Posted by
Ikester on Monday, November 16, 2009 12:48:08 PM
An old saying goes, "Statues are never erected for the critic, only for the criticized." A brief survey of history finds the lives of today's great heroes some of the most criticized when they lived. From soldiers to political leaders the story is pretty much the same. Posthumously is a word used to describe men and women in the military who, though ordinary soldiers during the time leading up to the moment of great heroic acts, acted heroicly in a moment of time when the life of another or others was threatened. They acted with great courage and sacrificed their own life to save others. They never knew that they were awarded the Medal of Honor or Purple Heart etc.
Abraham Lincoln is a great example of this too. During his Presidency he was brutally criticized and hated by the press and those on the other side of the Civil War but today we celebrate his life and work as America's greatest President. He was murdered by Booth and Lincoln never knew that a huge memorial was erected to his honor in Washington DC many years later.
Have you seen any statues erected to those who brutally criticized him? I have never seen a statue dedicated to critics unless their cause was against an evil force or person and they ultimately won the day. The Underground Railroad workers are some of the critics who did get a statue erected for their work. The Democratic Party of the 1800's did everything they could to keep the black man enslaved while Christians and other Republicans worked and often suffered years of imprisonment or death to see the black man freed and given equal status with other ethnicities. I use the word ethnicities against the word race since there is only ONE race of people, the human race. The Bible knows nothing of race but often uses the word ethnos (Greek) to describe those of non-Jewish groups. The Jews are also an ethnic group as well. If we could only accept this as fact we could end the hatred of people for others based on skin color or origins.
Who will be the next person to have a statue erected? Many statues are erected to dictators such as Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini only to have them pulled down when freedom is reestablished in a nation. Those statues that endure are to the truly great human beings who never knew that their statues stand in their remembrance.