Who is really rewriting history?

This issue regarding Charlottesville brings out the professor in me. As a professor, I want people to know the facts, be able to use reason to analyze the facts, and then arrive at their own decision. What I see going on regarding Charlottesville involves history being rewritten and "alternative" facts being promoted. The following is my analysis of the current underlying politics regarding the Charlottesville situation.

Defenders of Confederate monuments on government land have rewritten history, and believe in myths unsupported by facts. For example, an article from The Atlantic, "The Myth of the Kindly General Lee," documents some facts about Gen. Lee that reveal he was not a noble man. One fact that stands out to me is that Gen. Lee personally beat his slaves, or had them beat by others. So, where is the justice and nobility in such actions?! Likewise, I have found that Gen. Lee's supporters often ignore the fact that because he went into rebellion against the US Constitution, he broke a just body of law, and that made him a lawbreaker. Certainly, taking his monument down off of US government land is not a case of rewriting history. Such monuments belong in museums for public viewing.

I think it is interesting to compare Gen. Lee to Gen. Grant because as president, Grant was a strong supporter of civil rights and the United States Constitution. However, so-called constitutional conservatives rarely defend men like Grant or Lincoln. It is baffling to me how so many Southern Republicans admire men like Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee, but ignore or oppose the policies of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president and, in my view, the greatest US president.

Where are the so-called "Constitutional conservatives" on this issue? I find they too often support states rights, which I conclude is a foundational issue underlying the protest about removing Gen. Lee's statue. Yet, "states rights" is a term NOT in the Constitution. The 10th Amendment addresses state powers, but rights are addressed in the 9th Amendment stating that people possess rights. From our US Constitution:

AMENDMENT IX:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

AMENDMENT X:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

States and the national government possess powers, but people possess rights (this goes back to ideas promoted by political theorists such as John Locke).

Also, states rights advocates prior to the Civil War argued that the Bill of Rights applied to the national government, not to the states. After the Civil War the 13th Amendment put this issue to rest:

AMENDMENT XIV, SECTION 1:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This means no state can deny its citizens their rights. Of course, this was not implemented throughout the South and in other states outside the South when it came to African-Americans and other people. In other words, these states continued to oppress their people. In contrast, states rights advocates during and prior to the Civil War believed states had rights over their people, including the right to abuse African-American people. In practice, the Confederacy wanted an oppressive government at the state level of government, but not at the national level.

Feeling empowered by Pres. Trump, those marching in Charlottesville march in support of racism. As racists, they understand that to enforce racism, they need an oppressive government at the state and local levels of government. The US Constitution, which includes the Bill of Rights, stands in their way.

So, who is rewriting history? Those who support states having rights over people, which includes racists and those who honor Confederates.

Anti-Free Market Propaganda

"The younger generation of today has grown up in a world in which in school and press the spirit of commercial enterprise has been represented as disreputable and the making of profit as immoral, while to employ a hundred people is represented as exploitation but to command the same number as honorable."
- F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, edited by Bruce Caldwell, The University of Chicago Press (2007), p. 155.

When I read the above quote, I thought of Sen. Bernie Sanders. He makes a command and control type government and economy sound good. In his speeches, he seems to hate individual innovations that are not controlled by an elite group of political planners.

I have found present day conservatives to be no better. They do not really support a free market economy which has rules that allow individuals and small groups to begin a small business that challenges established corporations. Rather, they support businesses even when they seek to destroy competition. As such they are pro-business, but not pro-free market. In this, they have departed from conservative beliefs of previous political generations which sought to maintain a system that controlled the power of big business and allow small businesses to freely compete in the economy.

Guaranteed Minimum Income in a Free Market Economy?

"There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained...that some minimum food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody."
- F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, edited by Bruce Caldwell, 2007, University of Chicago Press, p. 148.

F. A. Hayek is often quoted by political conservatives and libertarians, but they rarely acknowledge this quote.

Where Might the Rise of New Fascism Originate?

F. A. Hayek observed that the bulk of supporters of fascism and National Socialism prior to World War II did not come from the poor or rich classes. Rather, he notes:

"The resentment of the lower middle class, from which fascism and National Socialism recruited so large a proportion of their supporters, was intensified by the fact that their education and training had in many instances made them aspire to directing positions and that they regarded themselves as entitled to be members of the directing class."
- The Road to Serfdom, edited by Bruce Caldwell, 2007, The University of Chicago Press, p. 145

Sounds like some of the contemporary political movements in both parties in the United States today.

Political Extremism

Regarding the shooting incident today by a Bernie Sanders supporter attempting to murder Republican Congressmen: this is what can happen when someone allows politics to define their life: extremism. This is why I urge people not to let politics distort how they view people. Those with whom you disagree are usually people like you. When we dehumanize our political opponents, this type of behavior can occur. This guy was clearly an extremist on the left, and it can happen on the right, as well.
Also, the Capitol Police who responded are real heroes! They prevented a massacre from happening.

Liberal Gardeners

The attitude of the liberal towards society is like that of the gardener who tends a plant and, in order to create the conditions most favorable to its growth, must know as much as possible about its structure and the way it functions."
- F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, edited by Bruce Caldwell, The University of Chicago Press, p. 71.