As the Confederate Flag hysteria escalates, CNN's Ashleigh Banfield asks fellow CNN mouthpiece Don Lemon if it’s now appropriate for lawmakers to start a future conversation about whether or not the monument of Thomas Jefferson should be removed from the U.S. Capitol.
Thomas Jefferson–like a lot of people 270 years ago–owned slaves. He inherited them from his father. Jefferson gave away many of the estimated 170 slaves he owned after his death. While writing in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” Jefferson didn’t believe blacks and whites were equals.
But Thomas Jefferson didn’t want to divorce from the union in order to preserve slavery. In fact, Jefferson wrote constantly and argued regularly about whether or not the founders should include the abolition of slavery in the Bill of Rights.
The bespectacled Banfield speaks...
* * *
Banfield is foolish to conflate the Confederate flag with a Thomas Jefferson memorial. And we fear the stupid won’t be receding anytime soon.
* * *
Just one more reminder, as we noted earlier, [3]it seems few had any major "tear down these flags" problems with The Confederate Flag until some nutjob kills less people than die in Chicago every Friday night. Populist policy-setting and news media provocation by Lowest Common Denominator appears to be the nanny-state's new media normal.
