Defacing statues demonstrates ignorance
Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson defended the people of Virginia against a 20-point, half-million-man invasion that destroyed many Virginians’ homes, families, property and lives. The invasion was initiated during the night after the people of Virginia voted on whether or not to secede from the Union. The 9th and 10th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution reserve to the people and their states such powers over the federal government. Art. IV, Sec. IV, requires the federal government to protect states against invasion and domestic violence.
The invasion and the defense of Virginia were not about slavery or white supremacy. They were about the right to secede and survival from tyranny. Defacing statues of Lee or Jackson demonstrates hatred, bigotry and lack of education. I would no more want to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee than I would want to remove a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
GARLAND FAVORITO, ROSWELL
Those against Nazis are not extreme
In “How did we get here, where are we going,” Opinion, Aug. 18, Pat Buchanan is utterly wrong to say that before Alex Fields Jr. allegedly ran his car into a crowd of protesters the situation was a “bloody brawl between extremists on both sides.”
The thing is, turning out to show that you’re body and soul opposed to neo-Nazis and white supremacists doesn’t make you extreme; it makes you a decent, morally centered, human being. When they show up in force in your town on the pretext of honoring a statue (as if there were any honor in them), it isn’t at all extreme to holler “hell no!” and get ready to fight them.
This always was and always will be a fight between good and evil. If Buchanan thinks it’s extreme to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the good side, he’s not on it.
ROBERT WOLFSON, MARIETTA
