Blow Up Mount Rushmore?
“There are few things more dishonorable that misleading the young.”
Thomas Sowell
The 4th of July holiday was an unusual one. Calls for the iconic Mount Rushmore to be taken down. More historic statues vandalized. Many municipalities cancelled fireworks displays and parades, fearing more infections from the China Flu as folks got out to celebrate. Detected cases are up due to increased testing – most are under 50 and the least likely to die, statistically. Strangely enough the decreasing death rate from the pandemic has been absent from reporting.
The big event of the weekend holiday was the President’s journey to the Mount Rushmore Memorial to celebrate the Nation’s birthday. The resentment and caustic commentary in the print and broadcast media was stunning, unlike anything in the history of this holiday.
Fair-minded CNN reporter Leyla Santiago stated that Mount Rushmore is a “monument of two slave owners on land wrestled away from Native Americans.” Of course that same network in 2008 referred to it as “majestic” and “quite a sight” when Barack Obama visited during his 2008 campaign. He in fact, joked that his ears were too big for Mt Rushmore. Their coverage then was gushing, to say the least.
When questioned on CNN Sunday about Mount Rushmore, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth addressed the controversy about taking down the memorial, “We should start off by having a national dialogue … I think we should listen to everybody. I think we should listen to the argument, there but remember that the President at Mount Rushmore was standing on ground that was stolen from Native Americans.” An astonishing response. She should know that the name of her state is derived from a Native American word.
Breaking News Senator. Everybody in the United States is living on seized “native land” except Native Americans. However, Manhattan was purchased by the Dutch from the local Iroquois at what should really be considered a well-crafted “swindle” rather than a fair transaction. At least it wasn’t “seized”.
Out of work Quarterback Colin Kaepernick condemned the Nation’s 244th birthday as a “celebration of white supremacy”, in a widely reported Tweet. A bi-racial man raised by the white parents, who by all accounts provided him with a loving home, made that unbelievably stupid remark about the Revolutionary War. Does any rational citizen of this nation think that the 300,000 dead Union soldiers who fought to end slavery were fighting for white supremacy? Hard to believe that Colin is a college graduate.
The continued ignorance of protesting vandals is spectacular. The image of Fredrick Douglas, the Black abolitionist, friend of Lincoln, was destroyed over the weekend in Rochester, New York. A statue of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore was tossed in the harbor. Of course, we all know that these two were big friends of the Confederacy and so deserved destruction.
The Nation needs to discuss our history, one based on the truth not the misleading, distorted narrative currently peddled in our schools and by leftist anarchists. As a result, this kind of honest dialog and education will enhance what we can learn from those disturbing blemishes that occurred as the Nation grew.
Let’s remember the progress Black Americans have made politically; a Black President, 22 Cabinet Officers, 2 Supreme Court Justices, 224 Federal Judges, 10 US Senators,153 members of the US House, and nearly 400 Admirals and Generals. Finally, 39 of the 100 largest cities in the United States currently have Black Mayors.
Unfortunately, the presumptive Democrat Presidential nominee, characterized America as “the marginalized, the demonized, the isolated, the oppressed” in his 97 second, 4th of July address. Apparently after years and years in Washington, former Vice President Joe Biden will now fix everything he failed to fix after nearly a half century in government. Apparently in Biden’s America there has been no progress because we have too many reprobates who have prevented real growth.
Nobody wants to get up every day and be told by the media or assorted dissidents, that they should be embarrassed or mislead, about who they are.
Dr Sowell’s wisdom is, without question, needed in the national dialog.