Liberty Exposé: The Identity Theft of America
Tim Bradbury
“So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained.”—Robert E. Lee
This year has been chock-full of national distress. After months of quarantine, the frustrated American public anxiously anticipated the reopening of society and a return to normalcy—then the senseless killing of George Floyd left Americans sickened to the soul.
The outcry from the African American community was powerfully earnest, with their calls for justice leading to a dialogue about policing powers, race, and equal application of the law. The peaceful protests soon morphed into violent ones, with the voices and concerns of Black community becoming diluted as other political groups entered the fray. As rioting and looting ensued, the eyes of the mob turned towards historical monuments and statues, and they began desecrating figures from America’s past.
If you look at Twitter today, you’ll notice that anything and everything is on the brink of “cancellation.” Superstars, companies—there’s nothing off limits. The first monuments in the crosshairs for cancellation were statues of those who fought in the Civil War for the South. This would make sense if the only reason the Civil War was fought was to protect slavery—but that is not historically accurate. The reasons for the Civil War igniting were many and varied, and not everyone who fought for the South agreed with slavery—Robert E. Lee being among them. Fast forward to today, and the rioters have felled a memorial to Ulysses S. Grant—the man responsible for winning the Civil War. In Portland, they toppled a statue of President Washington. George Washington did have slaves, but his attitudes about slavery changed so much that he freed them in his will upon his death. This is a remarkable revelation and attitude shift for a man from Virginia—but over time he came to the inevitable conclusion that the principles of the American Revolution could not coexist with slavery.
Another statue vandalized? One of Polish-American patriot Tadeusz Kościuszko. A good friend of Thomas Jefferson, he abhorred slavery and after making Jefferson the executor to his will, he left all the money he had to buy the freedom of black slaves, Jefferson’s included. Jefferson said of him, “He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known.” The mob’s rage to destroy all things American history even led to the violation of a monument in Boston dedicated to the first African American regiment to fight for the Union in the Civil War.
Why am I explaining all this? Because history is complex, and without a nuanced understanding of who we were and where we came from, there can be no accurate understanding of who we are as a country now.
The story of the first African American regiment to fight for the Union in the Civil War—the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment—was captured in the film Glory starring Denzel Washington.
The mania to destroy any symbolic representation of America’s past stems from the Pulitzer Prize winning NY Times 1619 Project, a collection of articles that asserts the country was not founded on the principles of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution—but by virulent racism. The author perpetuates the notion that racism still lurks in the hearts of White Americans—and no political figure from America’s founding should be respected.
The viewpoint has been met with much criticism. The painting all of America’s past with such a broad brush is the very definition of intellectually dishonest. But America and its past are not to be given a fair hearing, it would seem. Mob rule has come, and they are determined to tar and feather not only the past—but everyone in the present who does not subscribe to this new ideology—no matter what their skin color.
For example, Bob Woodson, the founder and president of the Woodson Center, launched a non-partisan, Black-led response titled 1776 ; an initiative to “counter the 1619 Project and affirm America’s founding virtues and its promise of equality and opportunity for all.” In an interview with the Epoch Times, Woodson said, “People are using the tragic killing of George Floyd at the hands of police to justify a full-scale assault on the fundamental values of America.” He objects to the idea perpetuated by the project, that “out of slavery—and the anti-black racism required—grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional.” He goes on to say that the “mantra of institutional racism has morphed into an orthodoxy like communism.”
Economist and conservative intellectual Thomas Sowell famously said, “Emotions neither prove nor disprove facts. There was a time when any rational adult understood this. But years of dumbed-down education and emphasis on how people “feel” have left too many people unable to see through this media gimmick.” This quote seems timeless in a age when many let emotions supersede historical fact. Of course, this is not a call to gloss over America’s past injustices or put a rosy spin on history where there has been true moral error, but to counter with the notion that the unfiltered history of America’s past—all of it—is worth knowing.
In my opinion, the vilification and censorship of American history is a genius strategy by the Left. If you demonize all of America’s history; if it is told through the lense of all of its worst failures and none of its historic triumphs—censorship will gladly be accepted by young intellectuals whose inclinations and desires for justice is a beautiful thing. It is the ultimate manipulation, and those of us who know the hard won lessons of the past must fight to keep them, or—as the saying goes—we will be doomed to repeat it.
If people wish to vote democratically to take down statues—if it be the will of the people—let it be so! It is one thing to have a passionate discussion about politics and history— but to bow to an intellectual (and literal) mob is unAmerican.
