Confederate Statuary Ethics Train Wreck

Man Bites Dog: Harvard Actually Makes An Ethical Decision!

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

It’s about time…

In October 2022, a group of woke Harvard students—aren’t they all?— submitted a 23-page “denaming” proposal for various university buildings. One on the hit list was the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, one of the three art museums on the college campus. The students argued that Arthur Sackler, the progenitor of the family that created Purdue Pharma, was complicit in the opioid addiction disaster because he developed the Machiavellian marketing techniques that were later used by his family to spread death and addiction across the land.

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Ethics Dunce: Mississippi

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared April 2024 as Confederate Heritage Month in the state, following a 31-year-old tradition that began in 1993. Beauvoir, the museum established in the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Biloxi, announced the proclamation in a Facebook post on Friday, April 12. Governor Tate’s proclamation read,

“Whereas, as we honor all who lost their lives in this war, it is important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation’s past, to gain insight from our mistakes and successes, and to come to a full understanding that the lessons learned yesterday and today will carry us through tomorrow if we carefully and earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us. Now, therefore, I, Tate Reeves, Governor of the State of Mississippi, hereby proclaim the month of April 2024 as Confederate Heritage Month in the State of Mississippi.”

I have argued vigorously on Ethics Alarms against toppling the statues of important historical figures associated with the South’s disastrous and misguided attempt to secede from the Union and the bloody war that resulted. That is because erasing history is a form of public mind-control and totalitarian to its core. Moreover, many of the figures now being denigrated and “cancelled” with their memorials defaced or eliminated and their names erased from buildings and institutions had complex lives and careers worthy of honor, study and memorializing despite their participation in the rebellion.

Most of all, perhaps, the practice creates a dangerous precedent and a slippery slope: today Robert E. Lee, tomorrow Thomas Jefferson. When I first posted that warning here, many ridiculed it. Not long after, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and even Washington became targets of the statue-topplers.

But those were human beings. The Confederacy was a movement, deadly and and unethical, rooted in a theoretically legal defense of an inhuman and evil practice. There is no way to commemorate the Confederacy’s “heritage” without appearing to justify and celebrate the slavery it represented, as well as the scars it left on America. Declaring Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi might not be intended as coded racism, but then again it might.

Starting the tradition was tone deaf and suspicious in 1993. It is divisive and offensive to continue the tradition in 2024. The next step down the same slope would be “Jim Crow Heritage Month,” wouldn’t it? After all, we can “gain insight from our mistakes and successes” and “come to a full understanding” of “the lessons learned yesterday and today” from the South’s post-Civil War system of apartheid and discrimination too.

Frankly, I am amazed that Mississippi is still romanticizing the Confederacy.

Catchy tune, though.

Ethics Quiz: Slapping Down the Daughters of the Confederacy

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

On the heels of the previous post about intolerant progressives came my awareness of the news that both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly, dominated by Democrats, passed bills that would eliminate long-standing tax exemptions for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group that was founded in 1894 for female descendants of Confederate soldiers. The group’s mission was and is to honor Confederate ancestors through memorial preservation—an increasingly difficult job—and charity work. It is currently exempt from paying property taxes and recordation taxes, which are charged when property sales are registered.

This week the State House of Delegates passed a bill revoking the group’s exemptions as well as the property tax exemptions for two other Confederate heritage groups, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Inc. and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society.

To state the obvious, the three non-profit groups have been targeted because many legislators don’t like their beliefs and activities. Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said it was important to revoke the exemptions from “organizations that continue to promote the myth of the romantic version of the Confederacy.”

How dare they?

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So Apparently It Isn’t Just Slaveholding: Being A White Male Is Sufficient Offense To Justify Tearing Down Your Statue…[Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The insanely woke National Park Service wants to renovate Philadelphia’s Welcome Park by removing its statue of William Penn as well as Penn’s home, the Slate Roof House. The proposed redesign will highlight Native American history at the expense of the memorial to Penn, who founded the colony, now state, of Pennsylvania.

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Ethics Quiz: Section 16

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Here is a controversy that I was completely ignorant of, and I am embarrassed to admit it.

One more bi-product of the George Floyd Freakout, ‘The Great Stupid’ that has washed over the land like the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, and the Stalin-esque attempt to airbrush American history, including the toppling of statues honoring certain distinguished Americans who were not sufficiently psychic to absorb the lessons and accumulated ethics wisdom of those with the advantage of a century or more additional history and human experience, was the Naming Commission, established by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act in the throes of all of the above malign influences. It’s official mission is to recommend removal of “all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America.” The Commission extended its reach to the Reconciliation Monument at Arlington National Cemetery, which is located in the special section known as Section 16. The monument, which you see above, is scheduled to come down.

Of all the many times I have visited Arlington—my father and mother are buried there, also my grandfather, and Dad loved to take me on tours of the place as he checked out his future residence, especially when he was taking part in the annual Battle of the Bulge veterans ceremonies—I never saw this section. It has a fascinating history.

