#Thomas Jefferson monument bashers no better than the Taliban

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The Thomas Jefferson statue in the City Council chamber.
Matthew McDermott

In this week’s episode of things we were told would never happen, members of the New York City Council, including the speaker, are demanding that a statue of Thomas Jefferson be removed from City Hall.

Not Jefferson Davis, but Thomas Jefferson, the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence. First they came for the Confederate statues, then they came for Columbus, now Jefferson. In Portland, a statue of George Washington was felled by a furious mob of bloody-minded progressives.

Let us be completely clear. There is no discernable difference between leftists tearing down statues of Jefferson and Washington and the Taliban destroying Buddhist temples. None, zero, zip.

In both cases, arrogant fools presume not just to know what is best for everyone today, but what is best for everyone in the future. The thing about destroying art is that the people who do it always think they have a really good reason.

And why does this statue of a man whose words have promised the flower of freedom to multitudes across the globe have to go? Because he owned slaves. There is no thinking person in the world today that believes slavery was anything but a moral abomination; it is a black mark against the Founders. It is one they were well aware of — Jefferson himself called slavery a “moral depravity.”

Jefferson did not live up to his own ideal. But with the Declaration he announced a new ideal, a credo never before codified, the ideal that all men are created equal. And regardless of what the ahistorical hysterics of the 1619 Project claim, America has moved closer to that ideal throughout every step of our history and remains a beacon of freedom in the world.

That is why we celebrate Thomas Jefferson. If we cannot honor his words while acknowledging his flaws, then no one is safe. No one can live up to the perfection of the raucous Jacobins parading in our cities — not even themselves. They will face guillotines of their own making eventually, as they always do.

For council members to try to erase his contribution to mankind is a desecration worthy of Communist China and the Cultural Revolution. It is deeply un-American and sows nothing but the seeds of chaos and division.