[LOCAL NEWS] The Model Confederacy
The Model Confederacy
So my local government has done it; they have decided one of the most important periods in American history, one that the Social Justice Warriors lean on as one of the prime motivators and excuses for ever-increasing authoritarianism in the pursuit of justice, never happened.
The American Civil War is no more. Never happened. And with it, obviously there must have never been an issue with slavery in the United States – or else we would've fought a war over it. And after that war, there certainly weren't any acts of reconciliation, magnanimous allowances to the defeated in order to allow them some measure of dignity in the course of a return to actual unity.
LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners has approved a resolution to move a controversial Confederate monument into storage while court proceedings revolving around the 28-year-old monument continue.
The monument sits on the grounds of Gwinnett County's Historic Courthouse in Lawrenceville and became the focus of media attention and protests after it was vandalized in June 2020. In response, Gwinnett County Solicitor-General Brian Whiteside filed a lawsuit against Gwinnett County seeking a court order declaring the monument a public nuisance and directing county officials to remove it. The monument was vandalized a second time on Thanksgiving Day.
"Offensive" is how Gwinnett County Commissioner Ben Ku described the monument. He noted that it should not sit on public land paid for by taxpayers.
"Because it was placed at the courthouse with the permission of the board of commissioners duly elected by the people, it makes sense at this time to rescind that permission by another board of commissioners also elected by the people," he said in a statement.
By passing the resolution, the monument will be kept secluded in a storage facility for "protection and preservation" until the court issues a ruling or the lawsuit is resolved. County Board of Commisioners Chairwoman Nicole Hendrickson said the present location of the monument may prompt additional acts of vandalism and "creates a public safety concern for both the city of Lawrenceville and Gwinnett County."
"Because it was placed at the courthouse with the permission of the board of commissioners duly elected by the people, it makes sense at this time to rescind that permission by another board of commissioners also elected by the people."
Commissioner, I don't think the idea is for the will of the people to be assumed by you. I think the idea is for the will of the people to be exemplified by you. Reasonably, maybe you should ask first? Maybe you should actually see what the will of the people is?
I know this is an unusual idea – that elected representatives should actually represent their electorate and not just seek to eradicate history and thus eradicate discussion of history, and I know that the idea that ideas are important, even if they're unpleasant, and that historical events can guide us in understanding current events – all of this is unusual and horribly out of vogue, but I have some affection for ideas which have stood the test of time for thousands of years.
Or at least 156.
But now that this pesky and subtle reminder that the Civil War happened, of the thousands of men that gave their lives, all of whom were pursuing their idea of freedom, and that it was a terrible thing that happened – now that it's gone, we can all rest easy in our beds knowing that there are people out there who aren't offended by the idea that some people many years before died so they could be free.
It's funny, really. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Republicans gave the Democrats room for dignity, room to mourn their dead, room to erect monuments to their loss, with the understanding that not doing so would lead to festering resentment, underground hatred, and the absolute preservation of the idea that their countrymen who won the Civil War were not just countrymen who were right but their continuing enemy. They stopped acting like the enemy when they won and became like-mourning countrymen.
It would be a gross dereliction of logic to suggest the recent unpleasantness of the election of 2020 was anywhere near the catastrophic disintegration of the Union in 1860, but while history may not actually repeat itself, sometimes it echoes a little. And while we may not have exactly the same interests as during the Civil War, it's important to keep in mind that humans don't stop being humans just for the passage of a couple of years.
While we're in here, let's carefully consider the words of chairwoman Nicole Hendrickson in the context of what we know:
[...] Chairwoman Nicole Hendrickson said the present location of the monument may prompt additional acts of vandalism and "creates a public safety concern for both the city of Lawrenceville and Gwinnett County."
I can't help reading this as:
"Because this monument continues to exist, people who agree with me and think like I do, finding it offensive, will probably keep trying to destroy it – so it must be destroyed."
Is this one of those "we had to do destroy the village to save it" kind of things? Is there any way to make this anything but one of the most egregious uses of the memory hole in local history?
Lucky for me, I have a little bit of a fascination with photogrammetry and using it to preserve historical landmarks in context. One of the early experiments that I tinkered with was modeling this exact monument in its original location on the corner of the town square.
In the digital domain it remains, at least until they finally come for every other platform where ideas can be shared freely, concepts exist whether or not the mob likes them, and of the Powers That Be can collude strongly enough to remove every other outlet.
Once it's finished reprocessing, that should that should be downloadable for everyone, just in case you want to hide away a little piece of actual history before it gets tucked away in the deepest, darkest place the people ostensibly interested in representing you can find for it.
If you have access to public monuments or other items which might themselves find their way down the memory hole, this would be a good time to learn about photogrammetry and how you can use it to capture history before he goes away. If you have questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help you create your own digital analogues.
Better hurry.
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