There have been a lot of arguments made for preserving confederate statues. None of them are quite like this.
In response to Arlington County, Virginia's proposal to rename its Jefferson Davis Highway, local man Max Perrine has written a very questionable column for Virginia newspaper The Roanoke Times. His big concern? We've "had enough 'slave owner' bashing" and "are now going after confederate citizen memorials."
After introducing his point with a poorly worded non-question, Perrine goes on to point out that "12 of our presidents were slave owners to some degree." So do we want to "rename Washington ... 'Boss Hog City?,'" he asks. There are also dozens of other Washingtons around the country, and after weeding them out and "spending enough of our state/federal tax monies to remove all of our historic confederate citizen statues," Perrine claims "we might qualify for foreign aid." Things then get a tad wilder, as Perrine suggests "the History Altering Association" he apparently just created can "unite the Christians of the World" and "go to Egypt to start removing and relocating the pyramids and of the statues of the pharaohs."
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"Folks, crap happens," Perrine finishes his column, declaring "you can't erase history." Don't believe him? "Ask a Holocaust survivor or a close relative of one," Perrine says to wrap it all up. You can find the whole column here, if you want.
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