Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) read Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) the riot act after his colleague claimed that it was &#8220;extremely troubling&#8221; to hear a nominee for a federal post claim that rights were given by God, not governments.
The nominee in question was Riley Barnes, who previously worked in the U.S. State Department and has been nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Barnes said that he agreed with his boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who recently said &#8220;that all men are created equal because our rights come from God, our Creator; not from our laws, not from our governments.&#8221;
Kaine took issue with Barnes&#8217; statement, and argued that only a theocratic government — such as the one in Iran — would attribute the source of rights to God rather than the law.
&#8220;The notion that rights don&#8217;t come from laws and don&#8217;t come from the government, but come from the Creator — that&#8217;s what the Iranian government believes. It&#8217;s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Sharia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá&#8217;ís, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities,&#8221; Kaine claimed. &#8220;And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.&#8221;
&#8220;I think the the motto over the Supreme Court is &#8216;equal justice under law,&#8217; — the oath that you and I take pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, not arbitrarily defined natural rights,&#8221; Kaine continued.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Our rights don’t come from government or the DNC.
They come from God. <a href="https://twitter.com/timkaine?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@timkaine</a>, I suggest the Dems go back and read the words of our Founding Fathers. <a href="https://t.co/QRmhTcbbOH">pic.twitter.com/QRmhTcbbOH</a>
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1963299914034663825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Cruz pushed back on Kaine&#8217;s claims a short time later in the hearing, saying that it was the Virginia Senator&#8217;s comments that were of concern rather than Barnes&#8217;.
&#8220;I just walked into the hearing as he was saying that, and I almost fell out of my chair, because that &#8216;radical and dangerous notion&#8217; — in his words — is literally the founding principle upon which the United States of America was created,&#8221; said Cruz.
Quoting former President Thomas Jefferson&#8217;s words from the Declaration of Independence, Cruz added, &#8220;&#8216;We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator&#8217; — not by government, not by the Democratic National Committee, but by God — &#8216;with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'&#8221;

Senate DCA Crash Hearing

‘Stunning’: Ted Cruz Reads Tim Kaine The Riot Act Over Claim That Rights Aren’t God-Given

'Stunning': Ted Cruz Reads Tim Kaine The Riot Act Over Claim That Rights Aren't God-Given

Congress

Politics

Ted Cruz

Thomas Jefferson

Tim Kaine

The National Park Service “is nearing completion of” a renovation of the Jefferson Memorial that turns the site into “a condemning portrayal” of the president’s legacy, City Journal recently <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-woke-jefferson-memorial">reported</a>.
The project aims to “completely renovate” the basement exhibit level of the memorial to “[provide] more perspectives as it shares Thomas Jefferson’s multi-faceted story,” a 2021 NPS press release said.
NPS signage at the memorial describes the upcoming exhibits, according to City Journal.
“The memorial’s designers sought to convey their mid-1900s version of US democracy,” it said. “Thomas Jefferson became the face of that endeavor. … In crafting this image, they selected specific materials, details, and excerpts from his writings. Studying these choices reveals their motives.”
But instead of informing visitors about Jefferson’s life, the new exhibits will undermine Jefferson’s legacy, City Journal said.
Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst <a href="https://wtop.com/dc/2021/12/2-year-jefferson-memorial-renovation-project-begins/">said</a> in 2021 that the new exhibits will “certainly … take a look at the paradox of the author of the lines ‘All men are created equal’ who owned more than 600 slaves in his life.”
The renovation is funded in part by $10 million from David M. Rubenstein, the NPS press release said. Rubenstein previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/post-modern-mischief-at-americas-national-parks-and-museums">funded</a> exhibits about slavery at Montpelier, the home of James Madison, and Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.
In 2019, Rubenstein <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/philanthropist-donates-10-million-jefferson-memorial-museum-180973445/">said</a> he donated to the project “so when people go, they can actually learn about Jefferson.”
But what does Rubenstein want people to learn about Jefferson, exactly? In a piece announcing Rubenstein’s donation, Smithsonian Magazine called Jefferson “a man of huge contradictions.” The memorial renovation will focus on “reinterpreting” Jefferson, particularly in light of allegations that Jefferson had four illegitimate children with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves.
The magazine ignored a scholarly commission that <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56d77a9ad51cd4a272d514c0/t/63d84b8a2683c7769f1972a1/1675119505362/Scholars-Commission-Report-1.pdf">found</a> that “the allegation is by no means proven” after examining available DNA evidence, as City Journal reported.
The old museum “focused on Jefferson’s own words, life, and ideas,” City Journal said. While the memorial above tried to present Jefferson in line with the New Deal policies of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt — who dedicated it in 1943 — the museum below showcased “Jefferson’s commitment to limited government and local control.”
Plans for the renovation of the Jefferson Memorial began in 2017. Kate Greenberg, then-vice president of marketing and communications for the Trust at the National Mall, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jefferson-memorial-exhibit-to-feature-update-addressing-slavery">said</a> the renovation would include the “most inclusive and accurate information” available.
The renovation is continuing despite an executive order from President Donald Trump that <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/">aims</a> to purge “anti-American ideology” from museums, parks, and monuments, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-signs-executive-order-targeting-anti-american-ideology-at-the-smithsonian">reported</a>.
“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” the order said.
The order instructs Secretary of the Interior Mark Burgum to ensure that monuments “do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
Although the order has been in effect since March, the renovation project continues and plans to open in 2025, City Journal said.

USA, Washington DC, Jefferson Memorial

National Park Service Renovation To Focus On ‘Reinterpreting’ Thomas Jefferson

National Park Service

Washington D.C.

