Osler's Razor

On a college trip with my parents, we drove down Monument Avenue in Richmond. There they were: Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson... I remember looking for Mussolini and Hitler. I obviously was new to the South.

Four years in Williamsburg and ten years in Waco, though, did not change my mind about confederate monuments. They celebrate people who fought to preserve slavery, and I found that indefensible. It is important to remember what is being depicted when we are talking about monuments of confederate leaders and soldiers: They are men who are memorialized because they fought to preserve the institution of slavery in a war against the United States, a war which they started.

Over and over, people told me that confederate monuments were not about slavery-- that they were really about "heritage" and "preserving history." Hmmm... these Bible-believers would, I'm sure, agree that Satan is an important part of spiritual history, but they would probably not put a triumphant statue of Satan up in their church.

It is true that the soldiers were "a part of history." The problem is that they are people who fought for something that is thoroughly rejected by American society, which is the enslavement of human beings because of their race. We know that this was their reason for seceding and fighting a war because they said so at the time. The argument that it was about "states rights" is a smokescreen-- the "right" that those states wanted was the continued ability to own other human beings.

To be clear, I'm not talking here about people who owned slaves (like Washington or Jefferson) or were otherwise oppressive of others (that is a different, important discussion)-- I am talking about monuments celebrating confederate leaders and soldiers. It is inconsistent with our values as a nation-- and the professed values of the states where they stand, all of which claim to honor residents of all races-- to allow these to stand.

Take them down.