This American agrees with you. You can’t learn from a past that has been erased. At the very least, given that these are public monuments, if they are removed, it should be lawfully via the consent of the citizens of the town or city involved, without coercion from outside groups of any political persuasion.

I live near Gettysburg, where the most violent three days in American history occurred. My great, great, grandfather fought there (albeit on the politically correct side). The park is full of Confederate monuments. It is a giant history classroom as much as a battlefield. The Park Service has already said no monuments will be removed from any national park. I hope they stick to that.

It is very dangerous to think you have the right to click your heels three times and make the past disappear just because it offends your modern sensibilities, but such is the case at the moment. Such censorship, for that is what it is, once begun will only metastasize and spread. Books wait to burn at the end of that path.