A political friend of mine told me a joke the other day. “What do the Taliban and Virginia Democrats have in common? I shook my head and played along. “I don’t know” I responded. He gave me the punch line, “They both want to tear down century old statues they find offensive.”
There will be several years of battles over confederate statues, and it may not stop there. Sadly, we will focus so much energy on something that is not a problem. Over the last hundred years, with a slight slow up over the last four, Virginia has become a first class state. Enormous wealth and progress has been made in the shadows of those old statues.
The politically correct Democrats may expand the Jihad. Perhaps Jefferson and Washington, while neither were part of the confederacy, they did own slaves. Perhaps even the Father of our Constitution, James Madison was a slave holder. Come to think of it James Monroe said some pretty racist things….
Virginia Democrats have adopted a scorched earth strategy. They must figure only white males care about protecting the statues, and others will be too frightened to speak out. To Paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, Americans fear being called a racist more than hunger, thirst and cold. So while many if not most Virginians are opposed to the removal of the statues, they will probably just keep quiet.
After the Civil war, many Virginians came back and served our state. Robert E. Lee went to work as a teacher at Washington College. Fitzhugh Lee entered politics and became Governor in 1886. Also, Confederate veterans, Mahone, Daniel, Thomas Staples Martin became Governors. And Eppa Hunton, a veteran of Pickett’s Charge, became a US Senator.
I do fear that over the next few years our commonwealth will spend more time debating the statue controversy than debating what to do about education, (unless it is changing another school name or mascot) and transportation. My guess is while sitting on 66 I will hear on the radio another school board’s decision to change a school’s name. This will become a regular occurrence. And my commute will be just as slow.
Hey, I have an idea why don’t we just keep the statues up?
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