Here Are Some Ways To Tell History Is Not Being Erased

More and more statues are coming down. Christopher Columbus, the man who wiped out tons of Native Americans (rather by accident or on purpose — it doesn’t change what was done) has come down, again. George Washington had a statue taken down, hopefully as protest for a new whisky tax. And Union general Ulysses S. Grant (“If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side.”) had his statue taken down. Now they’re moving onto the Theodore Roosevelt statue outside the Museum of National History, Roosevelt, of course, is the man who wrote a letter praising the works of Eugenicist Charles Davenport. Davenport later made connections with various members of the Nazi government, many of which agreed with his work — as did Theodore Roosevelt.

This has brought calls of “erasing history,” but history is not being erased. You can still buy books about these people, read all online information that was found the previous day, and you can still watch any number of documentaries about these men. In fact, if the goal of tearing down these statues was to erase history, the fact that the past few days have been filled with more historical conversation than ever before proves that was a failure.

Here’s the question I’ve been asking to the “erasing history” people for years, who learns history from a statue in a public park? Have you seen what the average American knows about history? These are the people who say Bill Clinton is the father of our country, think the first three President’s are Snap, Crackle, and Pop, or who say World War Two was between George W. Bush and “Saddam — whatever his name was.” Yes, I have seen all three when the average American is asked about history.

And yes, it is history, but tons of Americans in history are not worth building statues to. John Walker Lindh was born in Washing D.C., Timothy McVeigh was born in New York, Charles Manson was born in Ohio, that does not make building statues to any of these people okay.

Here’s an example of hypocrisy: Last Earth Day, Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles talked about how the holiday was evil because one of its founders, no not Gaylord Nelson or John McConnell, but the self-proclaimed co-founder Ira Einhorn murdered his girlfriend. Mind you, one person is still less than the 360,000 people killed by Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and his army. I mention this because Knowles has also been one of the strongest defenders of the Confederate statues. All I’m saying is that maybe, just maybe, who, by the way, lived in California the same state as Michael Knowles, he’d understand the outrage a little better.

You know, when former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown one of the ways the people of Iraq celebrated was through tearing down a statue of him. Did the people of Iraq suddenly forget who Saddam Hussein was? For some reason, I assume they did not.

The fact is, statues are not the standard for recording history. Books, documentaries, museums, and oral telling have all done much more to record history than statues.