A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/new-jersey">New Jersey</a> elementary school has changed its name following a reported student-led campaign to scrap <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/thomas-jefferson">Thomas Jefferson</a> due to his affiliation with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/slavery">slavery</a>.
Per <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-jersey-district-removes-thomas-jefferson-elementary-school-name-slavery?intcmp=tw_fnc">Fox News</a>, Thomas Jefferson Elementary in South Orange will now be known as Delia Bolden Elementary. That name was picked from a list of options that included other historical figures and some options that didn’t reference people at all.
The publication noted that Delia Owens was the first black woman to graduate high school in the area.
Other options included &#8220;Ruth Bader Ginsberg Elementary School&#8221; and &#8220;New Legacy Elementary School,” but ultimately, Owens won out.
&#8220;I want to make that point that Thomas Jefferson owned over 600 slaves,&#8221; board member Qawi Telesford said at a June meeting to discuss the possibility of a name change. 
&#8220;He freed two while he was alive and seven after he died, which basically means I have a 1.5% chance of being free in Thomas Jefferson’s world. So, I am not thankful to him. I am thankful to the people who made sure that I could actually be free and be on the board with you today.&#8221;
School Superintendent Ronald Taylor said in a statement that he was proud of the students for pushing for the name swap, which was also supported by faculty and staff. 
&#8220;Seeing the work that [the students] did, I think, exceeded the expectations of all of us who participated in that conversation, when that was the final outcome, to really engage our students and make this a real-life civics lesson with really strong connections to governance,&#8221; he said.
This isn’t the first time the Founding Father’s name was struck from a school. In 2021, the Falls Church school board in Virginia voted unanimously to change the names of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and George Mason High School, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-school-board-votes-to-take-thomas-jeffersons-name-off-of-school-gives-truly-insane-reasons-to-justify-it">reported</a>. They also argued that Jefferson’s legacy was tainted by his slave-owning past. 
Last fall, a 200-year-old statue of Jefferson was removed from New York’s City Council Chamber.
“This Administration owes it to the more than five million New Yorkers of color our members – past, present and future – represent, to resolve that the individuals memorialized within the confines of our People’s House be reflective not only of the best traditions of our city’s history and its diversity but unquestionable character,” the city’s council’s Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus said in a statement at the time, per <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/thomas-jefferson-statue-officially-booted-from-new-york-city-council-chamber">The Daily Wire</a>.

Portrait Of Thomas Jefferson

New Jersey Elementary School Ditches Thomas Jefferson From Name Because He Owned Slaves

Elementary Schools

Founding Fathers

New Jersey

Slavery

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/george-washington-is-the-greatest-president-of-all-time-and-we-need-him-now-more-than-ever">George Washington</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/thomas-jefferson">Thomas Jefferson</a>, Joe Biden: Which president is not like the others? Not a joke, as the latter might say.
According to far-left online magazine <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/salon">Salon</a>, they’re all similar. In an article whose headline assured readers it was not a joke, writer Matthew Rozsa said Biden, like the founding fathers, is a “visionary” whose greatness is missed by his peers.
&#8220;From the start of his administration, he has pushed for an ambitious economic program: expanded access to health care, major investments in job creation, financial assistance to parents, accelerated development of green energy and other steps to address climate change,&#8221; Rozsa wrote. &#8220;To this point, the political fates have cursed Joe Biden with the same bad luck that afflicted Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and other founding fathers at their most ambitious but least effective — but without granting him anything close to their storied accomplishments or historical legacy.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
As a historian, I can find no similarities among Jefferson, Washington and Biden. This is pure fiction on the part of the Salon reporter. Biden has no leadership skills and has been in government service for 47 years with no progress for the people but enriched himself.
&mdash; Jimmy Williams (@JimmyW_CFP) <a href="https://twitter.com/JimmyW_CFP/status/1543746911324225537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The headline of the article, &#8220;How Joe Biden is like America&#8217;s Founding Fathers &#8211; and no, I&#8217;m not kidding,&#8221; seems to anticipate some skepticism from readers. Many conservatives consider Biden, whose approval rating is below 40%, to be at least the worst American president since Jimmy Carter, and possibly of all time.
Rozsa got clobbered on Twitter for the comparison.
“I’m getting nauseous!” <a href="https://twitter.com/Jeffkirsh1/status/1543775728185081857?s=20&amp;t=TCHkWtrfRlrtHbesZM_2Ng">wrote Jeff Kirsh</a>. “It’s July 4th and you’re putting Biden in the same sentence with Washington &amp; Jefferson!”
“Washington and Jefferson were great leaders,” <a href="https://twitter.com/gpettisusa/status/1543754831235620866?s=20&amp;t=TCHkWtrfRlrtHbesZM_2Ng">tweeted Gary Pettis</a>. “Can you deny that? History will remember Joe Biden to be a weak leader who handled self-created crises ineptly. He&#8217;s like Carter, which proves that Progressive Democrats talk a good game to the middle class but they can&#8217;t govern.”
Rozsa charitably admits that without the founding fathers, “the United States would not exist today,” and acknowledges that Jefferson was a “complicated genius.” But just like Biden, he writes, Jefferson had many progressive ideas that got shot down by small-minded contemporaries.
&#8220;Jefferson&#8217;s inability to realize his economic vision doesn&#8217;t detract from his overall legacy, but it certainly offers some perspective on how even revered statesmen can have important ideas that go nowhere,&#8221; Rozsa writes.
One Twitter user said Rozsa should spend more time reading and less writing.
“Far left Salon writer should read the Federalist Papers before making a fool of himself saying Biden comparable to Jefferson &amp; Washington,” <a href="https://twitter.com/JackBones10/status/1543763892551053312?s=20&amp;t=TCHkWtrfRlrtHbesZM_2Ng">wrote Jack Bones</a>.
A <a href="https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall">2021 survey of historians by C-Span</a> rated Washington as the second-greatest U.S. president, behind only Abraham Lincoln. It ranked Jefferson seventh. Biden was not included in the survey.

