ISLAMIC STATE AND THE UTOPIA PROBLEM: DESTROYING THE PAST TO COMMAND THE FUTURE: At Fox News, Ralph Peters observes totalitarian zealots hard at work with airbrushes and warm glowing memory holes, at home and abroad:

For all of their profound differences, the Islamic State and the Left have one purpose in common: They want to wipe out history so they can write it anew to support their utopias, the perfected societies of their inhuman fantasies.

The Islamic State destroys wondrous monuments to prevent “pagan worship,” to purify Islam and restore the caliphate to a state of perfection it never possessed. Aiming at a less puritanical, if equally rule-bound utopia, the American Left has all but destroyed the teaching of history in our schools, scorning facts in favor of paternalistic condescension toward minorities.

Thus it’s not enough to take the reasonable step of removing the Confederate Battle Flag from state and local government properties. That flag must be driven from the marketplace, from all public spaces and, at last, from the personal space, since it might be “hurtful,” even if hung in a basement. It’s admirable to celebrate the Black Panthers, but not for a struggling working man to honor a Civil War ancestor. In this case, brothers and sisters, bigotry ain’t a monopoly.

Islamist State sledgehammers smash off the faces of classical-era statues. Our Left wants to remove Founding Fathers and others from our currency to replace them with minor figures that suit their agenda. Both actions are about mastering the past to control the future.

(Might I suggest a compromise on the currency issue? The Left can put anyone it wants on the 20-dollar bill, if our high-school textbooks can teach that the Democratic Party was the party of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow and segregation into the 1960s – and remains the party obstructing quality education in inner cities.)

In a classic essay, Tom Wolfe contrasted the left’s universal goal of “Starting From Zero” with “The Great Relearning” that must inevitably follow. But I’m starting to wonder if too much history and knowledge has been wiped out for the great relearning to ever occur.