I am going to bring up freedom of
expression—i.e. freedom of speech. I learned some really valuable lessons that I
would like to share while earning my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. One of
the best lessons was understanding the topics of historical and iconic art.
During the separation of the
church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, I learned for that iconic art
and historical art survived a lot of hateful destruction due to religious
ideology. But, before I get off on a tangent, think about the word ideology? It
is a system of ideals based on morals, ethics, or just simple beliefs of any
given person or group of people. That
being said, our government is made up of people. We don’t all the believe the
same. Everyone has a prejudice of likes or dislikes. We though, basically,
would like to be all treated with dignity and respect.
Art is also a broad range in the
thinking process like our ideals. We either like it or we don’t. If you went to
a museum and saw a toilet in the center of the room that someone deemed “art”,
we may think it is absolutely stupid. Yet we may view Botticelli’s Birth of Venus as beautiful but obscene
because the woman is not covered or the worship of one or more gods from
mythology. One might see in a public museum a Florentine Angel Wall plaque and see the truly delicate features of
great artistry or child pornography or even heavenly bodies. Would we sue to
have it removed from the public eye because it might be offensive in the eye of
one beholder?
We sit in our homes and watch on
regular television two people getting ready for sex, having sex, or waking up
from sex. We see pornography all the time every time we turn on the television.
Every day we watch and listen to birth control ads, vaginal problems, menses
absorbing products, and products for male sexual enhancement in the privacy of
our homes. We hear offensive music on a daily basis talking about obscene sex,
murder, drinking, or something else obscure. We see on the news horrible acts
of perversions happening every day. Yet, walk out on the street and we have a
problem with a cross in a park like the one in Pensacola, Florida, that was
ordered removed by a federal judge for violation of separation of church and
state. That particular cross could represent anything—i.e. the Red Cross,
history of capital punishment, a death memorial for those who lost their lives
for a heroic reason, the meanness of the KKK burning them in the south or Jesus who died on the cross.
So, tell me, we can allow freedom
of expression in trash media or pornography in print or on social media but not
of a cross? I can guarantee one that the comments would be don’t watch it or
read it. Well heck fire, don’t look at the cross if it offends you!
The same goes with historical art.
The cross represents something historical as well, as do the southern statutes
that were recently removed out of public view in New Orleans, Louisiana. Removing
the statutes from the public view was a waste of good tax payer’s dollars. The
removal was actually a representation of censorship—in my opinion. A historical piece of stone work by sculptor
Alexander Doyle has been removed from the general public. A piece of art over
100 years old has been removed as being offensive. What did it change? It
deprived many people of a piece of historical art. It is history that must be
remembered as not to repeat itself.
One statute represented a man who
was trained militarily in the art of chivalrous war at West Point, the second
in his class at the US Military Academy. He was one of the finest officers
under the late President Abraham Lincoln. But because he chose to side with his
home state of Virginia, he became part of the confederacy during the Civil War.
What was his real crime? Well Aaron Burr was arrested for treason in 1807, and
we haven’t removed any of his historical art work from public view. Why did we
remove Lee’s?
We can find the tax payer’s money
to remove art but we cannot find the money to fight sex slavery?
Sometimes these decisions seem
very dumbfounding to me. It might be said that the removal of a cross or a statute
of a historical figure removes pain and suffering on the beholder. Well hate to
have to tell beholders that pain and suffering is part of life and cannot under
any circumstances be escaped. We cannot re-write history except to correct the
errors in the recording of it. History is past and can never be relived exactly
as it was. We can use it though to improve as a learning tool for the future.
Go with God. Rest safely in his
arms.
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