Part One is here.

Perhaps the scariest capitulation to the Confederate statue hysteria is Amy Alkon, the usually astute and level-headed blogger, advice columnist and political correctness foe (her book is called “Good Manners For People Who Sometimes Say Fuck“). I often quote her and cite her blog, which in some ways is similar to Ethics Alarms.  Tragically, this issue has both lobotomized and hypocritized her:

Not “Foolish” To Remove Confederate Statues From Public Squares — It’s What We Do To Be Decent Human Beings And Fellow Americans To Black Americans

That “so foolish” remark is how the President put it — and, as usual — as John McWhorter pointed out on CNN, it comes from an impulse appropriate to a 12-year-old boy.

There’s the argument some are dragging out that Jefferson owned slaves (so shouldn’t we yank his statues and pictures, too?). I’m disgusted by that; however, it’s a side note to what he was to this country — to all he gave to this country. So, no, I’m not for going around the country and doing searching background checks on all the subjects of monuments and pulling them down.

Having monuments to confederate leaders in public squares, however, is like naming a school “Hitler Junior High.”

It’s a horrible slap in the face to black citizens and it makes me sadder than any of the stuff that we’ve seen in the news lately.

Yes, disgustingly, people are actually fighting to have monuments up that glorify people who believed blacks to be inferior and fought to the death to protect that view and the shameful capture and enslavement of other human beings that went with it….

What? What hysterical, historically ignorant social justice warrior has a cocked gun at Amy’s head, making her type crap like this? Let’s see:

1. It is foolish…short sighted, destructive, presentist, hysterical, knee-jerk—to remove “Confederate statues” by which Suddenly Stupid Amy really means “Individuals who at some point in their career performed bravely or ingeniously in the Confederate army, or on the side the Confederacy.” Are monuments to President John Tyler, who served in the Confederate cabinet, Confederate monuments? Tyler is the one who decided that the Vice President should become President, not just acting-President, when a President dies in office. I’ve visited his home in Virginia; we honor him on President’s Day.

If Tyler hadn’t made his stand for the continuity of government, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the masterful liberal Democrat who moved heaven and earth to pass the Civil Rights Act, would almost surely never have been President at all. Every American should raise their eyes heavenward in thanks to Tyler’s statues and monuments, especially African Americans. Were his honors raised to emphasize Jim Crow? Hardly. Jefferson Davis was a distinguished statesman based on his public service before the civil war, just as Pete Rose was a record-setting baseball player before he got himself thrown out of baseball for gambling. Pete’s statue is justified for his on-field achievements, just as Davis’s honors can be justified by his that had nothing to do with the Confederacy.

2.The President’s words are typical of a twelve-year old. Those criticizing him for properly standing up for his nation’s historical record, complex human beings and major figures in our history who are not just good or bad but an amalgam of influences, upbringing, the times and regions in which they lived and the circumstances under which they made crucial choices, and for seeing immediately the perils of forced cultural amnesia may be more articulate—it isn’t hard—but have failed a test of citizenship that he has passed with flying colors.

3. The fact that Thomas Jefferson was not only a slaveholder but one who repeatedly raped a slave who did not have the power to say “no” while he was extolling her “inalienable rights” is no “side issue.” How breezily Alkon, a fierce feminist, abandons her values so she can oppose Donald Trump!

Yechh.

Alkon is taking the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in her teeth. “We must pull down the statues and memorials of supporters of slavery because they are insults to African Americans, but Jefferson isn’t really a supporter of slavery.” No, he was also a moral coward, a liar, a thief, and perhaps the biggest hypocrite in American history.  Forced to choose, I’ll take Robert E. Lee over Jefferson for character every time. However, Tom wrote our mission statement as a nation, defined our values in his words (though not his conduct), and managed to pull off the Louisiana Purchase.

Those achievements are worth every honor we have given him. The thesis behind the statue assault, however, is that only the bad stuff recognized in hindsight matters. Amy’s rebuttal to those who rightly recognize the unethical nature of that assertion consists of shouting “That’s ridiculous!” She doesn’t have a legitimate rebuttal. There isn’t one.

