Over the past few weeks, mobs and rioters have attacked, vandalized and destroyed numerous monuments and statues across our country and here in Utah. Allegedly to the mob, these monuments represent something in our history that they oppose. History is there for us to learn from. You may like it, you may hate it, but trying to erase it does nothing to further our understanding of it and to evolve accordingly to live better in the future. We can't apply the lens of today's standards on people who lived 200-300 years ago.
All of these monuments and statues reside on public property and belong to all of us. No one has the right to vandalize and destroy public property. If you don't like a statue because it represents something that you don't like, that's fine. There are legal methods to petition our government to have a statue or monument removed in a peaceful and legal way. The more we let the mob rule the day, the less control that we will have for our own destiny and future. If we want to be a peaceful society that follows the rule of law, then we need to stand up to the mob and not let it continue to occur.
John St. Clair, Pleasant Grove