction in the war with Mexico, helping to preserve Texas independence. As secretary of war, Davis was responsible for sending Robert E. Lee to defend against Mexican depredations near Brownsville, and helped establish the U.S. Cavalry corps to defend Texas against Comanche, Apache and Kiowa raids.

Thousands of Tejanos, American Indians and free blacks served the Confederacy in both civilian and military roles. As a former Marine and retired Air Force officer, I firmly believe that removing or renaming these monuments is disrespectful to everyone who served, no matter their race or ethnicity.

We can’t erase the past

In my opinion, removing historical monuments only removes history facts.

If we eliminate historical monuments, what is next? History books that mention Confederate soldiers? All facts about how Africans were brought into this country unwilling? No mention of how our country was developed? The book Tom Sawyer is banned because of the N-word, then the Confederate flag, now all statues of the Confederacy…

Why don’t we just say that “slavery” didn’t exist … It’s all a fallacy. We are doing an injustice to our country’s history. What we all should do is make sure it doesn’t happen again and move forward.

Why we should remove Confederate monuments

As a proud former history teacher, here’s why I think Confederate monuments should be removed from our public squares:

All history is instructive and worthy of study, but not all history is worthy of honor.

We must never forget, hide nor stop learning from the ugliness of our history, but we must also be careful that the ugly not be exhibited in places of honor. Monuments in our public squares that celebrate a wrong and un-American cause in a positive light have no place.

They belong in our museums as a reminder that a wrong took place and should not be repeated. I don’t want my grandchildren passing a Confederate memorial and thinking that a “cause” is somehow worthy of honor, because it is not. Removing Confederate monuments is not “removing history.” It is removing a dishonorable cause from a place of honor. Let’s move those statues that celebrate a cause we as Americans have long since rejected to a museum so we can learn from them — not celebrate them.

Where will the destruction stop?

This latest uproar over destruction of Confederate monuments has me very concerned. If these folks on the far left are this upset about past slavery in history, and they are so offended, why not start at the top?

Gather together, travel to Egypt and start with the Pyramids. Tear them all down and then move on to the next stop. When you finally get to the U.S., then we may as one great country understand.

Till then, I just see whiny 5-year-olds wanting to get their way. I just don’t understand my country anymore.

Are we eradicating our history?

If we abolish all the Civil War statues and the Confederate flag, rename all the schools, parks, buildings, highways and counties of names connected with the Confederacy, then will history be rewritten that there was never slavery in America?

Many of the Civil War military men were formerly Union soldiers with great service records, but their service in the Civil War has erased that fact in our history. President Lincoln would rather have had Robert E. Lee than U.S. Grant lead the Union Army, but because Lee was a Virginian, he didn’t want to fight against his own.

How many Americans know that Arlington National Cemetery was the home of Robert E. Lee and his wife before the Civil War?

As some want to erase the offensive reminders Civil War reminders — as they see them — will we be doomed to repeat it once the history is gone?

Is political correctness taking aim at our history?

I must ask one question. Why did all of these statues, street names, parks, buildings and monuments become so offensive that they must be torn down or renamed? The ones pushing all of this rely on feelings and political correctness and not on facts we can learn from!

I am not referring to the African-Americans in this statement. Where does this all stop? Next it will be freedom of speech because someone isn’t speaking politically correct!

We shouldn’t judge history with emotions or being politically correct. We judge our history correctly so we won’t repeat mistakes of the past! I am asking the African-American community to forgive my ancestors and me for being wrong, and may we all learn to walk in respect, grace and love.

Let’s not take it out on those who fought

Both sides in the Civil War fought honorably and forthright for what they sincerely believed.

I am a great-granddaughter of the Confederacy, but my ancestors were poor farmers, not rich slaveowners. They were not KKK, racist terrorists of the neo-Nazi storm troopers. They were Americans who fought with courage in the Alamo, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Statues and names of ancestors are not our enemies.

We must not let cruel, ugly, mean political groups tear our country apart.

Too bad we’re still refighting Civil War

A local church has removed a stone plaque that has only three words ... “Civil War Memorial.” No Confederate imagery, only a phrase memorializing ALL who died in that war. A worker said, “A citizen complained. We had to take it down to make sure the church building wasn’t vandalized.”

2) Six Flags over Texas management decides to take down all the flags, except the Stars and Stripes, that have flown over Texas and the Six Flags park since 1961. They explained that they wanted to present a flag the “unites” us. The truth is surely that they wanted to avoid potential trouble, so Six Flags executives simply surrendered to the activists.

3) Dallas appoints a “task force” to decide the fate of the city’s century-old Civil War monuments. How fair and transparent will that group be? Dallas’ cowardly city officials are just surrendering to avoid trouble by “progressive” agitators.

Is this democracy in action, or is this mob rule by a small group of snowflake, liberal activists?

The pendulum will inevitably swing the other way. It will get ugly. I grieve for our divided nation.

Targeting blacks as getting free ride is troubling

A recent letter writer (Becki Hutchison, Aug. 17) seemed to suggest that only whites work and pay taxes while everyone else gets freebies from these tax dollars.

However, I suspect that whites aren’t the only ones who pay taxes, and many whites are being helped by government programs, which are supported by everyone’s taxes. She believes history is being torn down (I guess because whites are becoming the minority).

From what I’ve read about history is that this is a nation of immigrants except for the American Indians (who incidentally weren’t white). We are a nation of immigrants of many colors and many of them are helping make this a better nation.

This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 5:22 PM.