Joe Biden

Not A Joke: Far-Left Mag Says Biden A ‘Visionary’ Like Founding Fathers

Magazine Says Biden A 'Visionary' Like Founding Fathers

American History

George Washington

Salon

Post-liberalism has suddenly become all the rage these days, a cause célèbre in a burgeoning number of conservative journalistic circles. Conservatives should be exceedingly careful of giving a fatal sanction to damning critiques of The Enlightenment and classical liberalism. Here’s why.
When did it become fashionable for conservatives to bash the European Enlightenment? 
Or, to phrase the question another way, when did conservatives start celebrating intellectual eviscerations of the philosophical tradition undergirding the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the “Gettysburg Address”, and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”?
Of course, American universities have long promulgated a steady potpourri of Anti-Enlightenment Leftist sentiment since the 1960s, disseminating a bevy of illiberal and postmodern notions—sometimes Marxist bromides about “false consciousness,” sometimes banal citations of Foucault about “power/knowledge” or how reality is a “social construct” that desperately needs to be “deconstructed” for reasons that seem to change every few years.
However, Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, Hume, Voltaire, and Baron de Montesquieu, to cite a few, are our philosophers. Their origins might be English, Scottish, or French, but many of their ideas are imbedded in the foundational documents of this nation. Jefferson thought Locke was one of the greatest men to have ever lived. Madison harnessed the ideas of Smith in the most famous of The Federalist Papers’ eighty-five essays, The Federalist No. 10. Montesquieu was quoted more than any other philosopher during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Hamilton was powerfully influenced by Hume’s reflections on commercial republicanism. 
“Inalienable rights,” “separation of powers,” the First Amendment freedoms, and a robust commitment to free enterprise and private property rights are all inextricably tied to what is unique and, yes, exceptional about the American Experiment. This bundle of practices and beliefs are typically associated with what is known as classical liberalism. 
Our Founding Fathers were classical liberals. When they wanted to hurl insults at one another, they would paint someone as an illiberal “monarchist” (Adams and Hamilton) or “anarchist” (Jefferson and Paine). Webster, Calhoun, and Clay were classical liberals. Abraham Lincoln was a classical liberal who labeled the Declaration of Independence “the apple of gold” and the Constitution a “picture of silver.” TR, FDR, LBJ, and Ronald Reagan were classical liberals—maybe not iterations modern Republicans would necessarily embrace, but still ardent believers in the classical liberal tradition underlying the American creed itself.
The formation of America, among other things, was a philosophical experiment in democratic self-government—an attempt to organize society from the bottom up, centering the locus of power not on the divine right of monarchs or the ecclesiastic diktats of established churches, but on the backs of ordinary human beings in possession of “natural” or “inalienable” rights who were rational and capable of exercising moral agency.
Until quite recently, American conservatives were almost universally committed to conserving the principles of the American founding—what Lincoln describes in his First Inaugural Address as “the mystic chords of memory.” Progressive college students might obnoxiously wear Che Guevara t-shirts on campus, but conservatives wax poetic when talking about Washington crossing the Delaware or reading the lyrical words of Jefferson in the apotheosis of classical liberal philosophy, the Declaration of Independence. Americans pulse with shame and pang with regret when reading Frederick Douglass’s, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July,” because we cannot deny the chasm between our liberal ideals and the presence of human bondage in our national history.
This tradition now seems suspicious to some. Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute,<a href="https://mises.org/wire/new-postliberalism"> succinctly describes this phenomenon</a>: “Postliberalism is having its moment on the political Right in America.”
Let’s hope the moment is brief. 
The argument of the post-liberals is now familiar.
A regime that champions individual liberty as its paramount virtue will eventually alienate itself from religious traditions, family connections, or any hint of community obligation. Liberalism, with its heavy emphasis on individual autonomy and sovereignty of the self, has encouraged its adherents to aggressively nurture every craving under the banner of choice and identity. The results have been a disaster. Civil society has become morally bankrupt, endlessly sexualized, and politically nihilistic while gorging on electronic titillation without end, effectively ruining our brains and corrupting our souls in the process.
A broader and more damning critique is that liberalism is an ideology without a meaningful telos or guiding purpose and is, thus, inherently chaotic. There is no aspirational truth, no grand project, no transcendent meaning. Liberalism is a political project that intensely relegates meaning to the personal realm. Fulfillment is not reached through politics or other locales of the public square. We are not collectively serving a divine monarch or supporting the ecclesiastic writ of an established church.
Thus, liberalism is built on the lower but firmer ground of universal rationalism and rights-based individualism.
I am actually quite sympathetic to these critiques; in fact, I wrote an entire <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hollowed-Out-Warning-Americas-Generation/dp/1684513804/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZJJP007J97JN&amp;keywords=hollowed+out+adams+paperback&amp;qid=1654164206&amp;s=audible&amp;sprefix=hollowed+out+adams+paperback%2Caudible%2C182&amp;sr=1-1">book</a> chronicling how a cult of radicalized individualism has ensnared the souls of young people, hollowing them out by imperiling the quest for deeper meaning and purpose as young Americans today find themselves increasingly alienated from faith, patriotism, marriage, family, and friendship.
But John Locke isn’t our enemy. As Hoover Institute senior fellow Peter Berkowitz has <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/redefining-conservatism-to-remake-america/">noted</a>, “Lockean ideas are inextricably woven into the fabric of America’s national political culture.”  
Citizens in a liberal society don’t need to fight religious crusades or take part in utopian political projects to find some measure of happiness and fulfillment. We might be “men without chests,” satisfied with simple pleasures and localized ambitions, but this is actually a good and desirable outcome. We might just want to play tennis two nights a week. We might just want to read romance novels and save for a time share on the coast. We might want to move to Tennessee and lose thirty pounds by hiking on mountain trails. 
Many of the scholars who write these books and critiques are men and women of great genius and soaring erudition. Their books and articles are read by the high priests of modern American political culture. Their words echo. Their voices were magnified and given the sanction of prestige by famous<a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/21/rediscovering-conservatism/"> right-leaning newspapers</a> and magazines. Their scholarship is impeccable, and their credentials are second-to-none.  
And yet, there is something this high school teacher knows that they don’t: If post-liberalism becomes the orthodoxy on the American Right, this nation is in real trouble. Who will be left to teach and defend the guiding principles of the American republic? Who will tell the story of why the nation is worth defending and renewing for another generation?
What will it mean to be an American if we don’t believe in the “Laws of Nature?” What if we don’t believe in “inalienable rights” and “equal protection of the laws?” What if the universal chalice from which all Americans drink—“that all men are created are created equal”—runs dry and Martin Luther King’s “Dream” is deemed hopelessly naive? This is what is ultimately at stake. 
We live in a time Edmund Burke feared most, when tradition is airily abandoned and liberty descends into licentiousness. If cars are crashing too often in our society, the solution is to teach people how to become better drivers, not to decry the development of the car, itself. Classical liberalism isn’t perfect, and it is certainly vulnerable to excess.
However, as Winston Churchill <a href="https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/">famously remarked</a> about democracy, ‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’
Jeremy S. Adams is the author of the recently-released Amazon best-selling book Hollowed Out: A Warning About America&#8217;s Next Generation. He has taught American civics for 24 years in Bakersfield, California and was the 2014 California Teacher of the Year (DAR). You can follow him on Twitter @JeremyAdams6.
The opinions expressed in this piece are the author&#8217;s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Adams – When Did John Locke Become The Enemy_

