By Thomas DiLorenzo
Quite a few conservative commentators seem mystified over why the mob of young communist idiots would take down a statue of President Grant in California. After all, the National Review neocons would argue, wasn’t he responsible for the righteous murder of tens of thousands of Americans from the Southern states, by definition a good thing to every card-carrying neocon?
This all started in the mid-’80s when that renowned intellectual genius Jesse Jackson stood before a mob of brainwashed, illiterate Stanford University “students” chanting “Hey Hey Ho Ho, Western Civ Has Got to Go.” By “Western Civ” they meant the Stanford curriculum on Western civilization. The Stanford administration dutifully capitulated and adopted a new curriculum on race, gender, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.
It was never just the study of Western civilization that these Marxist misfits thought “has got to go,” but Western civilization itself. As Ludwig von Mises wrote in his book, Socialism, all socialists have prioritized “destructionism,” first and foremost. Existing society must be completely destroyed so that they can start fresh and build their communist utopia. That is what is on display today with all the rioting, vandalism, arson, looting, censorship. It is all being done by a generation of Marxist hoodlums, many of whom were probably “educated” by members of the 1980s Stanford/Jesse Jackson mob and others like them from other “prestigious” universities.
The Grant statue was toppled because Ulysses S. Grant was a white male of European ancestry and there is nothing more evil on earth in the eyes of the so-called cultural Marxists. The same goes for the statues of abolitionists, priests, and others that have been targets of the Marxist mob.
Thanks a lot, American parents, for sending your kids to all of these “prestigious” universities over the past thirty years and paying no attention at all to what their minds were being filled with while there. Unless of course your mind was already filled with Marxist mush by the last generation of campus commies.
The above originally appeared at LRC.
Perhaps monument destruction is indiscriminate: someone painted FTP on a Stevie Ray Vaughan statue in Austin.
ReplyDeleteMost history was written by the victors and so must be read with a jaundiced eye, including the western civilization courses at Stanford pre-1980. I have no love for any of the government financed monuments scattered throughout the country. They should never have been built and their dismantlement would improve the view. Private monuments whether skyscrapers or statues should receive the protection that all private property interests are entitled to. Sorting out government monuments from private monuments can sometimes be difficult and sorting out motivations nearly impossible. It might be that people destroying monuments could just be tired of being coerced and are ready to strike at any symbol of authority. I am sure there are many who are as always trying to take advantage of this rage. But government is nothing more than a band of thieve and tearing down their monuments can't be all bad.
ReplyDeleteI can easily understand why people would want to pull down this or that statue for this or that reason. Most of these guys were assholes I'm sure. I think some people are playing dumb when they pretend otherwise.
ReplyDeleteBut...
The people cheering on the statue topplers are absolutely kidding themselves if they think this is going to stop with statues.