Confederate Monuments

Recently there has been a attack on monuments dedicated to Confederate soldiers and Generals. Recently in New Orleans the mayor Mitch Landrieu has broken the city of New Orleans by removing monuments of US Veterans. Yes, they fought in the Confederacy but they were Americans before, during and after the Civil War. Landrieu, is a form of what the Nazis, what ISIS has done around the world. Instead of taking down these monuments of our country's history, we should learn from them, so the same mistakes aren't repeated. Landrieu has used the following to break the law. Tax payers money for monument removal NOFD and NOPD personnel for the removal and destruction of the monuments  Lied in front of a judge, stating that once the monuments were removed, they would be placed in a safe, secure and enclosed city warehouse. The Beauregard statue and parts of the Jeff Davis monument are outside next to a garbage pile.    This is how we treat our history? We erase it and throw it away like trash.    I am calling for a look into the corruption of Mitch, the NOPD and NOFD. The return or proper/suitable relocation of the monuments that have already been taking down and a bill that states NO military monument can be moved, regardless of a small group's feelings towards it. You 3 say you are for America and the American people. Well the American people want our history protected. We want it respected and we want DC to work for us. Your voters, supporters and everyone else who loves our country, our country's rich history to do this for us.  Personally, I had 14 ancestors that fought for the Confederacy. Not one owned a slave. These men, these generals are all Americans and according to our government are US veterans. What Mitch did was take down US veteran memorials for his own political gain and to make a small group of people happy. Also HB-71 in Louisiana is gaining ground so he is taking these monuments down before and if that bill passes. I ask out government to make a bill not allowing mayor's or states to take any monument down unless voted by the people of that state and to be honest. The majority wants them to stay up. This is our history gentlemen and it should be respected and protected. 

Monuments are intended to embody a community’s ideas and values, and in the most powerful of circumstances can become a community’s spirit incarnate of which to rally around.  Communities that build monuments are making a statement to others, to those both within and outside of their community, about which ideals are to be honored.  Confederate monuments pay tribute to a dark chapter in our country’s history; a time when African Americans particularly did not enjoy much if any freedom in this country.  Why should any community memorialize this ugly era with statues of Confederate leaders in public places like in its parks or along its roadways?  These spaces should be reclaimed and reformed into spaces for us to gather as a community without standing in the actual shadows of Jim Crow memorials masquerading as war monuments. The intent of this petition is twofold.  First, it is a request for the Virginia General Assembly and the Virginia Code Commission to repeal/replace Virginia code section 15.2-1812 so as to allow for Virginia’s communities to decide for themselves which ideals and values they would like to be honored by those who commute on their streets or visit their parks and other public places.  Second, it is for the City of Richmond to lead the charge by removing Virginia’s most prominent Confederate monuments along Monument Avenue and putting them in a museum or similar institutional installment with context so that we may be able to learn from our past and continue to grow into a more perfect union.  Furthermore, the community’s leaders should choose an appropriate replacement structure to take the place of the current Confederate monuments.  Suggestions for quality replacement options may be found in Richmond’s Monument Avenue Commission report on pages 32 and 33. Virginia is home to more confederate monuments in public spaces than any other state with at least 223.  This is due in large part to its regional relevance during the civil war; Richmond served as the capital of the Confederacy.  But this is also due to a state law enacted in 1904 which allows for localities to erect “monuments or memorials for any war or conflict” while simultaneously forbidding any authorities or citizens to disturb them.  This language was later clarified to explicitly include cities as “authorities” prohibited from removing them, resulting in the conundrum that we have today.  Many locales within Virginia have expressed a desire to remove the Confederate monuments erected during the Jim Crow era, but they lack the legal authority to follow through with action. Confederate monuments serve as rallying points for those that hold on to belief systems rooted in bigotry and racial supremacy, and do not embody the ideas or values of Richmond, Virginia, or the United States.  They have no place in our public spaces, and our communities should have the legal authority to decide for themselves if they wish to be represented in such a way.

Tearing down monuments of the Civil War disrespects the blood shed by Tennesseans for the cause of state's rights. We realize that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, but history is already being rewritten to falsify that. We must remember, blacks as well as whites fought on the Confederate side. Once we start destroying monuments, there will be no end to it. . . Please don't fall weak to the pressure being applied by liberal problem-makers and those that seek to destroy our nation!

Here lately there has been a non stop attack on Veteran Monuments and American History. Our history is watered down in the classrooms to our kids, leaving them with little understanding of our history and even less understanding of how our country is supppsed to work. With the ongoing removal of Confederate Monuments we are not only disgracing our veterans but deleting history. This can not continue, where does it stop; are Asian American's going to ask for the removal of Pearl Harbor Monuments, are we going to remove the Lincoln Memorial, are Native American's going to call for the removal of the American flag because it represents the people that stole their land and slaughtered their people. We can not change history it must be put out amd embraced in order to prevent from making the same mistakes. This is not an issue on race the Civil War was an issue on the states right to govern themselves. We can't change that slavery was here in America but we can change the current path that will only lead to the complete deletion of our history. Be part of the lll% stand up and make it known that true American Patriots will not stand by and allow the continued assault on our history.