President Trump was absolutely right to condemn alt-left radicals who tore down a Civil War soldier’s memorial while “police stood idly by,” Tucker Carlson argued on his Fox News show on Tuesday evening.
Trump’s quip — “which statues are next? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson?” — was not a joke, said Tucker. “Suddenly it’s a serious question.”
Thomas Jefferson indisputably was a great man. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence. Founder of the University of Virginia and maybe, most importantly, the greatest thinker in American political history.
All of us live in his shadow. Unfortunately, however, Jefferson was also a slave holder.
But to the fanatics on the left it means that Jefferson must be purged from public memory forever. The demands are already coming that we do that.
In 2015, the students at the University of Missouri demanded the removal of a Jefferson statue. Two years ago, on CNN, anchor Ashleigh Banfield suggested the Jefferson Memorial in Washington might have to go. Needless to say there is literally no limit when you start thinking like this.
Last year, hundreds of activists in New York demanded the statue of Theodore Roosevelt at the American National History Museum be dismantled. They argued that Roosevelt was a racist.
That’s the standard. Nobody is safe.
Watch out Abraham Lincoln. You’re next.
Now, to be clear, as if it’s necessary, slavery is evil. If you believe in the rights of the individual, it’s actually hard to think of anything worse than slavery.
But let’s be honest. Up until 150 years ago when a group of brave Americans fought and died to finally put an end to it, slavery was the rule, rather than the exception around the world. And had been for thousands of years, sadly.
Tucker pointed out that Plato, Mohammed, many African tribes, the Aztecs, Simon Bolivar, North American Indians, and Christopher Columbus all owned slaves.
“None of this is a defense of the atrocity of human bondage,” he noted. “It is an atrocity.”
He continued, “If we are going to judge the past by the standards of the present. If we are going to reduce a person’s life to the single worst thing he ever participated in, we had better be prepared for the consequences of that.”
Carlson summed up by saying that there is an important debate going on in the country right now “about American institutions and whether they are worth preserving.”
He argued that the radicals on the left want to tear down American principles such as:
Equality under the law
Protections for the individual against the mob.
The absolute right to say and believe anything you choose.
“Those will be gone. Replaced by something darker and more rigidly conformist,” Carson warned. “Is that a country you want to live in?”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member