Remember when Democrats used to have Jefferson/Jackson dinners in South Dakota?
A lot has changed in the intervening years, as now it seems South Dakota Democrats consider Thomas Jefferson as well as another member of Mt. Rushmore – George Washington – as unacceptable and are trying to “cancel” any mention of their contributions to our country because like many of their contemporaries, they owned slaves:
Without Washington, there’d be no United States and subsequently no South Dakota, Venhuizen said. Jefferson was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase, which acquired territory from France that encompassed what eventually became South Dakota. Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which led to the settlement of South Dakota. And Roosevelt frequented the west and inspired former South Dakota Gov. Peter Norbeck to create Custer State Park
and…
“I feel that it’s not a good time to propose statues with what’s going on on the national level,” said Rep. Jamie Smith, the minority leader in the South Dakota House of Representatives. “It’s an incendiary topic that is perhaps being used for political reasons.”
Rep. Erin Healy echoed Smith’s comments, saying that erecting more monuments of Jefferson and Washington won’t foster unity in South Dakota.
“Of course our nation has past, but we certainly don’t need to be adding fuel to the fire when it comes to statues of past presidents who were owners of slaves and weren’t perfect people,” she said, adding that she thinks it’s another step in the governor’s desire to differentiate South Dakota from the rest of the country.
You know, nobody claimed the founding fathers to be any less imperfect than their contemporaries. But applying the cancel culture of the time to the people that founded our nation – 1/2 of the people on Mt. Rushmore – just come off as liberal claptrap.
South Dakota Democrats.. just part of the same liberal statue destroying crowd that is plaguing the nation.
Hopefully we can disagree without being disagreeable. Changing history is not a solution to the past. We can make new tomorrows starting now!
Did they argue we should get rid of statues of them or just that we don’t need to be adding any new ones? I think there’s a big difference.
I’m personally a fan on the idea of adding statues of South Dakotans to the Capitol. Foss, Norbeck, Sitting Bull, Pyle have been suggested.
Kind of makes your head spin, wrapping around the idea that Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt are offensive! I’m thinking that people with that kind of a view of history, need to stick to the funny pages and stay inside out of the heat and sun – a no stress, almost snowflake like environment.
So does Erin thinks she’s perfect? Does she think the looters and rioters are perfect? Does Jamie think that he is a better man than Jefferson was? I doubt if either of these two could hold a candle to Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, etc, etc.
People that react so negatively to the founders are totally ignorant of the times that Jefferson, et al, were living in.
No they are not, they are thinking that Jefferson should have looked at his Twitter account to know he a racist and evil man and cancelled himself. Haha
Good one.
I think these are some candidates who are vulnerable
The Dems have finally lost their minds
They wonder why they can’t field candidates.
Their insanely reactive to anything a conservative says.