This is almost too perfect. In the 20th century, in perfect conformity with law in a constitutional republic, a number of states and cities erected statues to local heroes. These heroes were sometimes Confederate soldiers. Now, no sane person thinks human slavery was or is anything but repulsive. But fighting for your neighbors and your friends, well, that’s something else again. We often put up monuments to war heroes who do things that in retrospect look bad. Much of the Unitged Kingdom is dotted with memorials to heroic, super brave Empire flyers whose job was — to put it plainly — terror bombing of German women and children. So, monuments sometime go up that turn out to be questionable morally.
Still, the Confederate monuments are up there in accordance with law. The people who are vandalizing them, tearing them down, urinating on them — they’re the law breakers. Maybe, in time, under legal procedures, the memorials to Confederate generals will come down and that’s the way a democracy works.
But to spit on President Trump because he says,"Obey the law and respect what the law ordained," well, that’s just anarchy. Why are we so happy about anarchy? It never ends well.
And in the same vein, I see in the newspapers that most of the statues in question were put up in and around the 1920s. That’s almost a century ago. Why has it taken so long to get around to desecrating them and realizing how morally odious they are? Isn’t this just another example of the mainstream media Trump horror of the day? Who’ll take my bet that it will soon be forgotten and we’ll pass on to another Trump war crime?
And if it isn’t forgotten, if the struggle to make war on inanimate objects goes on for a decade, will it raise the math proficiency scores of Chicago high school students by one percent? Will tearing down the Gallant Pelham make one black father stay home with his son? Will sawing off the nose of Jefferson Davis keep one young man from joining a gang? It’s all just excuses and blame shifting. To read more of Ben Stein's article, go to The American Spectator.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, and lawyer who served as a speechwriter in the Nixon administration as the Watergate scandal unfolded. He began his unlikely road to stardom when director John Hughes as the numbingly dull economics teacher in the urban comedy, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Read more more reports from Ben Stein — Click Here Now.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.