Arlington was established as a burial ground for the Union military dead. Indeed, Montgomery Meigs, the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army who was responsible for the burial of soldiers, ordered Robert E. Lee’s Arlington estate to be turned into a cemetery so Lee could never return there. Meigs had his son, an early casualty of the war, buried literally on the Confederate leader’s doorstep as a statement of contempt and defiance. No Rebel combatants were permitted on the sacred grounds.

However President William McKinley, himself a Medal of Honor recipient for his heroism at the Battle of Antietam, announced that the U.S. government would commit to honoring the Confederate dead, saying in a speech in Atlanta that “sectional feelings no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag waves over us in peace with new glories.” Congress authorized Confederate remains to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 1900, and in 1906, the construction of a monument was commissioned to represent the nation’s acceptance of the Confederacy back into the nation, healing of the deep wounds of civil war. 1903 saw President Theodore Roosevelt send a floral arrangement to the Section 16 to commemorate Confederate Memorial Day, and began a tradition that has been regularly observed since, with President Obama expanding the practice to laying two floral wreaths, one at the Confederate Memorial, the other at Washington, D.C.’s African American Civil War Memorial.

This week the Republican Congress has sent a letter of protest to the Defense Department, demanding that preparations to remove the monument cease, and pointing out that the purpose of the memorial is not to honor the Confederacy, but to stand for national unity, reconciliation, and peace.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Should the Reconciliation Memorial be removed along with the remains of the Confederate soldiers buried in Section 16?

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Comment Of The Day: “The Unalterable Ethics Alarms Position: …Destroying [Lee’s] Statues Is Unethical And Foolish

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Here is Chris Marschner’s macro-analysis of the forces leading to Robert E. Lee’s head being melted down. Read it: his Comment of the Day connects dots you may not have considered, as he reacts to the post, “The Unalterable Ethics Alarms Position: Robert E. Lee Was A Complex And Important American Who Deserves Public Recognition, And Destroying His Statues Is Unethical And Foolish”:

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I believe this mentality is why so many want to do away with the electoral college and rely on majoritarian rule.

These people have no understanding that the United States is comprised of 50 sovereign states that have joined together as a group for the benefit of all members in that group.

Had majoritarian rule been the case from the country’s inception there might have been no civil war and blacks would still be treated as 2nd class citizens. The whole concept of America as a melting pot might be reserved only to the degree that Europeans would be allowed entrance Our republic preserves minority rights that majoritarian rule will not.

Majoritarian rule creates the impetus for factionalized insurgencies to emerge against the rule makers. Which is why the Middle East is always fighting among themselves for centuries. Every faction wants autonomy to set rules for themselves and others.

Far too many of our citizens have such limited understanding of our history because they are taught to analyze events by hearing talking points and sound bites.

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The Unalterable Ethics Alarms Position: Robert E. Lee Was A Complex And Important American Who Deserves Public Recognition, And Destroying His Statues Is Unethical And Foolish

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The New York Times turned to a biased art historian to discuss the melting down of the Charlottesville statue of Robert E. Lee that was the focal point of the infamous 2017 riot. Ethics Alarms has spilled too much metaphorical ink over statue-toppling and historical airbrushing already—you can find most of them under this tag or this one. I can summarize them all easily: tearing down statues betrays a totalitarian-mentality and undemocratic values, an intolerance of unpopular beliefs and ideas, and a favorable attitude toward thought-control and censoring history. I hate it, it’s unethical, and I’m not even a fan of Robert E. Lee.

Rigging the commentary (what were the chances that an African-American art historian would object to destroying a Lee statue?), the Times got what it evidently wanted: an almost obscenely gleeful account of Lee’s symbolic melting down. “Acrid fumes penetrated the respirators we had been issued,” Erin Thompson writes. “When the foundryman finally turned off his torch and tapped at the head with a mallet, Lee’s face fell clattering to the floor.” She quotes a founder of the statue-toppling group that helped accomplish the destruction as saying, “It feels like witnessing a public execution.” Clearly, it was a good feeling. You know, like the “reform Communists” felt when they tore down Stalin’s statue and threw his mummified corpse in a hole. “Stalin? Who’s Stalin?” Now the same people who helped the dictator murder millions could pretend it all never happened. It is traditions like this that ensure that Russians never learn from its history, because they don’t like to acknowledge history.

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Institutional Ethics Dunce: The U.S. Congress

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The House of Representatives passed legislation last week ordering the Capitol’s bust of Roger Taney, the Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, to Hell, or someplace. It will be replaced by a new bust of Thurgood Marshall, the first black judge to serve on Court.

Of course it will. This naked political grandstanding wouldn’t be complete without installing a black judge’s image as a rebuke to the evil white judge. The legislation now heads to President Biden’s desk to be signed, probably followed by a victory jig.

The pandering legislation says that Taney’s bust is “unsuitable for the honor of display to the many visitors to the Capitol.” It currently sits at the entrance of the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met from 1810 to 1860. Taney led the court from 1836 to 1864.

