It has been a tumultuous week, with riots, police shooting,
terrorist attacks, and political opinions spinning wildly out of control. The current “cause celeb” is the removal of
monuments recognizing the Confederacy and (mostly) the generals who fought the
war. Liberal establishments are also
taking steps to purge the names of slave owners/white supremacists from their
institutions (e.g. Yale’s renaming of its Calhoun College).
What distant cities, or Ivy League institutions, do with
statuary or names recognizing past contributions isn’t something I lose a lot
of sleep over. The people they
commemorate are long dead and beyond caring.
For the most part their only visitors are the pigeons or the students who really didn't know how the name came to be. I find it pretty funny how this political
football has become such a hot topic, with the politicians and their supporters
justifying the actions because of how offensive these are to an entire
race. The counter point, made by the
opposition is “if these were so offensive why didn’t they all come down during
the past administrations term?” I am willing to bet 99% of the race that is
supposed to be offended has never given a minutes thought about the statues or
the names of various colleges. It is
only the vocal 1% that has chosen to make this an issue, and not because they
are historically offended, but because of they see it as a way to attack the
President, and gain power for themselves.
So, this is what politics has become, act and counter-act,
anger and counter-anger. Anger and
violence fanned by a media that supports one side of the story and a President
who has created a persona that encourages the anger that flows from his
opponents, both in and out his own party.
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