A group of uninformed blacks and white liberals are meeting to decide what to do about the “offensive” symbols of the Civil War in Atlanta such as “Confederate Avenue.” If they are really serious about removing ALL of our historic monuments which relate to that war they are going to have to burn down the entire city of Atlanta. There is no more prominent symbol of that conflict than the city itself. It was completely burned to the ground by General William T.. Sherman’s 60,000 troops who destroyed Atlanta with fire on 2 Sept. 1864. This was to set a precedent for future behavior by his armies. General Sherman, an evil person if there ever was one, believed in punishing the south, and Georgia in particular by his “scorched earth” policy. His army was instructed to destroy everything in this state from Brass Town Ball to Tybee Island. He did a good job of it. Not much was left standing anywhere. People starved to death.
Do these symbol destroyers know anything about history? Probably not, because the truth is not taught in schools anymore or it is taught that Abraham Lincoln wished to destroy the abomination of slavery by waging war on the Confederate States. Do they actually believe that those young boys in the rag-tag Confederate Army owned any slaves? That is nonsense. Are they aware that the “Emancipation Proclamation,” which outlawed slavery, was not issued by Lincoln until the Civil War was in its second year? The Civil War was fought because Lincoln wanted to preserve the Union (and win re-election). Young boys in the south fought because 11 southern states didn’t want to be “United” and somebody in Washington was sending people with guns into their states and shooting at them.
There is, or used to be, traditions in our country. And there is definitely history and destroying relics of the Civil War isn’t going to change that. Life is a continuum which runs from the Laws on one end, which one must follow or go to jail, and at the other extreme end there is complete freedom to do as you please. And in between those two are where tradition comes in. It is the area where you just know instinctively what is right and what is wrong. It’s ingrained in one from living in a free nation like ours. And we “just know” that it is right to honor the flag and the national anthem and we “just know” that it is simply wrong to try to rewrite history by destroying remembrances of things which have occurred in our country’s past.
Is it really going to make life better in Atlanta to change the name of “Confederate Avenue?” Come on, people. Get real. We have some serious problems in this country. There is corruption at every level of government from our state house to D.C. And changing street names is way down on the list of “problems” that we should be devoting our energies toward solving.
