Nolte: First the Woke Taliban Came for the Confederate Statues…

It’s not about saving Confederate statues. It’s about the rule of law… It’s about what comes next…

Local communities should be allowed to erect or remove whatever statues, monuments, and street names they like. If the citizens of Seattle wants to allow a statue of Vladimir Lenin in their community (and they do),  a monument to a cold-blooded murderer and Hitler-like antisemite and tyrant, so be it. What the hell do I care?

If some southern town or city wants to erect a statue of Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis or Stonewall Jackson, what the hell do I care?

And if, someday, Seattle or that southern town or city decides to removes those statues —  again, what the hell do I care?

Other than the sense of history, I feel no affinity towards the Confederacy. A few decades ago, when the left claimed the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery (this is when the left’s agenda was to deny white Americans fought a war to free the slaves), I was arguing that was ridiculous. Granted, not everyone who fought for the Confederacy fought to protect the abomination of slavery (including Robert E. Lee).

In fact, many who fought for the Confederacy opposed slavery (including Robert E. Lee). But of course the war was fought over slavery. And although the left currently agrees with me on that issue, it only does as a means to justify its rationale to Taliban these statues.

Same with the Confederate flag. If it was up for a vote, I would have voted to remove the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s capitol, and I was glad when then-Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) removed it in 2015. It made no sense to me to fly that flag in the present tense at a state capitol, and an elected official like Haley removing it, someone with the legal power to do so, someone accountable to the voters, means it was removed in the right way.

At the same time, I know the Confederate flag doesn’t mean “bring back slavery” to those who fly it. It means freedom from centralized authority, it means live and let live… I live in the South where I’ve seen more than one black person sporting the Stars and Bars… Hey, is this a great country, or what?

Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant were great men and great Americans. Abraham Lincoln might be the greatest American (Jefferson Davis was a feckless, self-aggrandizing putz). Rev. Martin Luther King is a hero of mine, but so is Malcolm X, and so is Thomas Jefferson. What can I say? People are complicated. But all these men had one thing in common… They believed in freedom, and they fought for freedom, and while I never would have joined the Confederacy or the Nation of Islam, I’m also not a baby about this stuff.

Speaking of babies…

There is a valid and legal process by which to have an offending statue removed. And I respect anyone who goes about that process. Regardless of my personal belief, the law is the law is the law…The principle of the rule of law and the equal application of that rule is much more important to me than my personal opinion of a statue or cause.

But we are so far beyond the law now… We’re at a place where Democrats, along with the corporate media, academia, and even some historians, are championing gangsters and howling mobs tearing down and desecrating statues and monuments.

That’s what I oppose, that’s what sickens me, and I would oppose it if mobs targeted Seattle’s repulsive Lenin statue.

The very institutions that should be standing up for the rule of law — Democrats, the corporate media, academia, and historians — are applauding and excusing mob rule, vandalism, property damage,  and violence.

Those of us who oppose this appalling behavior, not just on the grounds of criminality, but who believe we should not hide our warts-and-all history, who understand that some of these Confederate monuments were erected with the best of intentions — to heal our country, to bring reconciliation between North and South, a process began by Lincoln when he announced the end of the war and asked the band to play Dixie —  are attacked as racists defending racists. And it is this argument that tells you what the Woke Taliban intend to next tear down… Which is another reason to oppose this lawlessness, even if you want Confederate statues to come down…

Because “racism” is the rationale of the Woke Taliban’s lawlessness and those who applaud and defend them, then nothing is safe from this lawlessness. Any monument to our Founding Fathers is eventually doomed to these mobs and vandals (this has already begun), and then they will come for the Christian Church — a Church the media and left have spent decades smearing as racist and homophobic.

And then what? What comes down next?

It’s no secret what’s next…

The answers are here and here.

This post have been updated for clarity. 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.