To the editor:

I would like to begin with the statement no man or woman is perfect. We are all the products of the time we live in. This was even more true for past historical figures.

People are molded by times which they live at times they break the standard mold for these we tend to remember as historical figures. Washington, the first president of the United States and leader of the Continental Army during the American revolution. During his life Washington owns slaves, he freed his slaves on his death.

If you measure the meaning of man is the overall benefit to society every American alive today has benefited from the foundation laid in the laws and policies started by Washington. The same can be said for Jefferson and Lincoln. Those who do not remember their history are doom to repeat it.

We as a nation need to remember both the good and the bad of your past in order to measure how far we come. The misguided southern soldiers should be respected for their loss of life for what they believed in wrong or right (I can not judge them by today’s standards). The purpose of the statues is just to remind Americans the cost of a civil war is too high and the nation lost too much. While the cause to end slavery was a noble cause and was the right cause it must be balanced with the knowledge of lives lost.

The tearing down of statues has not stopped with bigoted southern figures from history. What has a statue of an elk done? Or Jesus?

The ultra-left now wants to destroy all history (reference- Animal Farm, George Orwell). What left forgets things do not happen all at once because we learn. That the purpose of time one idea builds on another. Time stops everything from happening at the same time. We build on both the good and the bad without ether would be who we are today?

Paul VanMeveren

Balaton