CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS: Stay or Go...

Another subject that I feel needs some clarification because it is so divisive among us is the issue of Confederate Monuments, why they were erected and why some people say they should be taken down.

One of the arguments against taking them down is that these statues are part of history and should be left alone. As a history lover and lifelong student of history, I am all for preserving history but this is not the issue here.

I was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi in the 60s. I grew to admire the South and its people and its way of life. As a young, Catholic Polish-American boy from the city of Detroit, I was introduced to a part of America I did not know; I learned a lot and have fond memories of my time there.

But history is history and we cannot white wash it or re-write it or sanitize it; it is what it was.

The Civil War was a terrible and costly war. Many books have been written about it and I have read many of them as a college student studying American history. Many factors led up to the war but the true goals of the Confederacy as stated by its vice president Alexander Stephens, were all about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

So why did the people who lost the war put up monuments to defeated military leaders and to a defeated cause after the war.

These statues were put up after the war to show Americans and especially African-Americans that the South was still in business; racist as ever and that nothing has really changed; the Jim Crow era had begun.

Racism, of course, was not limited to the South as we all know but in the South, in those years, it was entrenched as part of normal life.

The monuments belong to the “old” South of history and served as warnings. The “new” South is of course much different but the monuments, remnants of the old South, serve as constant reminders of the history of those days; the lynching, the burning, the beating, the murder and general suppression of countless human beings.

I just read about the opening of a National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. It is the first monument to the 4,400 black lynching victims living in the South during 80 years of terror.

Yes this too is history; a history just starting to be told and remembered which needs to happen for reconciliation in America to occur.

So if people like the mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu decided to take down Confederate monuments as a show of reconciliation, I cannot object knowing what I know.

THE 2ND AMENDMENT; let's cut the bullshit!

Recently, in the face of more frequent mass shootings and especially school shootings, people are once again screaming at each other. On the one hand, we have adults and students demanding stricter gun control measures which they feel will help prevent or at least slow down mass shooting incidents. On the other hand, we have adults that view ANY gun control measures as denying them their 2^nd Amendment right to own any gun or rifle they want.

As someone who is a history junkie and who values historical FACTS in a country where currently “fake facts” seem all the rage, I would like to explain to those who still believe in truth and would like to be on the side of truth, the truth about the 2^nd Amendment.

I would like to preface my argument by saying that I am not discussing whether individuals in this country can or cannot own guns or weapons or should have the right to do so. I am merely addressing the issue of the 2^nd Amendment to our Constitution and how it is being used as a Constitutional guarantee of the right to own a gun.

The 2^nd Amendment to our Constitution reads:

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

That seemingly simple, single sentence has been interpreted for 218 years as authorizing states to form militias, what we now call the National Guard. I say “single” sentence because most people do not quote the WHOLE sentence when using the Amendment to defend their “right” to “keep and bear arms”; they only use the words they feel are relevant to their argument which is obviously taking the amendment out of context.

Many conservative judges consider themselves as “originalists” or “strict constructionists” when it comes to reading and interpreting our Constitution. This means that they try to understand the “original” intent of the authors of the Constitution instead of interpreting the Constitution as it applies to current conditions in the country.

In 1792, the thirteen (13) states or colonies ratified the first ten (10) amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These amendments were deemed necessary by the people to help insure their rights since the people did not fully trust a strong central government at that time.

The original thirteen (13) colonies or states all had state militias composed of every white male between the ages of 16 and 60 living in the state. These men in the state militia were “required” to own a military weapon and to bring it with them when “called up” by the state governor or other state authority, to defend the state and its people.

Just to be clear, ALL men of specified age, living in the state were enrolled in the state militia and under penalty, had to possess a military type weapon and ammunition.

As the Constitution of the United States was establishing a strong CENTRAL / FEDERAL government, the states worried that the central government may at some point want to disarm a state militia and thus the 2^nd Amendment came to be which gives each state the right to have a “well regulated” militia.

The original intent of the authors of the amendment is abundantly clear and has been abundantly clear for over 200 years so what happened?

Well a number of things happened including the NRA (National Rifle Association) and Justice Antonin Scalia; the self-described Constitutional originalist.

The NRA was created by a group of militia and army veterans in 1871. The purpose of the group was to train American men how to shoot safely and accurately. The organization grew through the years and catered mostly to hunters. It did not object to any gun regulations that were enacted throughout the years.

This all started changing in 1977 with the “Revolt in Cincinnati” when Right Wing activists took over the organization and made it into what it is today.

The NRA began to sponsor attempts, including pseudo scholarship, to convince the nation that the 2nd Amendment did indeed guarantee an individual’s right to bear arms even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it did no such thing.

During those years, Chief Justice Warren Burger of the US Supreme Court (1969-1986) was quoted as saying that the NRA is perpetrating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

In 2008, Judge Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court, ended hundreds of years of judicial precedent by inventing a false reading of the 2^nd Amendment in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. Scalia simply re-wrote the amendment by ignoring the first, important half of the sentence and this from an ardent “originalist”.

Scalia, a dedicated hunter, chose to re-write history and make up his own “facts” to suite what he wanted to be true but was not true. Obviously he did then what our president does on a regular basis.

Judge John Paul Stevens who wrote in opposition to the Scalia argument in 2008 has now, as a retired Supreme Court judge age 98, urged the country to “repeal” the 2^nd Amendment and end this insanity. Repeal an amendment that has no standing in today’s world but died many years ago.

If Americans want the right to bear arms, they should tell Congress to pass laws giving them that right. They should not rely on a blatant misreading of the 2^nd Amendment that makes us all look like idiots for allowing this lie to stand.

Recommended reading: THE SECOND AMENDMENT; A BIOGRAPHY by Michael Waldman.