ANALYSIS/OPINION:
For years, Democrats and those on the left have been trying to suppress America’s true history — the one that tells of American Exceptionalism, the one that speaks of the genius of the Founding Fathers, the one that speaks of freedoms for the individual as coming from God, not government.
And now, with George Floyd, they’re having their moment in the sun.
The left is on a rampage right now, busily tearing down any semblance of American history from America’s public eye.
Sadly, they appear to be winning.
“A statue of Christopher Columbus in Byrd Park has been removed by protesters and dragged into the lake,” WTVR CBS 6 in Richmond tweeted.
“Christopher Columbus Statue In Boston Beheaded,” WBZ CBS 4 in Boston reported.
“Lincoln Statue Found Burned on Chicago’s South Side,” NBC 5 in Chicago reported.
From Virginia to Alabama to Tennessee, long-standing statues of the Confederacy have been toppled, destroyed, defaced or otherwise damaged, or targeted for removal by outraged George Floyd activists on social justice crusades.
In Birmingham, Alabama, it was a statue of Confederate Navy Capt. Charles Linn that offended. In Alexandria, Virginia, it was a 131-year-old bronze statue of the Confederate “Appomattox” that was removed — ostensibly, to save it from looming rioters. In Montgomery, Alabama, it was the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee that was toppled. In Tennessee, at the State Capitol, it was a statue of the former lawmaker Edward Carmack that got the crowd’s goat.
Robert E. Lee in Richmond was sprayed with graffiti. Stonewall Jackson in Richmond was defaced with paint. The Confederate Defenders statue in Charleston, South Carolina, was hit by graffiti.
The destroyers are everywhere.
In Washington, D.C., it was the World War II Memorial and fountain that were targeted by vandals who spray-painted, “Do black vets count?” And the Paralyzed Veterans of America’s headquarters. And the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters. And several spots in the vicinity of the White House.
There are more, there are many more.
The protesters are supposedly angry at police brutality and systemic police racism.
But tearing down national monuments and defacing expressions of American history are acts of ISIS terrorists.
That such defacement is occurring on a widespread scale right now is not only a sad commentary on the tensions currently tearing at America’s fabric. But it’s also a sad, even sadder face-slapping reality show of how our schools are failing our emerging generations.
If true history were still taught in the public schools, angry youth wouldn’t be roaming the streets looking to lash out at some of the very foundations that helped make America so great and free in the first place. If places of higher learning in America hadn’t become breeding grounds for far-leftist professors to implant their propaganda, educated idiots wouldn’t be trampling over the symbols of America Past, trying to blot out the offensive and with it, the truths.
Simply put, a statue of Robert E. Lee doesn’t represent a national worship of Robert E. Lee. It only represents the historical contributions Robert E. Lee made in America — historical contributions that are irrefutably substantial.
Who would Black Lives Matter rather have as the faces of America’s monuments and memorials and statues? Or, to use the statue-destroyers’ standard: Who is perfect enough to be a face of America’s monuments and memorials and statues? Unless the answer is Jesus, it’s a lie.
America is not without sin. America doesn’t have a sinless past.
But what America does have is a Constitution and a set of founding documents and principles that lay the groundwork for all citizens, no matter ethnicity, no matter sex, no matter religion, no matter political leanings — but for all citizens to seek, to pursue, to achieve their hopes, goals and dreams in freedom, absent overburdensome government interference.
What America does offer is a set of governing ideals that guarantee a black man the same rights as a white man; that hold a president of the United States to the same judicial standards as a garbage collector; that secure the freedoms of a woman the same as a man — as coming from God, not government.
Are those standards always upheld? No.
But they’re there.
They’re there for the fighting.
They’re there for the taking.
They’re there for the demanding.
After all these years of warring and bloodshed, of bickering and disputing, of dying through trying: They’re still there. The dream of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is still alive and well in America, for all to grab at, for all to embrace, no matter race, creed, color, sex, etc.
It’s just that it’s much easier to throw paint on a memorial than it is it to study hard, work hard and stay the course to achieve the dream.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
