Ilya Somin: Why Slippery-Slope Arguments Should Not Stop Us From Removing Confederate Monuments

This is characteristically good.
   I think it's important to recognize the strength of slipper-slope arguments in this case. Another way to put the slippery-slope point is: some of the the general principles that lead to the conclusion that we should remove (e.g.) statues of Lee also lead to the conclusion that we should remove (e.g.) statues of Jefferson. People usually deploy these arguments because they think it's obvious that we shouldn't remove statues of Jefferson, and so intend to cast doubt on arguments for removing statues of Lee.
   Me, I'm mostly just interested in the logical link between Lee-statue-removal and Jefferson-statue-removal. I'm not really so deeply committed to not removing statues of Lee, though I currently incline against rushing into anything. I actually think that the arguments for removing statues of Lee are pretty strong, and that those arguments also support removing statues of Jefferson. I'm pretty strongly against Jefferson-removal, and less-strongly against Lee-removal. But I seem to think that the link between the two is stronger that others seem to think it is. Maybe because I'm skeptical that the treason argument is actually operative in lefty arguments for Lee-removal. Treason is a major difference between Jefferson and Lee. But I doubt that the relevant sectors of the left care much about treason, so I doubt that that actually figures into their reasonings. So I'm fairly sure that Jefferson-removal will actually be on the menu in my expected lifetime. (And so this won't be a merely theoretical question.)
   A good response is: it doesn't matter what they think, it only matters what reasonable people think. And reasonable people think that the treason reason is a reasonable reason. Which is plausibly right.
   However, when it does come to arguing against the lefty-left about Jefferson, I'd expect them to deploy the obvious arguments about moral considerations trumping national/tribal ones: Lee's treasonousness wasn't an important reason for removing his statue. Such a reason is purely parochial. The important reasons were the moral reasons: his entanglement with slavery. And the moral reasons seem to cut against Jefferson approximately as much as they cut against Lee.
   And I'm not sure that such arguments are wrong--or, at least, I'm not sure that they're invalid, though they might be unsound. Slavery is a very great crime. And Jefferson participated in it very directly. And I'm rather skeptical of creature-of-his-time defenses...
   But, anyway, the Somin piece is good, and makes good points in the opposite direction.