“While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s bust from the Capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress’s recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms, that of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision,” the legislation says. I wonder how many of the members who voted for the legislation know anything about Taney or have ever engaged in an objective reading of his opinion. My guess: not many. Maybe none.

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And Richmond’s Historical Airbrushing Is Complete

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Mayor Levar M. Stoney (D) of Richmond, Virginia is all puffed up with pride because he has overseen the complete removal of statues in the city depicting major Civil War figures who sided with the Confederacy. “Over two years ago, Richmond was home to more confederate statues than any city in the United States,” Stoney said in a statement on Twitter. “Collectively, we have closed that chapter. We now continue the work of being a more inclusive and welcoming place where ALL belong.” His victory lap was occasioned by the toppling of the last Confederate statue remaining in the city of 230,000, which memorialized Ambrose P. Hill, Robert E. Lee’s most trusted lieutenant general, and which had stood on a pedestal at a busy intersection in Richmond since 1892. Hill’s remains were in the pedestal of the statue, now ticketed for the local Black History Museum, where it can be assured of obscurity. Hill’s remains? Supposedly they will be deposited in a grave somewhere, but who knows? They may get flushed down a toilet.

My question is what will the airbrushers plan to do with the city? Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy; its existence is certainly a more prominent memorial to the Grays than any statue of a general most non-Civil War buffs couldn’t distinguish from Benny Hill or Pork Chop Hill. Richmond’s crucial role in the Civil War is its primary claim to fame. Level it, I say. That’s the only way to “close the chapter.” A city that was mission central for the South’s efforts to enslave blacks—-there was really more to it than that, but I’m mouthing the official, historically ignorant line here—can’t possibly be a welcoming place: who does the woke mayor think he’s fooling? At very least, Richmond has to change its name, doesn’t it? Maybe to something like Floydtown or Diversityopolis?

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Museum Ethics And Gift Ethics: The Robert E. Lee Statue

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Lee statue down

Guest post by Steve-O-in-NJ

 Steve’s post below discusses the issues posed by this news [from the Smithsonian]: 

…In Charlottesville, Virginia, lawmakers decided to transform one torn-down monument entirely, reports Teo Armus for the Washington Post. Instead of storing a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, officials will melt down the 1,100-pound bronze monument into metal ingots—raw material that can then be used to create new art.

City council members approved the proposal unanimously on Tuesday morning, reports Ginny Bixby for the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Put forth by the local Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (JSAAHC), the plan was one of six considered by lawmakers during months of deliberation.

According to JSAAHC’s proposal, organizers plan to hold community listening sessions in barbershops, places of worship, schools and other businesses throughout Charlottesville. With community input, the “Swords Into Plowshares” team hopes to select an artist or artists to design a new public artwork by 2024.

The museum has already raised more than half of the $1.1 million required to bring its project to fruition and is continuing to fundraise online. Proceeds will be used to donate the transformed statue back to the city, where it will go on display by 2026.

JSAAHC executive director Andrea Douglas tells the Post that the project “will allow Charlottesville to contend with its racist past.”

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Something is dead wrong about a museum, which is by nature dedicated to the preservation of the past, even out of the general public view, instead participating in the destruction and rewriting of the past.

You know where they did things like that? The USSR, where art was harnessed to be a propaganda organ of the state, and every museum, gallery, orchestra and dance company was dedicated first to pushing forward the State’s narrative before anything else, and anything that didn’t do that was pushed into the background or destroyed. The world is damn lucky that Russia was able to rebuild the Cathedral of Christ the Savior that was blown up (!) to make way for a “Palace of the Soviets” that never materialized due to WWII. The world is also damn lucky that the Soviets were nothing if not practical, and repurposed most other buildings (including churches and synagogues) rather than destroying them outright, and still didn’t quite dare to destroy things like the tomb of St. Alexander Peresviet (maybe useful as a nationalist hero) or the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov (though they hid them away for a time). Otherwise, the physical link to all that history would be lost.

Know where else they did things like that? Reformation England under the bigoted rule of Henry VIII and later Cromwell. You can still go to Canterbury Cathedral, but you can’t see the jeweled shrine of St. Thomas Becket. In fact I think the only one of those shrines that didn’t get trashed was the one of St. Edward the Confessor, which no one was brave (or hateful) enough to destroy, and still rests in Westminster Abbey. Know where they’re doing things like that now? Afghanistan under the Taliban, and up until recently the parts of Iraq that were controlled by ISIS.

This won’t be the first, you mark my words. I really don’t like the idea of every city now raising honors to George Floyd as almost all of them did to MLK, who was far more deserving, obviously,  I’m also going to be very disgusted if statues of Columbus, some raised by Italian-American communities by public subscription and donation as a thank-you to the communities where they got their start, begin to be melted down and reforged into either apologetic native statues or statues from the new pantheon of martyrs. Continue reading →