In the recent post, Stop Your Cultural Bulldozing, America: Disney World Taking Down Bill Cosby’s Bust Is Like Removing The Jefferson Memorial, I described the danger of removing well-earned cultural honors and memorials for individuals who later are found to have engaged in less than admirable conduct by current standards. I wrote in part…
“Sure, it’s uncomfortable having a bust of an unapologetic sexual predator in a Disney World attraction, and it might prompt some uncomfortable question from the kiddies. Well, good. It’s never too soon to learn that human beings are flawed, complex creatures, and that even the most brilliant and talented have dark sides, do terrible things, and can be cruel, selfish, dishonest and even criminal. We honor Thomas Jefferson for his crucial role in giving this nation life, and defining its mission and values for the ages. We’re not honoring his hypocrisy, his cowardice, his own rapes, or his slaveholding….
“First they came for Cosby, and we did not speak out…”
There is no stop to this slippery slope, and the political correctness mob will never stop.”
Some people I respect a great deal really went after me for that pronouncement, particularly on Facebook. “Hyperbole!” “Scaremongering!” “Just because a theme park doesn’t want to sport the bust of a rapist and stunning hypocrite in a TV Hall Of Fame doesn’t mean that there is any danger of politically correct zealots toppling the statue of Tom from his memorial!” “There is no such slippery slope,” I was scolded.
Under pressure from the NAACP, the state Democratic Party will scrub the names of the [Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson] from its annual fundraising dinner because of their ties to slavery. Party leaders voted unanimously Wednesday night in Hartford to rename the Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner in the aftermath of last month’s fatal shooting of nine worshipers at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. The decision is believed to be unprecedented and could prompt Democrats in other states with similarly named events to follow suit.
“I see it as the right thing to do,” Nick Balletto, the party’s first-year chairman, told Hearst Connecticut Media on Wednesday night. “I wasn’t looking to be a trailblazer or set off a trend that’s going to affect the rest of the country. Hopefully, they’ll follow suit when they see it’s the right thing to do.”
Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are, correctly, regarded as the founders of the modern Democratic Party. Not only that: they are both beyond question great Americans, not merely Presidents (I think both, especially Jackson, have a legitimate claim to greatness in their Presidencies), but towering and significant presences in our national story that all of us, not merely Democrats, ought to know about and honor for their role in making the United States what it has been. Jefferson, of course, is credited with writing the mission statement for the United States, and the words that laid the ideological and ethical foundation for everything that followed. It is true that he was a slaveholder, but he did as much with his pen to seal the eventual doom of slavery as any Union general did with a sword. Jackson was also a slaveholder. Yet it was his steely resistance to any thought of the United States disuniting over slavery or any other dispute that provided the principles upon which Abraham Lincoln based his determination not to allow the Confederacy, and slavery, leave the Union unrestrained.
Yet all the NAACP has to do is whistle, and the Democratic party abandons its heritage and standard-bearers, airbrushing history to conform to a powerful constituency’s exploitation of the emotion following a mass shooting that neither Jefferson nor Jackson would have tolerated, and that only a lunatic could blame them for in any way.
Scot X. Esdaile, the head of Connecticut’s NAACP, applauded the insult to the two men, as well as to the intelligence of any thinking Connecticut citizen, saying, “I would applaud the current leaders in Connecticut in making the symbolic first step and striving to right the wrongs of the past,” What wrongs does this “right”? Balletto still wins the award for fatuousness, pointing out that blacks and Native Americans are a major constituency of the Democratic Party—so the party shouldn’t have the integrity and courage to refuse their efforts at historical Stalinism, apparently, and intoning that
“When something offends someone, it’s beyond being politically correct It just causes a need for change.”
That’s all it takes to justify the Democratic Party spitting in the faces of its spiritual founders. Somebody being offended.
Go ahead. Tell me the national party won’t follow this miserable example. Tell me the NAACP–which is advocating the destruction of the huge sculpture of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on Stone Mountain, Georgia (I bet ISIS would do it for them!)—won’t be emboldened by this latest success to press its advantage with the national Democratic Party as well. Tell me that a political party who so easily rejects its own creators would resist continuing to remove honors and memorials to the historical importance of the nation’s creators and defenders—especially the same ones. Hillary Clinton has already expressed her desire to take Jackson’s image off the twenty dollar bill. Tell me that the Jefferson Memorial, and—who knows?— even the Washington Monument might not eventually fall prey to this…
“dishonest, incompetent, unfair, irresponsible, destructive….and so, so short-sighted and stupid”
…process whereby compliant thought and political belief is compelled by controlling access to history, and all of its complexities and contradictions. Certainly, that’s quite a bit down the slope yet.
But please don’t tell me again that there is no slope there.
“You can’t change history, but you don’t have to honor it,” says the craven Balletto. Wrong. You have to honor what deserved and deserves to be honored, or history becomes merely political propaganda, useful only to support current political agendas. A nation that doesn’t honor and respect its history has no history.
_____________________
Source: Conn. Post
Ethics Alarms 
You can’t judge people from earlier eras by today’s standards, or then you need to condemn them all. Maybe this is a belated tantrum about having to remember fact for school, ‘if we don’t have to honor them we can stop teaching history and save the children.’ Orwell was off, and that is disheartening. Ban this, ban that. Looks like the next generation is to be brainwashed instead of taught history, science, and reason.
