I am a Missouri girl. I grew up in a region known as “Little Dixie.” In my childhood, a war from a century ago was talked about like it was still being fought. In fact, I think I heard more about “the cause” than I heard about World War II, which ended just a few years before I was born.

I am a direct descendant of people who fought on opposite sides of that tremendously divisive war. I grew up fascinated by its history. I talked my dad into taking me to visit battlefields, and I constructed plaster of Paris dioramas of battlefields on sheets of plywood and populated the topography with Blue and Gray plastic soldiers. I marveled at details like the fact that the gunfire was so intense at the Battle of Shiloh that bullets cut down trees.

I understand the emotions behind the controversy over taking down statues of Confederate leaders. But a passion for history is not among those emotions. I am a proponent of every child in our country learning as many details of American history as can be crammed into education.

But the statues of Confederate leaders, mostly erected in the Jim Crow era and during the civil rights movement, were not put up to teach history. They are about keeping the “cause” of the rightness of calling one race of Americans superior to another alive and well.

On Wednesday, Aug. 16, the direct descendants of both Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis agreed with me. Both men said they are fine with the statues of their ancestors being moved out of the public square and into spaces where they can be “surrounded with the context of history and education about it.”

Apparently our current president missed the history lessons that fascinated me. He missed the lessons on World War II as well, skipping over the horrifying carnage put forth to create a blonde-haired, blue-eyed “master race.”

Nazis were evil enough in 1941 that the country felt justified in waging war against them. They are still evil today.

Hearing Donald J. Trump come out in full-throated defense of neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan was a bridge too far for me and, I suspect, for a lot of other Americans.

Kansas’ senators and representatives in Congress have spoken out strongly against the hatred, racism and bigotry that were on full display in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 and 13. Sen. Jerry Moran, bless him, pulled absolutely no punches in his statement:

"White supremacy, bigotry and racism have absolutely no place in our society, and no one — especially the president of the United States — should ever tolerate it," Moran said. "We must all come together as a country and denounce this hatred to the fullest extent." Thank you, Senator.

Sen. Pat Roberts called for laws that would allow municipalities to shut down public gatherings that devolve into demonstrations of hate but praised Trump’s initial response on Saturday and Monday. He didn’t issue a statement after Trump came out on Tuesday to make it clear that his position was with the KKK and the neo-Nazis.

Trump offered a moral equivalency argument, blaming “both sides” for the violence in Charlottesville, even to the point of flat-out making up an organization called the “alt-left” that doesn’t exist.

This, coming from a commander in chief, is a bit hard to swallow. To keep it honest, there were people who came out to directly confront the Nazi and KKK marchers. They came ready to defend themselves and the peaceful protesters who turned out in opposition to Nazi marchers.

More than seven decades ago, this country made a decision to go to war to wipe out the Nazis in Germany. I’d like anyone who wants to decry the willingness of groups like Antifa to fight against a resurgence of that same evil in modern-day America to tell me if they think our willingness to fight this evil was the wrong decision back in 1941. Were the allies “the same” as Adolph Hitler’s henchmen carrying out the genocide of the Jews? After all, they were “violent” too and even started the violence on the beaches of Normandy.

I think the bottom line is simply this: Some things are so evil that violence against them is not only warranted, but also vitally necessary. Nazis are one of those things. Groups marching under a swastika flag and chanting “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us” are Nazis. They can call themselves white supremacists, white nationalists or the “alt-right,” but they are still Nazis. They need to be shut down and shut out.