Define the criteria for removing historical names

I’d like to commend Michael Hartnett for his Marin Voice commentary (“If activists abolish the constitutional republic, how will it be replaced?” July

6). He did not descend to the all-too-common pointing of fingers and calling of names in his quest for critical thinking about the manner in which we honor our forebears of significance.

In support of his attempt for good reasoning, I suggest that we must consider the times in which people live, or else we would never be able to recognize anyone. For example, should our descendants refuse to recognize the heroes of today because they are contributors to the existential global threat of climate change with which the future will be dealing?

There is an easy test to help us decide on those to be recognized: Did the substance of their life contribute to the well-being of mankind? Hartnett makes a good case for Sir Francis Drake. As Hartnett points out, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were all slave owners — not an uncommon thing in their time — but they all contributed to the effort to make our nation “a more perfect union” as our Declaration of Independence promised.

However the Civil War “heroes” were all men who tried to destroy that union and to deny human rights to vast numbers of people. Statues honoring those men are insults to the people they tried to keep enslaved and to the many thousands of soldiers who fought and died to preserve that union.

The same logic goes to retaining the names of military bases in their honor. Would we today have a Camp Hitler? Unthinkable.

— David McConnell,

San Rafael