When Did John Locke Become The Enemy? 

When did it become fashionable for conservatives to bash the European Enlightenment?

Conservatives

Declaration of Independence

Liberalism

Readers Pass

After nearly two hundred years, a statue of Founding Father and primary author of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson has been taken out of New York&#8217;s City Council Chamber. 
The statue, which <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/22/thomas-jefferson-statue-leaves-city-hall-after-187-years/">reportedly</a> weighed almost 900 pounds, was moved out of the building by workers from Marshall Fine Arts. It will be given on a long-term loan to the New York Historical Society. The removal process took several hours. 
Last month, the city’s public design commission unanimously voted to remove the statue after concerns about Jefferson and his relationship to slavery. 
“This Administration owes it to the more than five million New Yorkers of color our members – past, present and future – represent, to resolve that the individuals memorialized within the confines of our People’s House be reflective not only of the best traditions of our city’s history and its diversity but unquestionable character,” the city’s council’s Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/incredibly-racist-new-york-city-commission-votes-to-remove-200-year-old-thomas-jefferson-statue">said</a> in a statement. 
Erin Thompson, author of the forthcoming “Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments” said that public input should go along with monument removal. 
“Removing a monument without a public conversation about why it’s happening is useless. New Yorkers all need to talk about who we want to honor and why,” she said.
Thompson, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, added, “Moving this statue doesn’t mean New Yorkers will forget who Thomas Jefferson was — but some of them might learn from the controversy that the man who wrote ‘all men are created equal’ owned over 600 of his fellow humans.”
Staten Island City Council Member Joe Borelli said that Mayor Bill de Blasio was waging a &#8220;progressive war on history.&#8221;
“The de Blasio administration will continue the progressive war on history as he, himself, fades away into a portrait on a City Hall wall,” he <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/de-blasio-booting-founding-father-jefferson-from-city-hall/">told </a>the New York Post.
The commission that decided to remove the statue is not elected, but instead appointed by the city’s mayor. A spokesperson for Mayor de Blasio said at the time that he hoped to “provide valuable historical context” to the statue. 
“The original bronze statue, by sculptor Pierre-Jean David, is still on display in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC. The plaster replica was gifted to City Hall by naval officer and Jefferson admirer Uriah Phillips Levy in 1834,” the New York Post reported. 
Levy, a Jewish naval commodore once called Jefferson “one of the greatest men in history” and “an inspiration to millions of Americans.”
Leading the efforts to remove Jefferson was Democrat Corey Johnson, New York City Council Speaker. 
“There are disturbing images of divisiveness and racism in our City that need to be revisited immediately,” he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/23/thomas-jefferson-statue-removed-nyc-slaveowner/">said</a> in a letter to Mayor de Blasio. “That starts with City Hall.”
Jefferson had a storied <a href="https://www.heritage.org/american-founders/report/thomas-jefferson-americas-philosopher-statesman">career </a>in American politics serving as governor of Virginia, a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, secretary of state for George Washington, vice president, the third U.S. president, and founder of the University of Virginia. 
A statue of President Theodore Roosevelt is also being <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/problematic-theodore-roosevelt-statue-to-be-removed-from-nycs-museum-of-natural-history">moved</a> after 80 years from its place in front of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. It will be relocated to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/22/natural-history-museums-theodore-roosevelt-statue-headed-to-north-dakota/">in</a> North Dakota. 
The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation said that the statue was “problematic” and “denies passersby consent and context.”

