Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana
Across the country, statues representative of Confederate history are being defaced, vandalized, toppled or removed outright. I understand why these particular symbols are being attacked especially in relation to current events; but I don’t agree with it.
Sure, the Confederacy is symbolic of racism, and racism is a never-ending hot topic, but I just think that there’s something inherently risky about the rabid want from the left to have all Confederate statues and monuments removed.
I don’t like the whole slavery and discrimination representative of the Confederacy as much as the next liberal-thinking individual, but I’m also cognizant of the face that this shit actually happened. It’s history, these are things that have actually occurred on American soil, and I think that there is something important that we as Americans, should always remember this kind of stuff, whether it is good or bad.
Removing statues, plaques and historical markers doesn’t delete history, but it does serve to assist in the forgetting of it. And forgetting history leads back to that famous quote that has been paraphrased and misquoted by many, however with the intended meaning never really changing: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.