(I made this post on the reddit and felt pretty proud of it, I thought you guys would like it. I just copy pasted it in here, I had a bajillion links but was too lazy to relink every single one, I hope you guys don't mind)

In the last few months or so, iconoclasm seems to be all the rage. The movement to tear down statues has gone from removing statues of legitimately abhorrent people like Nathan Bedford Forrest to destroying and vandalizing any monument that is perceived as unPC (whether or not that perception is even true, I'll get into that later).

First of all, let's start with the obvious. Why are statues important? Because the past is important. We build statues to honor the actions and historical significance of people in the past. We erect monuments to the Founding Fathers, to brilliant military leaders, and to social activists and missionaries because they are important. Do we think these people were perfect? Obviously not. But their actions and significance overshadowed their flaws. That's why there is an enormous statue of Ghengis Khan, a mass murderer, in Mongolia. Nobody wants to take that down, because the greatness he achieved and the legacy he built is a part of Mongolian heritage. On that note, we also build statues because we are proud of our culture and our past. All people, and especially people in the west, have a right to be proud of their heritage. By simply ignoring and censoring the mistakes of our ancestors rather than having the confidence to accept them, we are doomed to repeat these same mistakes.

A few weeks ago I didn't care about this issue that much. But it has gone so far beyond what is healthy or acceptable. Recently rioters tore down a statue of the man who literally built the country that they live in. Did he own slaves? Yes, even though he didn't like it. But his legacy isn't slavery. His legacy is building arguably the greatest and undoubtedly the most powerful nation to ever exist. The rest of the Founding Fathers have faced similar defacement. Rioters have also taken down statues to a general who fought to end slavery and the man who wrote our National Anthem. Teddy Roosevelt, a well known progressive of his era who fought for the rights of all Americans saved America from monopolistic control of the economy is coming down as well. These are but a few of many examples.

And the iconoclasm in Britain is even more ridiculous. Vandals defaced the statue of Robert the Bruce of Scotland, who probably never even interacted with anyone who wasn't white because he lived in MEDIEVAL SCOTLAND. Winston Churchill, the guy who literally saved the world from Nazism, suffered a similar fate. Protesters vandalized a statue of Matthias Baldwin, an outspoken abolitionists, for... reasons? It's gotten to the point that Shaun King, a prominent activist, has now said we just have to take down all murals of a white Jesus, even if they're centuries old. All the stuff that was said to be conspiracy theories a few years ago are now coming true.

The stupidity of this whole thing is that, by this logic, nobody can honor any part of their history. So we don't honor slave owners? Many African nation were built on enslaving and brutalizing their own kind, and they still do it now. Native Americans owned slaves, and frequently committed genocide against each other. Literally every culture practiced slavery, genocide, and all other forms of atrocities. But it was the west that ended slavery, and actively worked to end it elsewhere as well. It was the west that wrote the Geneva Conventions to limit the brutality of warfare. I feel like the best way to end this post is with a quote from a movie. The context of the quote is Pontius Pilate (in the epic 1959 Ben-Hur) explaining to the main character the nature of Rome. "Where there is greatness, great government or power, even great feeling or compassion, error also is great. We progress and mature by fault." The west has accomplished so much. It has so much to be proud of, but also much to learn from. By rewriting the parts of history we don't like, we are refusing to learn from our past mistakes. We are also refusing to be proud of who we are. I didn't mean for this post to be so long, but this is something I feel passionate about. I am passionate about being proud of my history, and the legacy of my ancestors. But maybe I'm wrong. Please, feel free to give your opinions below. I look forward to your responses :)

TL;DR Most of the statues being torn down are of people worthy of respect, so tearing those statues down is dumb and counterproductive.