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• Ben Shapiro in The Daily Wire:

“Everyone is trying to use the issue of Confederate monument removal as a club to wield against political opposition, and as a broadening mechanism for their own movements.”

For Mr. Shapiro, the issue at hand has nothing to do with Confederate monuments. The reason we’re really “talking about statues,” he writes, is that they serve as a proxy argument for larger, political fights. The “truth” is that “Confederate statue removal is a local issue, not a national one.” Read more »

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• Rod Dreher in The American Conservative:

“He fought for the wrong side and deserved to lose. But notice that after he lost, he called on all defeated Southerners to cease hostilities and to commit themselves to the service of the United States. [...] It mattered that he did not urge bitter resistance, but rather nobly counseled patriotism.”

After New Orleans decided to take down its statue of Robert E. Lee in May, Mr. Dreher wrote a response to the controversy. He said he is “not losing sleep” over the removal of other Confederate leaders, but he’s troubled by the move to take down a memorial to Lee, a “far more complex man” than many people realize. Read more »

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• Jonathan S. Tobin in The New York Post:

“A generation ago, nobody would have thought Washington or Jefferson controversial. Now it appears that even Mount Rushmore isn’t safe, since among its quartet of greats, only Lincoln might be exempt from the iconoclasts.”