There has been some debate about certain statues of confederate heroes getting removed. As a general rule whenever the monuments have been removed liberals from all across the country have been in favor of it while the local residents have not. In fact there was a bill in Louisiana where the legislators required a vote by the local residents before any statues were removed and the democrats walked out when it was passed. They knew that if they consulted the public they would never be able to remove another monument again. There really should be no opposition in to a public vote. Unlike issues like minimum wage where one state may affect another the existence of a statue on a courthouse lawn in Alabama would have no impact on the life of someone in New York or Los Angeles. In fact odds are until the media informed them about it they would have no idea these monuments existed. My opposition to this is much deeper though. It shows the desire for control of the aptly named ctrl-left.

History

Whenever the left argues this issue they would always point out that Robert Lee and the rest were traitors and the losing side in a civil war deserves no honor from the victors. History would say otherwise.

In Japan Yukimura Sanada fought on the side of the Toyotomi against the Tokugawa and even while defeated was still hailed as the bravest man in Japan by his opponents.

In China Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang fought on the losing side of a civil war with the Kingdom of Shu. Statues of Zhuge Liang are still in Cheng Du today and their reign is widely regarded as the perfect example of a reign by a confucian scholar.

In Korea Yi Sun Shin was convicted as a traitor by King Senjong and tortured yet today he is one of the most popular heroes of Korea. Even the Japanese admired him as Admiral Tojo would not allow himself to be compared to him when he was compared to both Nelson and Yi Sun Shin.

In Mongolia Prince Jochi turned traitor to Genghis Khan and set off to start his own Khanate yet the populace still loved him. Genghis enlisted Tsubodai to hunt him down and kill him and Tsubodai nearly resigned when the deed was done.

Of course in the US we have Robert E Lee who was venerated by both sides. Mainly because of how cleanly he fought the war. Both northern and southern soldiers admired him and both Lincoln and Davis wanted him to lead their armies.

This admiration even exists for the worst regimes. In World War 2 Rommel was admired by British soldiers for his skill in battle and his lenient treatment of prisoners. After Hitler he was the most mentioned German figure in British newspapers during the early part of the war.

It is usually the most brutal of regimes that are so insecure in their reigns that they must crush any form of dissent and make sure that no good attributes are identified with losing sides in the civil war. Regimes like communist Russia or China or North Korea who have a ruling class interested in maintaining power vilify the losing side to solidify their hold. In more civilized areas the positive attributes of the losing are amplified to promote unity between the various factions. The winners see that there is good in the losers too and are more inclined to be lenient.

Culture

Of course this has never been about traitors. That is the only the excuse the liberals use. The goal is to destroy the unique culture of the southern states. This is ironic because whenever a minority has his culture threatened it is usually the liberals who first speak out and claim cultural appropriation and destruction of their native culture. Somehow the Islamic culture, African culture, and others are worth protecting but American culture is not. The hypocrisy of the situation does not really matter to liberals as destroying culture is only a means to an end. They want people in the South to be ashamed of their heritage.

This ties into the concept of the original sin I mentioned in the article about cultural privilege. Whether we like it or not the south was able to produce some fine people like Robert E Lee that fought nobly for their cause and the people in the south should be proud of that. Once you remove anything positive that people can associate with regarding their heritage then you have effectively saddled them with the original sin. They now have this stain that they must atone for purely for being born in the location where they are. Once they have accepted this fact then the ctrl-left can now insist that they follow its agenda in order to atone for the sins of their fathers. This issue is much bigger than statues.