Modern day Vandals.

Shortly before the Taliban were removed from power in Afghanistan, they discovered some huge stone carvings of likenesses of Buddha carved into the side of a stone cliff by ancient inhabitants of the area. The Taliban determined that these Buddhas were religious symbols and were an affront to Islam. They moved some artillery pieces in place and proceeded to shell the ancient carvings, causing considerable damage.

Before the assault, historians around the world pleaded with the Taliban not to destroy the ancient carvings.

After the assault, people everywhere protested the insensitive destruction of the antiquities. Today, some dedicated persons are painstakingly trying to repair the damage, stone shard by stone shard.

Something like that could never happen among a civilized people. Right?

During the first quarter of the last century, hundreds of thousands of Americans obeyed orders from their government to go to Europe to help end a bloody conflict there. When the World War ended, a group of surviving veterans wanted to create a permanent memorial to their comrades who had fought with them. In about 1934, they went out into California's Mojave desert and erected a cross for that purpose.

Was that a religious symbol? Probably. But, it was the way those American veterans (all of whom are now deceased) wanted to remember their comrades... men and women who had died in service of America.

Some Taliban-like judges have ordered the memorial disguised and want it removed.

Happily the U.S. Supreme Court is intervening.

Soon we will know if we are any more respectful of our forebears than were the Taliban.