Fall Of The West: Of Churchill And Madison, Wisconsin's Act Of Inhumanity

Here's a perfect example why I argue we're an intellectual dark age. Once more, it takes a conservative publication to bring a thoughtful perspective to it.

It's the inability to accept history in its proper context.

Scott Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy Captain, NASA engineer, and veteran of four spaceflights, was brought low on Sunday by those possessed of neither his accomplishments nor talents for the crime of advocating Churchillian generosity of spirit. “Did not mean to offend by quoting Churchill. My apologies,” the astronaut wrote after what must have been a withering assault on social media. “I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views which I do not support.”

This is extremely sad and unnecessary this apology.

As the author attempts to convey in his article, historical figures - as great as they may have been or made to be lauded by a nation for whatever nation - were people of their times.

It's okay to question certain aspects of a person's beliefs or something they said but it doesn't have to necessarily negate their body of work. Nobody is perfect. Think the Founding Fathers and slavery. That some may have held slaves doesn't detract from their achievement in enshrining the principles pf liberty into a nation for the first time in world history. It also distracts people from exploring how the framers viewed the institution and its possible future. It further clouds understanding the fact that slavery is not a uniquely American problem but one that was the rule throughout human history.

They basically said 'look, we need to create this country. The issue of slavery is too big at the moment and will jeopardize it. Let's get the country rolling and we trust it will be solved at some point.' 

And that's what happened. 

The same with Churchill. The man kept Britain from falling to its knees and kneeling before Nazi Germany. That took some heroic balls. He saved Britain.

Of course, the British then thanked him by not electing him after the war.

The left are making sure great figures that don't fit their contemporary narratives get scrubbed from their history. But people they accept (say, Woodrow Wilson and Margaret Sanger who are far from perfect) get left alone.

It's not right and it lacks principles.

No one is safe.

Slowly, they will come for your hero.

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Even more shocking and disgusting is what transpired in Madison, Wisconsin. 

In Madison, Wisconsin, the city council has voted overwhelmingly to remove a cemetery marker noting the names of about 140 Confederates, most of whom died in a prisoner of war camp in the town. More:

“You don’t have discussion in a cemetery. You have reflection, and you have memories, and this (monument) brings up memories that are not so pleasant in our history,” said Council Vice President Sheri Carter.

Off course, if you look at the comments, the left applaud such a grotesque decision. Everyone else, not so much.

Everyone else is right.

So much for being 'equal before God in death'.

Let sleeping dogs lie. These people died. They lived long ago in a different time. They made their peace and the part of the American experience was settled at that time.

To resurrect it for a contemporary politicized sensibility is pointless and without respect for the dead.

They should ask themselves, 'what if it were my child? My family member?'' I say this because they'd understand the nuance and complexities of their family history and how it fit into a period in their nation's history.

Instead, they choose a lazy, cowardly 'zero-sum' perspective. It may make them 'feel' better erasing the memories of the dead, but it won't erase the reality of history. There will always be chroniclers of history who take a 'big picture' approach to humanity who will keep this memory alive.

We owe much gratitude to such people.

The people on the council in Madison not so much. Hopefully, history will right this wrong and their actions will be used as an example on not to deal with the past. That faux-righteous grand standing is not the same as having principles.

Principles is saying, 'hey, I don't agree with this but these are our sons and daughters." Dishonor, them, dishonour America.

It's ghoulish as it is anti-intellectual.

And immoral.

Shame on those people who made such a travesty of a decision.