Ignorance will finish losing any advantage we had last century. Problem is both parties are on board with ignorance. I’m thinking they both need ousted,
I’ve been thinking of starting a “vote out all incumbents” organization. Both parties need a large shot across their bows.
America doing an Astros-style rebuilding? Man, this is gonna be fun.
Joe, aren’t you in Conn. right now? Aren’t you glad you aren’t a Democrat?
God help me, I am. I will be leaving this nightmare at the earliest opportunity though, bet your life. I start every day with a prayer of gratitude for not being a democrat
OK, you are absolutely right. And this misguided political-correctness-gone-awry (my son’s term) and other stupidity is going to ruin this country. I am ashamed of the Connecticut DNC.
Are you from the State of Conn-fusion as well?
No, but maybe I’m just ashamed of the DNC.
Although I agree completely about the “slippery slope” of political correctness, one could observe that Bill Cosby didn’t engage in “less than admirable behavior by current standards” but in conduct that was illegal and unethical by the standards of the time in which the conduct took place. Bravo Disney, cattivo Connecticut
Yeah, I wrestled with how to make that description inclusive of both Cosby’s misconduct and the others. It’s tough when slavery is the counterpart of rape. Obviously I didn’t find the perfect solution.
This will all be easier once Presidents’ Day is replaced by Obama Day.
“Presidents’ Day” is plural, so to balance it out we will have “Obama’s Days.”
One interesting aspect: there’s a many years’ long discussion of “Would Jefferson be a Democrat if he was around today?” It seems that point is now being conceded by the Democrats.
Who would be the earliest figure the Democrats could name a dinner after? FDR, or maybe Wilson because of internationalism?
Adlai Stevenson.
I liked his famous line: “a funny thing happened to me on the way to the White House…”.
I blame the lack of understanding of history. History especially American history, taught with as many original documents as possible is and has been missing from American education for far too long.
Hmmmm…….does this mean that the Republicans can now put in a claim to adopt Thomas Jefferson and Jackson? The party of Lincoln and Jefferson — how does that sound?
We’re almost to the trading deadline. Perhaps trade Harding and Taft for Jefferson, with a president to be named later?
I’m confused. Even had they thought of it (and why should they??) was there a viable alternative for finding workers in those days and those areas of the country? Oh, wait! Of course: there was the Monticello Union Hall Plantation Workers #1, and all those employment agencies in Nashville, not to mention the Want Ads section of the local papers. Or the unemployed could have hung out in bunches at the crossroads until a wagon-driver came by looking to hire help for the day. Hey! Or Jefferson and Jackson could have gone online and bought tractors and combines and tillage planters and … uh … hmm … I’m just confused.
But cheer up, Jack. What goes around comes around. From now on whatever names they put on their dinners, or make statues to, all the streets and highways, libraries and schools, wherever there is a “famous” persons name, be assured that that too shall pass into oblivion, probably within your lifetime.
Except perhaps the name of kardashian . . .
Don’t take the “product of their times” argument to too much of an extreme. The ideology supporting slavery was not as rigidly in place in 1800 as it would be in 1850, and Jefferson was acquainted with people who manumitted their slaves. That he didn’t do it himself is probably due to: (1) his desire to be personally popular within his class; and, (2) the fact that he spent every penny as fast as it came into his hands, so that he always needed more money.
It wasn’t an argument — just a brainfart to help un-grit my teeth. There are times (becoming more frequent every year) when I wish I hadn’t lived this long.
I know the feeling. Sometimes, I envy my elderly parents just a bit. Thinking about what awaits my kids, though, literally keeps me up at night. It also fuels my intense, and growing, dislike of the left.
Exactly!
” Tell me the NAACP–which is advocating the destruction of the huge sculpture of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on Stone Mountain, Georgia”
What are they thinking!?
They are thinking they can gain power and influence by doing so, and that fear of being seen as supporting allegedly racist symbols will prompt cowardly elected officials to capitulate. And they may be correct in those calculations.
Easy targets with few defenders. Makes them look bigger.
The logic of the Democrats is gone into insanity! If the continue with ridding themselves of offensive names, they will have to change the name of their party, because it is also associated with slavery?
Yeah lets forget that Jefferson’s writings laid the basis for our revolution and so many others that followed or that Jackson made it possible for all citizens of the Republic to vote when he changed the rules to allow men who didn’t own property to vote. Yeah lets forget all that.
That’s great Bill, I forgot to note that part of Andy’s legacy. He was the first true populist, and was really our first democratic President is all respects.
I think American Blacks and Indians are ultimately going to regret this. Jefferson and Jackson are “problematic” historical figures for the NAACP. But good or bad it’s their history too. America has tried to address the wrongs committed by these figures with special protections, affirmative action and voting rights reforms. Erasing history is ultimately going to erase the reason these protections were put in place.
The Left is ok with this because they want to extend these protections to “generic minorities”, like gays, transfolk and recent immigrants. They don’t care if these groups don’t have the same history as American Blacks and indians. The Left gets to have Civil-Rights reenactments which raise money, mobilize their base and pretend to be interested in justice.
That’s fine by me, Jack. They don’t deserve any connection with those men, anyway. If they have even the smallest streak of honesty left, they’ll replace Jefferson and Jackson with icons of Marx and Lenin.
The left’s attempt to expunge from our history truly great Americans, and replace them in our collective consciousness with lesser men and women more to their political liking could only succeed in this country if we had an utterly corrupted, biased media and education system, which I just don’t think will ever…oh, shit.
Twenty years ago, I would have agreed!