Jefferson Memorial

Thomas Jefferson Statue Officially Booted From New York City Council Chamber

New York City

Statues

New York City’s Public Design Commission has decided to remove a nearly two-hundred-year-old statue of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson from NYC’s City Hall on Monday by a unanimous vote.
Local ABC affiliate <a href="https://abc7ny.com/thomas-jefferson-city-council-new-york-save-our-statue/11139323/">reported</a>, “The statue, which dates back to 1833, was expected to go on ‘long term loan’ to the New-York Historical Society by the end of the year, where it would be included in educational exhibits with the proper historical context that likely will include discussion of Jefferson&#8217;s slave ownership.”
People have been pushing for the Founding Father and primary author of the Declaration of Independence removal from the City Council chambers in City Hall since June of 2020. Due to discussions over cost, a new destination has not yet been determined for the statue. 
&#8220;This Administration owes it to the more than five million New Yorkers of color our members &#8211; past, present and future &#8211; represent, to resolve that the individuals memorialized within the confines of our People&#8217;s House be reflective not only of the best traditions of our city&#8217;s history and its diversity but unquestionable character,” the city’s council’s Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus said in a statement. 
One New York assemblyman, who first attempted to remove the statue of the nation’s third president from the chamber back in 2001, called Jefferson a “slaveholding pedophile.” 
“How the hell can people see as a hero someone who had hundreds of enslaved Africans, someone who was a racist and who said we were inferior and someone who was a slaveholding pedophile?” Charles Barron <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/nyregion/thomas-jefferson-statue-ny-city-council.html">said</a> according to The New York Times. “For him to be canonized in a statue is incredible — incredibly racist.”
Many are upset with the decision to remove the historic statue, which has been in the city chambers for 188 years.
&#8220;Do we suddenly wipe out the images, the markings, the names of all those great patriots because they were slaveholders and slave holding was quite common at that time?&#8221; NYC Mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa said. 
As previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyc-mayor-bill-de-blasio-banishes-thomas-jefferson-statue-from-city-hall-after-187-years">reported</a> by The Daily Wire, members of the city’s Public Design Commission are all appointed by the mayor. A spokesman for the mayor said that the city would still have jurisdiction over the statue but that they would work to “provide valuable historical context.” 
“The city would still own the plaster model, and the historical society would include it in educational exhibits and provide valuable historical context,” the spokesman said. 
Before the vote, Republican City council member Joe Borelli accused Mayor Bill de Blasio of waging a “progressive war on history.” 
“The de Blasio administration will continue the progressive war on history as he, himself, fades away into a portrait on a City Hall wall,” the Staten Island member <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/de-blasio-booting-founding-father-jefferson-from-city-hall/">told </a>the New York Post. 
Originally, the statue was commissioned to celebrate Jefferson’s promotion of religious liberty in 1833 by Jewish Navy commodore Uriah P. Levy.
 “I consider Thomas Jefferson to be one of the greatest men in history,&#8221; Levy once <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/uriah-phillips-levy">said</a>, &#8220;the author of the <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/declaration-independence">Declaration</a> and an absolute democrat. He serves as an inspiration to millions of Americans.”
Earlier this year, New York’s Public Design also voted to remove a statue of Spanish-American war hero, explorer, and president Theodore Roosevelt from outside of the American Museum of Natural History.

Washington, D.C. Cityscapes And City Views

‘Incredibly Racist’: New York City Commission Votes To Remove 200-Year-Old Thomas Jefferson Statue

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is removing a statue of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and a Founding Father, from City Hall after nearly two centuries.
New York City’s Public Design Commission, each member of which is appointed by the mayor, is planning to loan the Jefferson statue to the New York Historical Society. The commission has listed the statue’s loan under its “consent” agenda, meaning the decision to remove the statue will not be open for public debate, according to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/de-blasio-booting-founding-father-jefferson-from-city-hall/"> New York Post</a>.
“The de Blasio administration will continue the progressive war on history as he, himself, fades away into a portrait on a City Hall wall,” Republican Councilman Joe Borelli told the Post. “I hope he is at least gone a couple hundred years before someone cancels him.”
Democrats and progressives sitting on New York’s city council have pushed for the statue’s banishment for over a year. Democratic Councilwoman Debi Rose said last year that Jefferson’s ownership of slaves justifies his bust’s expulsion from City Hall.
“His words are ‘all men are created equal’ but they were not matched by his action, which included the ability to sell, buy, mortgage and lease human beings,” Rose <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/06/18/pols-call-on-de-blasio-to-boot-thomas-jefferson-from-city-hall/">said</a> in June 2020. Her comments came weeks after the court-adjudicated murder of George Floyd, which set off protests and riots across the country over alleged systemic racism and calls to “defund the police.”
Rose signed a petition along with four other council members for de Blasio to remove Jefferson’s statue from City Hall.
“He believed black people to be racially inferior, said black Americans and white Americans could not live peacefully side by side and he fathered as many as six children with a woman he enslaved,” Rose said of Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence. “I believe the New York City Council should neither ignore nor glorify this dark side of American history.”
As Jefferson’s statue is under attack in New York City, Floyd has been memorialized in a bust unveiled in Brooklyn in June. Last week, the Floyd statue was defaced with paint. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/george-floyd-statue-defaced-with-paint-in-new-york-city">The Daily Wire</a> reported:
<blockquote>A statue that featured a bronze bust of George Floyd was defaced Sunday morning with a gray, water-based paint.
CNN <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/10/03/us/george-floyd-bust-defaced-confront-art/index.html">reported</a> that the statue was part of Confront Art’s “SEEINJUSTICE” exhibition, which also featured two other statues, all of which were opened to the public last Friday evening. The Floyd statue was defaced with paint around 10 a.m. Sunday morning, according to the New York Police Department.
“There’s video footage police were able to ascertain,” detective Frances Sammon told CNN. “They show a male ducking down under one of the statues. He then mixes something together, and, as he skates away, he throws a container of paint at the statue.”</blockquote>
Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody in May 2020. He died after being arrested for allegedly passing fake currency at a convenience store. Prior to the incident, Floyd was arrested nine previous times, largely on drug and theft charges. In one instance, Floyd <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/george-floyd-mural-blown-apart-by-lightning-strike-officials-say">held</a> a woman at gunpoint while his accomplices robbed her home.

