In regards to the revisionist history and statues, some of you are close but I think you're missing a key insight.

These statues aren't being torn down just cause and I disagree that we need to determine based on the "why" they were put up in keeping them or not. History is written by the victors. It is not "revisionist history" to go back and look at the facts of that. The revisionist history was already put in place. It's now a correcting of inaccurate history. We are undergoing unrevisionist history if you will.

As for the "why"... the question should not be about why they were put up. The question should be about is that "why" even correct. Was this person who we celebrate him as?

Let's take for example, a man i believe to be unjustly revered as one the great men in history. A man who was such a oligarch-serving politician, that it would make Donald Trump jealous. A man who is so revered for some of the most do nothing bullshit in American history. Obviously I'm talking about Abraham Lincoln.

Now I know at least half of you have already moved on assuming this to be bullshit, so for the half that are now morbidly curious how I'm going to vilify Dishonest Abe, just know that I'm going to say that a lot of what you have heard about the War of Northern Aggression is right. It's a bold-faced revisionist history lie to believe that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Before I even bring up the other reasons why that's untrue, just take it at face value. The South seceded. They didn't want to play by the North's rules. The North decides to attack them in the name of freeing slaves? Lmao. Sounds like the world police. No, the North attacked over resources. Cotton, in particular. The South was rich in resources. Mind you the original argument was over not allowing slavery to expand to new states. There was dissent among the people up north that slavery was wrong, but had it not been for the rich resources the South possessed, the two separate countries would have coexisted alongside each other and instead fought over the west.

As for what he did for stopping slavery, he did jack all. The emancipation proclamation freed slaves in a country he did not control. The most celebrated do-nothing politics ever. And then after winning the war, he didn't even help see through to the goal of abolishing slavery in total. The 13th amendment is a fluff feel-good amendment that allowed for the ugliest still abused workaround today. The 13th amendment allows for slavery for those imprisoned.

For those who need to understand what that means, the true history of police was to imprison and legally force into slavery the black man. It was a sick and awful compromise that a man with no foresight and terrible ability to lead allowed happen. It's crazy how long men were imprisoned and contracted out as labor. Lasted until WW2 in some states. Now we just have for-profit prisons and such that rely on forcing non-violent offenders into slavery. It's crazy how quick we pivoted from the civil rights movement era to allow blacks the same protections under the law as whites and not be forced into slavery for eating where the white man eats to the War on Drugs. Ronald Reagan's worst moves as presidency are often thought of as how he let the market crash in regards to oil and how he let the housing bubble begin (that W was blamed for because it finally popped under his watch). However, I posit that the War on Drugs is his worst as it was a truly malevolent endeavor. He was acting out of pure evil and there is really no disputing it.

Throughout history labor has long been a valuable resource. Cheap / Free labor is a priceless commodity. Reagan's policies allowed for a way to increase incarceration and pump that slave labor up. The crack epidemic made it easy to vilify black people again and who cares right? Just black people being slaves for non violent offenses. It's only now that we see how many white people really do use marijuana and opioids that we think it may be a problem and that the war on drugs is bad. God just typing the name out so much sounds so stupid. We have somehow made "Drug" a bad thing. Just... wow. All in the name of making blacks slaves again. Whoops I mean making america great again.

To bring this full circle, I agree that there are some merits to celebrate what the founding fathers did and how forward thinking they were. Totally totally totally agree. And with that I say that we should examine abe in this same light and recognize how non-forward thinking he was. I feel that we can all agree then that this defense does not work specifically for him. So what other defense do we have for keeping him up? Why he symbolizes the freeing of black people. Not exactly. He symbolizes a moment where society gave some rights to blacks but not really all that much. He is a monument to the white man for doing something nowhere near good enough for the black man. He is a reminder that doing less than the bare minimum can get you revered as one of the greatest politicians of all time. Abe symbolizes everything wrong with politics: do nothing bills, serving business interests over people interests, bare minimum care for the people, and worst of all: poor foresight into lawmaking and allowing for future abuse. There is no case to keep his statue up, and we should review every monument in the same harsh vein to see the true scrutiny of the opposition. You can have discourse about why he should stay up (and I welcome you to try; there should be discourse for all of these in this manner and we should examine the validity of the why that they were put up). I'm here to listen and learn, but I am confident in two things. That my argument is rock solid and that 95% of you have already stopped reading and typed out your rage response or ignored me.