There is endless hullabaloo about removing statues of Confederate generals in public parks in the south.
The reason there is a hullabaloo is simple: there is really no skin in the game. (Sorry; I could not resist.)
These were major symbolic issues immediately after the Civil War. People in the South wanted to justify the rebellion. People in the North resented the rebellion. So, people in the South got statues of Confederate generals placed in public parks. This was a way to defy the Yankees. The Yankees shrugged their shoulders because they accurately understood that there was no constitutional issue involved. These were not federal parks. They ignored the statues.
By 1900, nobody objected politically to any of this. Blacks were not in a political position to object.
I don't see any massive movement of blacks in favor of removing the statues. Maybe it's there, but it certainly is invisible politically. Anyway, it has been until recently. Most of the hullabaloo is made by white liberals. Then the white liberals are fought by dropouts of the public schools who have some vague understanding that the Civil War was about state's rights. They don't understand all of this. They don't really care about all this. They just don't like white liberals. I am certainly in agreement with them on that.
My view is clear: putting generals at the heart of any movement from an historical view is elevating people who should not be elevated. I wouldn't have the statue of a general in any public park in America.
I also wouldn't have any public parks in America.
What is the case for a public park? Why shouldn't the land be sold off to the highest bidder? If somebody who owns a park wants to put a statue in the park, that's his business. It's not my business. It's not the public's business, unless the public is the owner of the park. Then it becomes a political issue.
Here is my slogan: "If you want to get politics out of the parks, get the parks out of politics."
Everybody wants to control the public schools. Everybody wants to control public parks. Everybody wants to control coercion. Everybody wants to hold the gun and wear the badge.
My suggestion is simple: sell the parks to the highest bidders. Get politics out of the parks by getting the parks out of politics. It really is simple.
Of course, simplicity is not what people want. Government coercion is what people want. They want to be able to tell other people how to spend their money. They want to benefit their special-interest group at the expense of the general public.
I am in favor of getting the statues of Confederate generals out of public parks. If there were a lot of statues of Northern generals in Northern public parks, I would favor the same thing. Except for Ulysses Grant, nobody in the North remembers the names of any Northern generals. Yes, there was general Custer, but he is only known as Col. Custer because of his strategic stupidity in 1876. He got his rank reduced after the war, as did most of the generals. The only name of any northern general that anybody remembers is "Hooker," because that's where hookers got their name. He was not a strong family man. He was defeated at Chancellorsville by a pair of strong family men: Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.
Southern generals have statues in parks because the South lost the war. They are symbols of the supposedly grand old cause. America loves to have textbook stories of various grand old causes, which were quite simply a series of arguments about who was going to steal the public's money and spend it. That's what political rebellions are all about. That's what civil wars are all about. That's what empires are all about. Everybody wants his special-interest group to have the exclusive right to decide who wears the badges and who wears the guns. That's what civil government is all about. That's why it ought to be kept small. Small civil governments reduce the incentive to risk your life in order to get your hands on badges and guns.
The problem is this: in order to get your hands on the badges and guns, you have to create new badges and invade the other guy's territory with your guns.
Southern generals led about 400,000 young men to their deaths in a vain attempt to defend slavery. That's the bottom line. Textbooks have it right. The South seceded on one basis alone: the defense of chattel slavery. That was not why Lincoln invaded, but that's why South Carolina seceded. The rest of the South followed South Carolina's lead. South Carolina had threatened to secede under the presidency of Andrew Jackson, and Jackson would have put down the rebellion by military invasion. He said so, and he would have done it. Congress authorized him to do it in March 1833. South Carolina wisely backed down. The issue in 1832 was the tariff. The issue in 1860 was chattel slavery. In 1860 they decided to remove themselves from the jurisdiction of the United States government. The reason they gave was the defense of slavery. That brought on the Civil War.
The Confederacy started the tradition of drafting men into military service in April 1862. The Union imitated the Confederacy in March 1863. The South exempted all sons of men who owned at least 20 slaves. The North let men buy their way out of conscription for $300. In other words, the rich did not have to fight on either side of the Mason-Dixon line. It was a sweetheart deal for the rich. As troops in the South said, "Rich man's war. Poor man's fight."
Gov. Joe Brown of Georgia fought conscription through the whole war. He recognized clearly the conscription was a violation of the principle on which the Confederacy supposedly was based: state's rights. Centralization always comes with revolutions. The Civil War was a revolution. It centralized power in the South.
The free market's answer to the ideological battle over the statues of Southern generals is easily applied by means of a libertarian at a Christian principle: private ownership. Sell the statues. Sell the parks. That will stop the violence.
The KKK does not have the money to buy any parks. Neither do most of the protesters against the removal of the statues. There would probably be buyers of the statues, if only as investors. The KKK's members are not going to put up money to buy a ticket to visit a private park. These are poor whites with poor educations and poor prospects. All they can do is make noise. Take away their public forums, and they will disappear once again in the shadows.
Just put a price tag on visiting the statues of Confederate generals. Do that, and you will see how little anybody in the South cares, one way or the other.
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