New in PJ Media:
In Jacksonville, Florida’s Springfield Park, a statue called “Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy” has stood for 108 years. But no more: on Wednesday morning, the statue was uprooted and carted away on the order of Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, who justified her action by proclaiming that “symbols matter.” Yes, they do. And that’s why she should have left the statue where it was.
USA Today reported that Deegan “said the monument was a divisive presence that had no place in a city park.” She added: “Symbols matter. They tell the world what we stand for and what we aspire to be. By removing the Confederate monument from Springfield Park, we signal a belief in our shared humanity. That we are all created equal. The same flesh and bones. The same blood running through our veins. The same heart and soul.” Glad that’s cleared up! If anyone in Jacksonville or its environs actually believed that we don’t have a shared humanity and are created equal, with the same flesh and bones and the same blood running through our veins, and taking down this statue would help teach them this lesson, then that’s terrific.
Deegan has denounced the statue before, saying in August: “I think it’s very, very hard to have unity in a city… if somebody has a monument up to basically a time when you weren’t even considered a person. That would be very, very difficult for you and your family to walk by that every day in your neighborhood.” All right. Yet Deegan’s war against the “Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy” has not been unopposed. Florida state Rep. Dean Black (R-Jacksonville) said that Deegan’s removal of the statue was a “stunning abuse of power,” as well as “another in a long line of woke Democrats’ obsession with cancel culture and tearing down history.”
No one wants to be put in the position of appearing to defend the Confederacy, so that’s about as articulate as the opposition to Deegan is likely to get. No one seems to have time to ponder the fact that, while the statue has been in place since 1915, it didn’t become so objectionable as to have to be removed forthwith until the summer of 2020, when — in the midst of the George Floyd riots — it suddenly became of the utmost importance to remove Confederate memorials everywhere. Overnight, it turned out that old statues that were part of landscape of many a city and town, and to which few paid any specific attention, had become an immediate cause of the white supremacism that was supposedly convulsing the nation.
There is more. Read the rest here.
Attilio says
The history is part of us. We couldn’t agree, but history has been. To cancel history is the way of erasing brains so that not using mind by yourself. This is one of the worst thing of so called West world.
Wellington says
Erasing history is very Leftist. Destroy the past and you have a new road map to follow—a road map that will be filled with errors and terror by social engineering types.
Alex Lund says
We should do the same to their statues.
Maybe then they learn.
But I suspect that a Whale will learn to fly much earlier than a leftist learns to respect us.
James Lincoln says
Yes, Wellington.
Very serious mistakes will be made that could have been prevented – by knowing history.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
This is one of those cases where even Gov DeSantis dare not intervene
NJA says
because he’s a rino
࿗Infidel࿘ says
No, he’s not. It’s just that if he dares defend the statue being untouched w/o the city council voting on it, Trump will pounce on him as being too extreme on this issue
OLD GUY says
If Symbols matter we should destroy all history of the world, temples, statues, architectural structures, transportation systems, stadiums etc. or are we just choosing the history symbols we don’t like? Must be nice to make those decisions for the whole of mankind.
Donna Deegan “look at me I got POWER”
My family fought in the civil war on the side of the Union for what they believed was justifiable and right, as did the Confederate Soldiers and their families at that time and place in this world. How dare she destroy the history and memory of the blood that was shed on both sides for what at that time was considered acceptable around the world. Those women of the Confederacy suffered great hardships as did the women of the Union soldiers both during the war and afterwords struggling to survive.
Oh where are the women groups who just lost a tribute to the strength of women as mothers and the bond of families? Most will never know the fight these women fought during this time in HISTORY.
Jim says
Leftists need causes to be outraged against. This is just one of them. Another is irredentism, where a tiny island just has to belong to one state or another. The women of the confederacy were probably not bad in themselves, and they should be remembered, even if the judgment of history is against them. The left is not simply attacking slavery, but American traditions and history. They will not go after Democrats who were bad. Remove all statues and memorials to Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Teddy Kennedy, Robert Byrd, perhaps also of Obama and Biden. In a few years perhaps. The will forgive their own.
mea says
like every other marxist created and promoted fraud being put in motion today, the issues only exist because the general public refuses to take civil processes and criminal processes that will stop all of these bogus attacks… destroying the statute : public property is a crime : a real crime…
the problem is none of you will compel a criminal investigation and prosecution; after which mandate civil actions go for restorative costs and punitive damages… we know it is possible to compel the government to do its, Lawful duty, to prosecute the statue droppers. – see Baldwin. He thought he bought his way out of it; but the hat was so great the government ‘at least’ charged him. And, in Nevada, under the pretext of kidnapping, they convicted OJ of murdering his wife.
This should go on till’ you get it right.