Building monuments is a waste of resources and manpower

Disagree

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by Joseph Whalen

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Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. This is a sad fact that has been proven far too many times in the history of mankind, even as recently as the misguided war in Iraq. We can choose to either learn from our mistakes and avoid preventable catastrophes in the future, or we can ignore the lessons our fathers and grandfathers were forced to endure and doom ourselves and our children to the same consequences.

Monuments are a stark reminder of our history, both recent and ancient. They are pages from a text book that allow us to reflect on past circumstances not so different than those we face today in an attempt to garner wisdom from the choices made before us.

Far too many people underestimate the value of history. Today's society is bred to look to what the future brings, hope for a brighter tomorrow or simply to be indifferent to the plight of others. When we take a moment to pause and compare many of today's pressing issues to those that have already been faced in history, we can quickly learn how mistakes were made in the past.

When we build monuments, we don't simply build them to honor past deeds or people, or to mark an anniversary of a significant event. We build monuments to remember events. Only through remembrance can we understand the lessons of the past and apply them to today.

We have built monuments commemorating many things in the history of our country. We have built them to honor leaders, both political and military. We build these not to stroke the ego of great men or to inspire others to follow in their career but we build these to remember the men they are built for and the sacrifices they made to make this nation as great as it is today.

We hold such individuals as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln up as shining examples of what it means to be Americans. These colossal monuments inspire us to do more and be better than we normally would be. Clearly this type of effect cannot be a waste of resources.

Countless monuments have been built to remember our military conflicts. These are not built to glorify war or to brag of our military might. These are built so that we never forget what the cost of war is on human life. The toll of war is high in both human life and economic consequences; it is a price we must be reminded of regularly, so that we do not spend our young soldier's lives unwisely.

It would be a dishonor to think that such monuments are a waste of resources and manpower when they are symbols of the ultimate waste of resources and manpower, war.

We also build monuments to remember disasters. The lessons with these monuments may be more subtle than the others but no less important. Through these monuments we learn how to protect ourselves and better prepare for disaster. Whether it is a natural disaster such as hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans or man-made disaster such as the World Trade Center, there are lessons to be learned in how to better prepare ourselves to avoid the same consequences in the future.

Most importantly we build monuments to remember those who have lost their lives. These are no famous men, great leaders or brilliant military minds. These are our family and friends; these are everyday people that are what America is made of. We build these monuments to remember because it is the right thing to do.

When we talk of waste of resources and manpower, there are far too many other unnecessary things that should be spoken of well before we target the creation of monuments. Our political system itself is so ripe with corruption and waste, that to start a search anywhere else is shameful. A monument to the victims of the September 11th attacks may cost a few million dollars and it is labeled as wasteful.

Yet a political election for just a single seat in the senate or a governor's seat results in both parties spending tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. What could be more wasteful than a political system that is in essence up for grabs to the person willing to spend the most money. In addition to the obvious bidding for political office we have laws that help to fund these campaigns with public funds.

To allow such a practice to go on while we fail to honor the memory and history of events that occur on a global scale is simply a disgrace. Once again the American public has lost all touch with sensible priorities.

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