Bill de Blasio

NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio Banishes Thomas Jefferson Statue From City Hall After 187 Years

Chicago-area immigration activists are protesting a decision to rename an elementary school after former President Barack Obama because of the Democrat&#8217;s record on deporting illegal immigrants, even though the school is currently named after Thomas Jefferson.
The Waukegan, Illinois, Board of Education decided several weeks ago to rename two &#8220;controversially&#8221; named elementary schools, Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Daniel Webster Middle School, over concerns that both historical figures supported the practice of slavery. &#8220;Renaming committees were formed for each school and included people in the community, students, and staff,&#8221; ABC <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/waukegan-public-schools-barack-and-michelle-obama-thomas-jefferson-middle-school-daniel-webster/10459946/">Chicago reported earlier in 2020</a>.
&#8220;After a group of more than 80 Jefferson students and community members petitioned the board in June to change the name there, board President Brandon Ewing pushed his colleagues to switch the names of both Jefferson and Webster middle school,&#8221; the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/ct-lns-waukegan-school-board-st-0311-20210310-fak52z3nifetjbha46juuxilvy-story.html">Chicago Tribune added</a>.
Similar efforts across the country have been met with varying levels of resistance. Many schools and buildings in the Chicago area have been renamed after complaints that their namesake historical figures are no longer acceptable to modern sensibilities, and school districts like the San Francisco United School District have undertaken massive, district-wide renaming efforts in the hopes of scrubbing any controversial reference from school buildings.
The SFUSD effort was tabled indefinitely after parents noted that the &#8220;historical research&#8221; that helped identify &#8220;controversial&#8221; school names was less than thorough.
In Chicago, though, the proposed new name for Thomas Jefferson Elementary School &#8212; Barack and Michelle Obama Elementary &#8212; has hit an entirely different snag. It turns out that, according to &#8220;Latinx&#8221; members of the Waukegan community, the former president is, himself, a controversial figure.
&#8220;The school board heard concerns from the public Tuesday night over one of the finalists in the running to be the new name for Thomas Jefferson Middle School,&#8221; <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/waukegan-public-schools-barack-and-michelle-obama-thomas-jefferson-middle-school-daniel-webster/10459946/">ABC News reported</a>. &#8220;The country&#8217;s first Black President and First Lady, Barack and Michelle Obama is one of the top three choices for the school&#8217;s new name but is drawing opposition in the area with a large Latinx population.&#8221;
&#8220;I will not be part of renaming a school after someone who did not and does not represent the undocumented community,&#8221; one school board member, who admitted to having been brought to the United States illegally as a child, told the board.
&#8220;From the time Barack Obama became President until 2017 when he left, he today is still the highest-ranking president with deportations in our nation,&#8221; the head of a local immigration organization told the network. &#8220;We feel that Barack Obama did a disservice to us. He denied us, and he didn&#8217;t stop the deportations, the way he promised.&#8221;
&#8220;If you&#8217;re removing the name of Thomas Jefferson &#8211; one oppressor &#8211; the name of Obama is another oppressor and our families do not want to see that name,&#8221; she added.
A group opposed to renaming the school after Barack Obama even held a protest outside the school board meeting on Tuesday night, adding to the media attention. Some members have suggested dropping Obama&#8217;s name from consideration altogether and, instead, naming the school after the late civil rights icon, John Lewis, or for Cesar Chavez.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/san-francisco-will-not-rename-controversial-schools-school-board-promises-to-consult-historians">San Francisco Will Not Rename ‘Controversial’ Schools, School Board Promises To ‘Consult Historians</a>’

Barack Obama

Obama Canceled? Chicago Area Immigration Activists Protest Renaming Middle School After Former President

Cancel Culture

Chicago

In framing the Constitution, our Founding Fathers radically entrusted we, the people, with our own governance. In doing so, they also accepted vulnerability to mankind’s shortcomings, recognizing the American experiment was fraught with peril — that greed and corruption were inevitable features of the human condition.
From Washington to Jefferson, the Founders gave the American people a framework for success with the Constitution, while also leaving behind prophetic warnings of how the great American experiment could go awry. Here are six chilling predictions, in their own words, that are now coming to fruition:
Benjamin Franklin worried that a salaried bureaucracy could breed career politicians.
In 1787, Franklin stood before the <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/268/8/12.html">Constitutional Convention</a> in Philadelphia, warning against a generously salaried congress: 
“Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice — the love of power and the love of money… Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall, at the same time, be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.”
Franklin’s concerns were clearly not heeded. While the first members of Congress were paid $6 per day, members today receive a <a href="https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/9c14ec69-c4e4-4bd8-8953-f73daa1640e4.pdf">base salary</a> of $174,000, placing them above 90 percent of American earners. This does not include additional annual allowances, which can run in the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40962.pdf">millions</a>. Franklin also warned about the quality of leaders a hefty paycheck would attract:
“It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your government and be your rulers. “
Indeed, political office has devolved from a civil service to a lucrative path, breeding the dreaded “career politician.” There is perhaps no better example than Joe Biden, who was once the sixth youngest senator at 30 years old, and is now the nation’s oldest President at age 78. It hasn’t been rough for the civil servant — <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/10/22/how-the-bidens-earned-167-million-after-leaving-the-white-house/?sh=27f0ad361e42">Forbes</a> reported that the Biden family earned $16.7 million just since leaving the Obama White House.
Thomas Jefferson dreaded the politicization of the Supreme Court.
In an 1821 <a href="about:blank">letter</a> to Nathaniel Macon, Jefferson expressed concerns about the politicization of judicial power: 
“Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit, by consolidation first, and then corruption&#8230;. The engine of consolidation will be the federal judiciary; the two other branches the corrupting and corrupted instruments.”
<a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm">Records</a> of congressional confirmation votes over the Court’s history reveal an abrupt politicization of the Supreme Court since Jefferson’s warning. This is a relatively recent phenomenon — in just the 1980s, appointees were frequently confirmed unanimously, including three of President Reagan’s nominations.
Confirmations have since devolved into partisan sideshows, reflecting an abandonment of appointment based on legal merit in favor of party loyalty. The latest iteration was the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020. Not a single Democrat <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=116&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00222">voted</a> for her, and rhetoric became so severe that she was even <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/10/20/paul-krugman-reveals-the-biggest-danger-amy-coney-barrett-poses-to-the-future-of-civilization_partner/">dubbed</a> a “danger to the future of civilization.”
Our Founding Fathers envisioned a Supreme Court that would safeguard the Constitution, regardless of political affiliation. With only 17 percent of Americans <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx">reporting</a> a great deal of trust in the Supreme Court in 2020, it is apparent that the institution is failing the people it was designed to protect.
James Madison warned that an unarmed people and biased press would breed tyranny.
In his 1830 <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99-02-02-2226">autobiography</a>, Madison outlined the preconditions necessary for tyrannical rule:
“Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.”
Madison’s warning has indeed come to pass in 2020, from the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-a-biden-presidency-means-for-gun-owners">blatant threats</a> to the Second Amendment posed by the Biden administration, to the extreme partisanship demonstrated by the legacy media. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage-of-trump-more-negative-than-for-other-presidents">Rates</a> of positive coverage between recent presidents has fluctuated dramatically — from 5 percent positive for Trump through 42 percent positive for Obama.
Indeed, the press divides politicians between those who can do no right and those who can do no wrong. With headlines like &#8220;<a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/first-lady-jill-biden-wore-a-scrunchie-shopping-twitter-reactions">First Lady Jill Biden Wore a Scrunchie While Shopping and People Felt So Seen</a>,” the pattern only seems set to continue. No wonder a record one in three Americans <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/321116/americans-remain-distrustful-mass-media.aspx">report</a> no trust at all in the media.
 George Washington predicted that political factions could tear the nation apart.
In his <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf">Farewell Address</a> on September 17, 1796, George Washington left the presidency with a grim warning about a party-based political system:  
“However [political factions] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp themselves the reigns of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
Indeed, American political leadership has been fractured along party lines with the chasm between Democrat and Republican camps broadening. Just as Washington predicted, politicians are operating for the betterment of their party, and thus have lost sight of their common goal: to serve the American people.
This has never been more true than in the COVID-19 era. Consistently, party leaders have insisted on cramming <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aoc-says-bidens-covid-relief-plan-doesnt-go-far-enough">contentious contingencies</a> into relief bills that run hundreds of pages long. In the process, they have deliberately held up much-needed support for citizens to fulfill partisan agendas.
As a result, rhetoric has devolved into us-versus-them, even good-versus-evil. Most of us think the worst of the other side — according to a 2020 <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/amid-multiple-crises-trump-and-biden-supporters-see-different-realities-and-futures-for-the-nation/">poll</a>, 78 percent of Democrats believe the Republican Party has been taken over by racists, while 81 percent of Republicans believe the Democratic Party has been taken over by socialists.
But political parties don’t just make us hate politicians — they make us think the worst of one another. A 2017 <a href="https://thepulseofthenation.com/#the-other-side">poll</a> even revealed that Democrats believe 50 percent of Republicans support white nationalism. The consequences of this party warfare may be cataclysmic; an October <a href="https://engagious.com/backtonormalbarometer">poll</a> found that nearly two-thirds of Americans think the nation is on the verge of another Civil War.
Benjamin Franklin warned against prioritizing safety over liberty.
In a reply to the Governor at a 1755 <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107">Pennsylvania Assembly</a>, Franklin criticized readiness to relinquish liberties:
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
There is perhaps no better example of liberty being relinquished for the sake of safety than during the pandemic. Despite an evolving body of data and an extremely low fatality rate among those not at-risk, the nation is nearing a year of shutdowns with no end in sight.
Endless freedoms and civil liberties have been tossed aside for the sake of safety, from fining small establishments like <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/12/14/nj-gym-that-defied-covid-19-lockdown-fined-more-than-1-2m/">Atilis Gym</a> in New Jersey for the crime of conducting business, to <a href="https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/CDPH-Guidance-for-the-Prevention-of-COVID-19-Transmission-for-Gatherings-10-09.aspx">restrictions</a> in California strongly discouraging the use of wind instruments at Thanksgiving dinner. The situation became so dire that the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/15/churches-take-covid-19-supreme-court-sides-religious-freedom/3813310001/">Supreme Court</a> even had to defend the constitutional right to freely practice religion.
Fear-mongering and a rising culture of safety-ism have led to compliance among a terrified populace. But this willingness to relinquish liberties may be predicated on misinformation — a <a href="https://www.kekstcnc.com/media/2793/kekstcnc_research_covid-19_opinion_tracker_wave-4.pdf">poll</a> from June found the average American estimates deaths from COVID-19 at 225 times the actual reported deaths.
Authorities have maximized hysteria to usurp unprecedented power under the guise of safety. And it’s not just liberties we run the risk of losing by obeying increasingly unsubstantiated and draconian lockdown orders — in the process we are <a href="https://www.curbed.com/article/nyc-businesses-closed-2020-pandemic.html">destroying the health of our economy</a>, and even irreversibly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-irreversible-consequences-of-school-closures">harming our children</a>.
John Adams feared future generations would take liberty for-granted.
In a 1777 <a href="http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17770426ja">letter</a> to his wife Abigail, Adams lamented that the sacrifices made by America’s founding generation might be forgotten by their progeny:
“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost my generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.” 
Today, this sentiment is heartbreaking. Though we live in the freest country in history, a June 2020 <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx">poll</a> has found a record low proportion of citizens are proud to be Americans. Perhaps because most Americans have never known a life without the liberties Adams and the Revolutionary generation fought for, we fail to fully appreciate them. 
Only <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hgc_2014/">18 percent</a> of eight grade students are proficient in American history, and just <a href="https://www.usmint.gov/news/press-releases/20070815-survey-reveals-most-americans-cant-name-nations-founding-fathers">7%</a> of Americans can name the first four presidents — including Adams, of course. So, what’s the heartbreaking response to Adam’s call to posterity 244 years later? We haven’t forgotten the sacrifices he made to secure our liberty — we didn’t even know them in the first place. 
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Founding Fathers: 6 Prophetic Warnings That Are Coming True