4. “I’m not for going around the country and doing searching background checks on all the subjects of monuments and pulling them down.” Alkon is usually a writer who eviscerates blatant dodges like that. Nobody’s complaining that you are going to do that, Amy. They know that sufficient numbers of the zealots doing what you are defending will.

5. Hey Amy! Did you know that George Washington pulled out a slave’s teeth and used them to make false teeth for himself? Isn’t it a horrific insult to make black citizens today look at his monument, live in a city named after him, or a nation with a capital that honors him?

6. Alkon’s initial statement—that tearing down the statutes of significant participants in the Confederacy is “what we do to be decent human beings and fellow Americans to black Americans” —is a complete contradiction of everything she has written. For example, last year, she quoted with favor Kira Barrett writing for the Smithsophian, the Smith College newspaper,

I learned, along with every other student, to walk on eggshells for fear that I may say something “offensive.” That is the social norm here. But to be offended by something is not a rational argument. To paraphrase British writer and actor Stephen Fry, being offended does not give a person certain rights or put them on a higher moral ground. It is nothing more than a complaint. Once we are armed with the response “I am offended by that,” there is no limit to how far that phrase can take us. One could be offended by nearly anything.

Alkon added,

This is the height of babyish stupidity; it is emotionally and intellectually unhealthy…After I turned, oh, 6, I stopped needing to have everybody agree with me to feel okay being in their presence. In fact, dissent makes us better, same as sand in a tumbler polishes a rock but throwing a sponge at it a couple of times just leaves a wet mess on the floor in front of it.

Yet apparently African-Americans are exempt from her standard that mature people in a democracy need not be protected from ideas, opinions, images and memories that they may find “offensive.” How does she justify this reversal of position? I don’t know. It would seem that she feels African-Americans have the unique status in the U.S. in which their sensitivities matter more than those of the rest of us, and must be assuaged no matter what the cost.

What is political correctness, other than the demand that Americans must show “respect” to groups and individuals who are offended by something by hiding, censoring, burying, destroying or condemning that something whether the offense is reasonable or proportionate or not? Why is it uniquely mandatory to remove what African-Americans have a negative emotional reaction toward?  Veterans are offended and angry at Jane Fonda; why isn’t banning Jane Fonda movies “what we do to be decent human beings and fellow Americans to our brave veterans who have sacrificed so much”?  The owner of Chick-Fil-A opposed gay marriage; why isn’t kicking the chain out of  New York and Boston and Chicago—as the mayors of those cities suggested—“what we do to be decent human beings and fellow Americans to gay Americans”?  And isn’t driving Rush Limbaugh off the airwaves “what we do to be decent human beings and fellow Americans to offended feminists”? Shouldn’t we use “xe” and “frbxz” or whatever the new pronouns being rammed down college students’ metaphorical throats are because that’s “what we do to be decent human beings and fellow Americans to tans and non-binery Americans”?  What’s the difference, Amy? What’s the difference?

You are a terrible disappointment, Amy. With fascism of the Left and hostility to free speech mounting a siege against pluralistic society, dissent, and democracy itself, you, a self-proclaimed champion of unpopular words and opinions, signaled that you will submit to the commands of your chosen opposition.

It seems clear  that you have done this because you are so disgusted by Donald Trump that you can not muster the integrity to agree that on this issue he is correct. The United States should not  re-write history and exile important figures of the past because interest groups sanctified by the Left demand it. (This isn’t really what’s happening, but this is your rationalization.) Of course they shouldn’t. That however, is what the thought, speech and history bullies are attempting to do in order to bolster their plan for ideological  indoctrination, intimidation and domination.

I assumed, based on your courageous and well-argued essays that often buck progressive conventional wisdom, that you had the fortitude and integrity to hold to your principles, even when it meant having to momentarily take the same “side” as those whose values you detest. You couldn’t do it. You flunked the test.