The Statue of Limitations

     Wow, what wild and wooly times we live in, eh?  This roller coaster called life is hanging onto the rails for dear life as it rockets through another hairpin turn.  What will happen next?  Why is everything such a powder keg just waiting to explode due to a series of people fighting over the best way to use the flint over a trail of gunpowder?  It truly is a nail biter!  I mean this National League Central Division, right?  Will the Brewers keep it together while the Cubs can’t help but give it all away?  And those Cardinals!  If the pitching holds, I think the Brew Crew can…huh?  What?  Oh, you want to talk about this statue stuff?  Really?  Okay, fine…

      Seeing as how screaming about statues that haven’t hurt anyone until the past 23 minutes or so is completely in vogue now, I’ll pause and offer my meager thoughts amidst the cacophony.  There’s so much static out there right now and civility is so rare, Indiana Jones is out there somewhere fighting Nazis trying to get it.  (Oops.  I mentioned Nazis.  Too soon?)

      There are so many out there with blowhard opinions that I’m sure whatever I say will be shouted down by people who are even more ill-informed than I am, which is quite sad.  Even sadder is the fact that the culture has become so frustrated with everything that there’s a fraction that decided out of the clear blue sky to get angry at inanimate objects.  Somehow some people have tricked themselves into believing there’s a need to conquer historical images of Confederate soldiers and generals.

      I’d just like to address these people directly: does an image of Robert E. Lee or “Stonewall” Jackson or J.E.B. Stuart truly send you into a frothing rage of an apoplectic fit?  Really and truly?  I’ll wager that the odds are none of you ever talked to any of these guys or fought against them in 1863.  I’ll allow that some of you might be highlanders, so there might be a slight percentage that sat on Lee’s lap while he was planning at Cold Harbor, but I think my bet is safe. 

      Does anyone realize what an incredible distraction this is?  This is as ludicrous as when a royal family would dig up a long dead rival to the throne and decapitate whatever remained to make some vague point.  I guess there’s a certain satisfaction that would come with digging up whatever remained of Josef Goebbels or Woodrow Wilson and killing those guys all over again, but it does seem rather hollow, doesn’t it?  Although I’m sure wherever they are, Wilson and Goebbels have had a lot in common to talk about in the intervening decades despite the heat. 

      The mayor of Madison, WI recently said that he was going to take down the memorial rolls that commemorated the Confederate prisoners of war that died at Camp Randall.  I think the first thought that most Madisonians had was, “There’s a plaque for that?!  Since when?  I was too busy trying to sell my bootleg “Bucky F*ck ‘Em!” shirts to ever notice.”  Wow, what a progressive stand.  I guess when you can’t handle with the issues of today, you futilely fumble with issues from 150 years ago and dump on some long dead POWs.

      What’s next?  Publicity seeking maroons demanding other statues and memorials come down?  Oh, wait.  They have already.  Where will it end?  Are we going to tear down statues of William T. Sherman or Phil Sheridan?  They were Union generals but they also were Indian killers out West after the Civil War.  Look at the list of Presidents that owned slaves.  History is not squeaky clean.  Everyone has skeletons in their closets.  Some skeletons come out long after the historical figure has died.  Others pop out at random intervals during investigations into the Clinton family.

      I guess I find this current attitude amongst some of the citizenry to be disheartening.  When we could be making strides to bridge gaps, there are always some clowns that decide to result to violence to get their point across.  When you resort to that, you’ve lost me entirely, regardless of what side of the political spectrum you fall on.  I guess the only reason I might be glad about this destructive mood towards statues by certain buffoons is because it means that they are targeting someone who is long dead instead of someone who is still breathing above ground.

     Frankly these people lost me when they went after The Dukes of Hazzard due to the stars and bars being on the top of the General Lee.  Again, you’re going to tell me that you were seething with blistering rage back in 1983 when you saw that Dodge Charger paused in mid-air while Waylon Jennings said something folksy before the commercial break?  Yeah, no.  I didn’t care for your politics beforehand, but going after a multi car crash, squeaky clean show that was a staple of my childhood cemented my reactive middle finger in your “outraged” direction.

      So with all that being said to predominantly deaf ears, I would now like to suggest even more statues that can be attacked for even more mundane reasons if this is truly the path that they have chosen.  No, you're welcome!  I'm happy to do it for you.

 

For jumping the shark and for subjecting the rest of us to that phrase, bring this statue down!

So, 8 seasons in North Carolina and not one cast member of color?!  Tear it down!

So no Franklin?  Bring it down!

If you can save the bench, great.  Otherwise, get that abomination torn down!

Surely, this statue came down already, right?  No? 

Wow, what some people will do to sell tacos in Seattle. 

Bring it down now!

Obviously this statue gives certain people delusions of grandeur.

Tear it down and then tear it down again!

      Now these examples are all ludicrous, although I do hope one day that there is a Sanford and Son statue because that show was hilarious.  I also hope that one day we can get back to actually talking to actual live people instead of attacking the dead ones.

      That would indeed be progress.