A Texas state senator reports via Facebook that his bill, SB 1663, the Texas Monument Protection Act, has passed the Texas State Senate. This bill as reported “creates permanent protections for the Alamo Cenotaph so future generations can learn the story of Texas.”
Bullshit.
There is no such thing as “permanent protection” in law. Any law you pass this session could be overturned by another law in the next session. This is true of any law you choose to consider, including the Constitutions of both your state and the nation as a whole. Granted it is more difficult to overturn a Constitutional requirement, other than in the breach (2nd Amendment comes to mind) than it is a paltry federal or state statute, but “permanence” in law is defined more like “will last until the barbarians get the upper hand and throw it out”.
We used to protect monuments by the simple expedient of learning and having reverence for our history, regardless of the warts and blemishes we’d rather paper over. Violations of this social compact were treated by shaming the guilty (and sometimes by a misdemeanor charge of vandalism). Of course this was when “shame” was a concept that actually had some weight — nobody seems to be ashamed anymore of anything they do that falls outside of the old social compacts.
Moreover it would never have occurred to a state legislature to order the removal or destruction of a monument once deemed historically important simply because a few privileged snowflakes felt offended by it.
One of the most important things that happened after the Civil War (regardless of how badly it was muffed) was the acceptance of the rebellious states and their erstwhile soldiers back into the fold, without much more than acceding to Constitutional requirements (ratification of the 14th Amendment) and swearing out amnesty oaths. There was no requirement to strike the rebel flag into dusty corners of museums, and indeed, several Southern states to this day contain elements (or alleged elements) of their Confederate past.*
In the last few years, however, anything that reeks of the parts of American History that sets off the snowflakes has slowly been receiving progressively** worse treatment by the Left. Monuments have been removed, or moved from public to private property, graves have been desecrated (or serious discussion of their desecration has been held in public fora), flags have been removed from statehouse lawns, and so forth — only because there exists among the current generation of young people the idea that our history doesn’t matter and only the parts of it that they deem acceptable will be allowed to stand.
Of course they got these ideas stuffed into their heads by the public schools and the universities they attend or attended. The Gramscian damage runs deep with this generation. But it is only the tip of the iceberg represented by students taking over the academies and demanding that this professor be fired for speaking truths they don’t wish to hear, or that this outside speaker be banned for similar reasons. The madness infecting the academy has also long infected the media, which looks on with approval as our culture is dismanted stone by stone.
I would argue that the Texas senator means well. But I would further argue that laws such as the one he is so proud of having shepherded through his state senate would be unnecessary had we not allowed the enemies of liberty and civilization to dominate our public discourse to the extent to which they have come to do.
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* I’m not even going to mention The Dukes of Hazzard.
** Giggle.