OPINION

The notion of monuments honoring a group of traitors who started an armed rebellion against the United States of America at the mere election of a President whom they viewed as a threat to their immoral and unconscionable interests in maintaining the institution of slavery should be "put to a popular vote" is a historically, intellectually, morally, and every other way imaginable bankrupt proposition. First - Those traitors are precisely that: TRAITORS. The dedication or erection of a single monument or the naming of a single building or street after a single them as a means to "honor" any of them is akin to naming bookings and streets and raising monuments to the likes of Major John Andre` or General Benedict Arnold on public property and asking taxpayers to subsidize the building or maintenance of such. "good Luck!" with THAT. Second - Those traitors that started an armed rebellion under the banner of "States' Rights" and their not so disguised unworthy gambit to expand and maintain the institution of slavery failed in both their treasonous rebellion and their goal to establish a globally recognized and legitimate nation called Confederate States of America" ---to be sustained and underpinned by the perpetual enslavement of another group of people--- so as to have a seat at the table" of other "civilized" nations. Jefferson Davis, Nathan Bedford Forrest - founder the Ku Klux Klan, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Alexander Stephens, et alia, failed in their unworthy endeavor: They were Losers in any and every conceivable way. And losers ---especially of that magnitude--- do not get monuments erected and maintained on public lands paid for by the taxpayers ---many of whom are descendants of those who were held in bondage by those losers or the failed Nation that they sought to create--- or have the idea that such building and sustainment of such monuments should even be "put to a vote". They sought to create a separate Nation. They failed. The claim of "it is our 'heritage' " can easily be dismissed with the rejoinder "it is not a 'heritage' honorable or worthy of 'celebration to begin with." Third - Those who want to "honor" that which had not one scintilla of honor to begin with are free to do so if they want. They can do so on their own private property. Or better yet they can find some distant and uninhabited Island and set up their own Nation, call it the "Confederate Island of Robert E. Lee and Company" ---presuming that a distant and uninhabited island exists given the rising sea levels brought about by human-induced climate change--- and erect all the monuments to those traitors that they wish. I would not count on it being "a popular tourist destination though.