A Call for Consistence in Destruction of Statues

In what amounts to a sad commentary on the state of our cultural degeneracy, it appears that we’ve decided the best solution to our social ills that we can muster is the violent destruction of stone statues.

Christian historian, David Barton, says the people calling for the removal of Confederate statues – which they see as symbols of a hateful, oppressive, and racist past – very well may be sowing seeds for an even more hateful future.  “It’s not that I have any strong affinity for sculptures or busts, nor am I of the opinion that many of those who receive them are worthy of such distinction.  But seeing social justice warriors ramp up their militancy by declaring jihad against a bunch of inanimate objects just proves to me that these people don’t have a clue how to really address the existential crisis facing our civilization.  I’m not even sure they know what the actual crisis is,” says Barton.

But desperate to “do” something, they become like the blind boxer hurling punches in the dark just hoping to land one.  Their allies in the equally clueless media shamelessly liken their efforts to the heroes of Normandy or the liberators of Baghdad – comparisons that are as unconscionable as they are ignorant.  Still, it is clear that toppling towers of dead men who once did bad things or thought bad things will be this era’s thundering contribution to making the world a better place is ridiculous.

Where is the intellectual consistency?  Margaret Sanger was a vile degenerate.  She believed in exterminating lesser human beings, inferior races, and the handicapped; and she set up a murderous organization called Planned Parenthood to do exactly that.  Her legacy is the lifeless bodies of tiny innocent infants thrown out in the garbage bins.  But she remains immortalized with a stone monument in the halls of the Smithsonian.

If statues must come down of a man like Robert E. Lee, whose complicated views on slavery at least included his labeling it a “moral and political evil in any country,” so must all public enshrinement of Sanger.  Her views on the “unfit” race, or “human weeds” that needed to be “cultivated” in her “Negro Project” weren’t nearly so ambiguous, after all.

And what about Charles Darwin?  If we’re so committed to rooting out and destroying white supremacy for the empty-headed idiocy that it is, why are there no riots and protests to remove the ramblings of Charles Darwin from our kids’ textbooks and the statues and exhibits we finance in his honor?  Darwin believed and wrote in “The Descent of Man” that dark-skinned Africans were inferior and closer to apes than Caucasians.  Darwin’s defenders always dismiss his latent racism by declaring that he was merely a “product of his time” … oddly not granting that same excuse to Confederate generals and southerners who lived at the exact same time.  

But if that’s the justification, it still doesn’t explain how former recruiter and Exalted Cyclops of the KKK, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd gets multiple statues.  This is a man who wrote in 1944:

“I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”  It could be argued that most slave owners held black Americans in higher regard than Democrat icon Robert Byrd.  Yet to this point, his legacy has gone untouched by the social justice militants.  Why?

And this is only the beginning of course.  Alfred Kinsey sexually molested and abused hundreds of infants, toddlers and Kindergarteners as he attempted to induce them to orgasm in disgustingly depraved “sex studies.”  But no one is setting Indiana University on fire despite it honoring his perverted legacy with an entire institute.

And we could go on and on.  

Listen: Every human is fallen and in some degree reflects the sinful spirit of their age. This seems to leave us with two options:

First, we can move in the direction where we reject the idea of building monuments to honor any man, expect the only One (Jesus, the Christ) to ever live who is actually worthy of our honor. 

Or, we could begin collectively teaching and understanding that monument and statue building can be less about worshipping individuals who are every bit as flawed, abhorrent, and sinful as we are; and more about acknowledging and remembering the part key figures played in our country’s epic struggle to create a “more perfect union.”

I’m for the second option.  How about you?

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel