Yahoo recently published an editorial calling for cancellation of the Star Spangled Banner. According to various activists, the current National Anthem is deeply problematic. The problem isn’t so much the song itself, or the lyrics, but the guy who wrote it. Francis Scott Key, who penned it after seeing British warships bombard Fort McHenry in Baltimore, was a slaveowner and a racist.
Key was also born 250 years ago, at a time when virtually everyone was racist by our standards, and relatively few people had any serious problem with slavery. But he should have known better than to be born in the 18th century. At bottom, that is the real crime committed by many of the historical figures being posthumously canceled by the mob today. They all were born in a time when people were less racially enlightened than we are. That’s their fault, apparently. They should have chosen a more virtuous century to be born in.
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