Why Dallas Should Think Twice Before Tearing Down Confederate Statues

Dallas is in the throes of a debate over whether to tear down monuments commemorating events, and their participants, that happened generations ago but are now politically out of fashion.Some wish to erase the names of four Confederate generals — Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Albert Sidney Johnston and John Bell Hood — from Dallas ISD schools. And Mayor Mike Rawlings appears to have weighed in on tearing down statues, including that of Robert E. Lee in Lee Park.Dallas isn't the first city to face this conundrum. It's instructive to look to a metropolis where there is no shortage of imposing monuments: Paris. At the center of the Place Vendome, an immense square not far from the Louvre, is a 60-foot-high column with a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte at its apex.  Continue reading...