163 Comments

it is often forgotten that many if not most of the tribal groups in the US held slaves taken during raids, that a number of tribal groups fought for the confederacy, that many had black slaves themselves, that many had blacks marry into their tribal groups. The descendants of these people, long on the tribal rolls are in many instances being forced out of the tribes simply due to the presence of so much money from the casinos, fewer members, more money for each. American history is not as clearcut as people like to make out or think. People are complicated, few are saints, most engage in questionable behavior, as did Jefferson. But his work was the light that kept dissidents in the soviet dominated countries believing in something better, as Vaclav havel said so many times. In the end is it not that they failed rising above their limitations that is important but that possessing all the flaws that each of us possess they did so much.

Expand full comment

Sam,

GREAT, GREAT article....

So on point.

There is a virus infecting people's minds in the Western World, "woke-ism", which is far more deadly and destructive than anything else we've seen in decades. Its communism repackaged and sold as virtue to the uneducated and feeble minded. This is how Nazism and the Bolshevik and Cultural Revolution kicked off.

Keep up your articles!!

We need antidotes to the infection!

Expand full comment

Two years ago I visited Monticello. There, in the former home of the genius author of the Declaration of Independence, a woke docent dismissed Jefferson as a racist and rapist, and focused the entire tour on Sally Hemings and Jefferson’s daughter. “He just makes me so mad,” declared the nit-wit docent—an individual for whom truth is obviously not self-evident.

Expand full comment
founding

In my opinion the pinnacle of how shameless and demented these people are was when we tried to make a 9/11 statue of the firefighters who raised an American flag at Ground Zero. Sadly, the firefighters were all white so they cancelled it after activists demanded something more inclusive that did not match reality.

“We can’t unite as Americans because of Trump.”

Nope. These people have been psychopaths for my entire life. I guess a lot of people were willing to ignore the excesses because they wanted a discount at the hospital or whatever. So now we are here.

Good job everyone.

👍👍👍

Expand full comment

In my reading of history, all totalitarian movements seek to erase history, then re-write it. It's hard to believe, here in America, that we currently live amidst a bona fide totalitarian effort. But we do. And it must be defeated, most especially for those groups it cynically uses to seek to propel itself to complete power over our lives.

Expand full comment

If you were cheering the removal of the confederate statues instead of wondering "Where does this end" you may now be realizing that it doesn't!

Expand full comment

"By destroying the statue, do you mean to attack the man or the symbol? Do you mean to attack his slave-holding, or his striving for a free and democratic republic? Sometimes, it’s hard to be sure."

It's not really that hard, but it is painful. Our dare-I-say patriotic hearts and minds rebel against the fact that politicians, professors, doctors, are rooting for the destruction of the United States of America as we know it, or, as they prefer to put it: its dismantling. A bloodless coup is in process, with the backing and full participation of the younger generation of social justice warriors who have no particular allegiance to or love for the country they live in.

The strategy is effective. Ridicule, criticize, and obliterate every single symbol of democracy that we hold dear and take for granted. Even Thomas Jefferson? Oh yes, moldy old racist. Even Martin Luther King? Haha, handkerchief head. Even Abraham Lincoln? Meh, too little too late. The First Amendment? Dangerous racist garbage. Into the river with all of it, it's a new day.

As well as:

The nuclear family, which according to educators is a hellhole of transphobic beliefs in which children are prevented from realizing their true genders. Don't trust your parents, is the refrain now, as the school nurse administers testosterone for 14 year-olds behind their parents' backs.

The police, a murderous arm of the state whose only function is to kill black people. Shoplifting is a radical act.

The SATs and other exams designed to measure whether or not our kids have learned anything in school? Why prove basic competency in reading and math in order to go to college? What's the degree for, exactly? Equity, and equity alone.

Math. Beethoven. Shakespeare. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss? See?

From the ridiculous to the fundamental, this is how it's done. Don't doubt your crying eyes.

Expand full comment

Although I am no longer a fan of Peggy Noonan I agree with her formulation that we should not be removing statues but adding new ones. I loved Trumps garden of champions idea. There are many heroes in American history that have been overlooked.

Expand full comment

What is going on in this country and when is the madness going to end!? No country is perfect and show me country with a more perfect founding.

Historical figures should not be judged by the yardstick of today. In 50 years when we finally realize the depth of animal intelligence will non-vegans be demonized as barbarians and all traces of their accomplishments and existence erased because of the offense eating animals? While this is not a perfect analogy I hope that everyone gets my point.

Expand full comment

Soon they will go after the Constitution because it was written by "Racists". They just want to destroy history and destroy our country.

Expand full comment

I'm genuinely afraid that they are going to replace it with a statue of Chairman Mao.

Expand full comment

The American taxpayer ought to get a substantial refund on public education and parents ought to sue for the way in which their children have been cheated of their history and indoctrinated.\

Expand full comment

Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" asserting "All men are created equal" and "Endowed with certain unalienable rights" is the greatest vision statement in the history of civilization, IMO. This statement, being aspirational, should be judged by its intentions and direction; its compass heading. Practically no one, certainly no political entity lived it at the time, and judging by today's woke hyper-racist identity politics, the elite refuse to do so today.

Some eighty-five years after the Founders declared this vision, a white majority of northerners defeated the secessionist Confederacy in our Civil War (1861-1865) and settled the question that "men" included emancipated slaves constitutionally. Jefferson's desire to end slavery was finally realized legally.

Some 154 years after the Declaration, the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote perfected this vision to include a political equality for women.

Some two hundred years since Jefferson's vision-cast, we celebrate the legal equality of sexual orientation generally.

We enjoy these masterful freedoms because we sit on Thomas Jefferson's shoulders. His brilliance and genius made our blessings imaginable. The last full measure of many battle-lost lives have purchased the freedom we now enjoy.

So to repudiate Jefferson is simply asinine. It is not hypocritical to aspire to live beyond ones capabilities; it is human. Everyone that lives a life worth living is animated by lofty ideals -- Divine ideals.

The anti-racist woke are, in fact, so hyper-racist they make the antebellum slave owner blush with envy.

Expand full comment

It’s NYC…why is anyone surprised?

Expand full comment

No problem - Jefferson's statue is now relegated to a basement. Just like the ideals of the founders of this nation. Let's see, whose statue is next? I have a good one - let's move, no, no, - let's destroy the Lincoln memorial because, you know, really - I don't know. Just like President Truman said: The news is the history you don't know.

Expand full comment

Jefferson's words are prescient in light of the vote to remove his statues: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.”

It's too bad, and very sad, for us all when leaders, at all levels, are either incapable, or refuse, to provide context to our history, and temper mass hysterias that, since the beginning of time, continue to plague humanity.

The decision to remove Thomas Jefferson from the public square must not be left to the NY City Council.

Expand full comment