Confederate monuments are both being taken down by officials, and damaged by random members of the citizenry. The public outcry both for and against these acts are overwhelming, the people are divided, and the politicians of the land offer nothing but fuel for the fire.
In related news, Nazis, the KKK, and other far right organizations have been recruiting members, chanting slogans like "blood and soil," and clashing violently with counter protesters. President Trump has gone out of his way to defend these organizations of the so called "alt-right," while members of the less violent moderate right clamor about, bitching not about the growing threat of Nazism, but rather about the "attacks" on the "history" of the United States, E.G., the aforementioned removal of Confederate monuments.
Now while the Nazism is clearly the more serious issue I've been tackling that subject for a damn decade, and would like instead to share my opinion on the monument issue, so here it is.
I personally believe that the Confederates, who were treasonous fools taking up arms against the United States without good cause, lost their war, admitted they lost their war, and surrendered. Now, most people would agree with at least the latter part of what I said, some might argue in favor of the Confederate cause, but those people are historically ignorant and probably believe that either the war was only about slavery and that slavery should be legal, or that, and rightly so, the war was about more than slavery, but that, and wrongfully so, the Confederacy was in the right.
Now, it is clear to all that the Confederacy lost the war, and while I do agree that they were the bad guys and that monuments to their ideas should not exist, I also believe that monuments of historical significance should be left alone, or at most, moved to either a museum or a geographical location that shares in said historical significance.
To make what I mean clear, let me explain. I believe that in certain locations of historical significance, like in Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and the Appomattox Court House where Robert E. Lee himself, finally surrendered, there should be monuments not to the Confederacy or its men, but showing them as they were, and telling the story of the war and battles therein. However, where these monuments exist in locations with no or little direct historical connection and significance, or alternatively, those monuments (made after the civil war ended) which glorify the Confederacy or any of its men and ideas, they should be removed.
The reason glorifying and or historically insignificant Confederate monuments should be removed is more than just the "they're racist" argument, which, while drawing on some truth, is hardly the only issue. The possibly even more pressing issue in legality is that these monuments represent treason against the United States and that the only valid reason for their existence is the history behind them. But history aside, many hate groups use the monuments as their own, and their mere existence normalizes the ideas the Confederacy once fought for.
Final say? Take them down if not only used for historical preservation and in no way glorifying the Confederacy.