The Lies and Hypocrisy of the Civil War

[Draggingtree]

The Lies and Hypocrisy of the Civil War

By Jacob G. Hornberger on Jan 24, 2018

More than 150 years after the Civil War, the nation is engulfed in controversy over statues of people who fought for the Confederacy. Many people want the statues taken down. The statues, they say, depict men who were slaveowners, slavery proponents, and traitors. Those who want the statues to stay in place are said to be racists. The feelings run so deep on both sides of the controversy that one would think that the Civil War ended just yesterday.

As a libertarian, I question why government should erect statues in the first place, to anyone. That’s simply not a legitimate role of government. Moreover, why should people be taxed to fund a statue of someone whose beliefs or behavior they dislike or oppose?

Private entities, of course, should be free to erect any statues they want, so long as they aren’t subsidized by the state and the statues are on privately owned property. In fact, in 2003 a group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to establish the Confederate Memorial Park in Lookout Point, Maryland, which features a statue and battle flags that celebrate the Confederacy. It is privately funded and people are free to boycott it or even protest it. It is an example of how things operate in a private-property system.     

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-lies-and-hypocrisy-of-the-civil-war/