UPDATE: The story linked below was originally published 2 years ago. We regret and apologize for the error.
On Tuesday, with respect to tearing down Confederate monuments, President Trump bravely stood before the world and asked, “Where does it end?” The media responded by ridiculing the notion that such a thing could get out of hand. And now we have vigilante protesters starting to dig up the remains of Confederate Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest:
A group of protesters who want the body of an alleged Ku Klux Klan leader removed from their city have broken the soil over the grave.
The campaigners claim it has taken officials in Memphis, Tennessee, too long to exhume Nathan Bedford Forrest — who was a lieutenant general in the Confederate States Army. …
Members of the protest group, who call themselves the Commission on Religion and Racism, removed only a small patch of grass from the park, but threatened to return with heavy machinery to tear down the wartime symbol.
A few things …
1) Grave desecration is never-ever okay, no matter who it is. This act is especially noxious when the democratic gears are already turning to remove this particular monument — though there is no guarantee that will happen.
2) While there is evidence that Forrest was an early member of the Klan, there is also evidence that he was not a founder or leader (documents appear to prove he was not in the area that year).
3) A congressional investigation into the KKK at the time concluded that Forrest was actually responsible for the dissolution of the KKK: “The natural tendency of all such organizations is to violence and crime; hence it was that General Forrest and other men of influence in the state, by the exercise of their moral power, induced them to disband.”
4) In his final public appearance, just a decade after the end of the Civil War, Forrest spoke eloquently about race relations, and some might say redeemed himself:
Ladies and Gentlemen I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for if there is any one on God’s earth who loves the ladies I believe it is myself. This day is a day that is proud to me, having occupied the position that I did for the past twelve years, and been misunderstood by your race. This is the first opportunity I have had during that time to say that I am your friend. I am here a representative of the southern people, one more slandered and maligned than any man in the nation.
I will say to you and to the colored race that men who bore arms and followed the flag of the Confederacy are, with very few exceptions, your friends. I have an opportunity of saying what I have always felt – that I am your friend, for my interests are your interests, and your interests are my interests. We were born on the same soil, breathe the same air, and live in the same land. Why, then, can we not live as brothers?
I will say that when the war broke out I felt it my duty to stand by my people. When the time came I did the best I could, and I don’t believe I flickered. I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe that I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to bring about peace. It has always been my motto to elevate every man- to depress none. (Applause.) I want to elevate you to take positions in law offices, in stores, on farms, and wherever you are capable of going.
Why is it that we forgive Robert Byrd, a Democrat Senator who was a grand wizard in the KKK, but not a Nathan Bedford Forrest?
Why is it that Byrd has dozens of monuments in his name throughout West Virginia, monuments no one on the Left or in the media has any problem with (and shouldn’t), but Forrest is not allowed to be seen as a similarly redemptive figure?
We all know the answer.
Byrd was a modern-day Democrat, someone who voted in the way the media demands, someone who supported Obamacare and overall government largesse.
And then there is this little fact …
Byrd’s sins were all immediately forgiven even though his redemption took place at a time when no moral courage was required to repent, at a time when the only consequence of that repentance was the attainment of personal political power.
Contrast that with Forrest’s public redemption, expressed during a time when there was no political upside, when such a thing could see a white man hanged as a “n***er lover.”
And therein lies the problem with the Taliban-left (and their cowardly defenders on the Right) who seek to erase history through the destruction of statues and monuments. There is no thought or forgiveness in their maniacal actions, no sense of history or humanity, no intellectual bedrock. Only blind self-righteousness driven by hate.
Trump asked where does it end.
The answer is that it will never end.
The goal is quite obviously Mao’s Year Zero.
And after the media and their Social Justice Warriors are done with the dead, they will come after the living.
In fact, they have already said so under the imprimatur of the Washington Post.