While the general well-being of the people living in North Carolina is circling the drain, Republican state lawmakers are worried about the fate of those very vulnerable Confederate memorials to very dead Confederate soldiers.
WRAL has a humdinger today: State lawmakers—Republicans—will discuss a bill next week that would forbid local governments and public universities from removing state-owned Confederate monuments from public property, even if said property is not owned by the state.
In other words, you can’t touch this.
Section 3 of Senate Bill 22, the “Historic Artifact Management and Patriotism Act,” prohibits anyone from removing, relocating or altering a “monument, memorial or work of art owned by the state” without permission from the N.C. Historical Commission.
There are exceptions for construction and the like, but the monuments need put back where they belong, and that’s not in a museum, cemetery or mausoleum. Because we want to parade these testaments to white supremacy, slavery and treason in front of the world to see.
Undoubtedly, this is the GOP’s equivalent of the Battle of Fort Sumter: They’re out to crush those anti-racist vandals who defaced Silent Sam on the UNC campus.
Many, many people find these monuments offensive, vestiges of a shameful era in U.S. history. But not Sen. Daniel Soucek, a Republican from Watauga County. He was quoted by WRAL as saying, “What is reprehensible and disrespectful is sometimes a matter of personal opinion.”
To which Rep. Gary Pendleton, R-Wake, added: “What always comes to mind anybody could be offended by anything,”