Constitution

On Tuesday, the Falls Church school board in Virginia voted unanimously to change the names of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and George Mason High School, achieving one of the great feats of bureaucratic cowardice by knocking out the father of the Bill of Rights and the author of the Declaration of Independence all at once. 
School Board Chair Greg Anderson, in <a href="https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2020/12/falls-church-school-board-votes-unanimously-to-change-names-of-2-schools/">announcing</a> the change, said, “The Board took seriously the viewpoints and concerns raised by many students, parents, staff, and community members. We thank everyone who shared their perspectives with us and will be mindful of your comments as we now begin selecting names that reflect the diversity of opinions in our community. Our schools must be places where all students, staff, and community members feel safe, supported, and inspired.”
Contrary to Mr. Anderson’s blatherings, the viewpoints of anyone who claims to feel “unsafe” because an elementary school is named after Thomas Jefferson should not be taken seriously. A person who raises such concerns should be summarily dismissed as insincere, stupid, mentally ill, or some combination of the above. Their opinions on the issue are not important, their feelings do not matter, and their desire to dethrone our greatest national heroes should not be treated with even a modicum of respect.
But that is how it should be, and we know that how it should be and how it is are two different things, especially these days.
A report from the local Falls Church News Press says that the board was making the move out of respect for the “strongly-felt sentiments of students, teachers and citizens.” Although it is also noted that a majority of that group actually did not want to change the names. The board members ultimately caved to the demands of the unreasonable minority. As it often goes. 
It takes a special sort of coward to make this sort of decision under these circumstances, and footage from a school board “work session” in June, when they first began talking about this issue, shows that board is indeed occupied by those sorts of coward. The members <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYWDrFmUKQw&amp;feature=emb_logo">can be seen</a> babbling semi-coherently about “equity” and “inclusion,” none of them seeming too terribly excited about the name change, but none possessing the minimal courage required to speak up decisively against it.
This is how bureaucracies, from the local school board all the way up to the federal government, often wind up making mind-numbingly terrible decisions. Not everyone involved has to be a radical ideologue. There are usually only a few. The rest just have to be so spineless that you wonder how they manage to sit up straight in their chairs.
All of the wimpish waffling and platitude-spewing eventually gave way to a decision — the wrong one, as expected. One of the school board members, Philip Reitinger, in <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1336685289922768897?s=20">explaining</a> his vote during the meeting on Tuesday night, inadvertently provided a master class in Orwellian rationalization. Reading prepared remarks, Reitinger said that he’d decided to vote for changing the name partly because Donald Trump “put kids in cages.” It’s not clear why Thomas Jefferson should be blamed for the immigrant detention policies instituted by Obama, or even why Donald Trump should be blamed for them. All Reitinger could say was that Trump’s alleged bigotry had led him to conclude that the board had to “do more for diversity.” He also implied that having a school named after Jefferson and Mason “makes a statement” that people are not created equal. Finally, he claimed that the best way to “live up to” the words of Thomas Jefferson is to “no longer have a school named after him.”
The cowardly coup de grâce came later that night when the school formally known as Thomas Jefferson Elementary (perhaps we can take the Washington Football Team approach and rename the school simply The Elementary School) tweeted out the news of the name change, and then deleted it as soon as people started criticizing it. The schools have made their decision, and now they’ll hide under their beds until the mean people stop yelling at them about it.
As it happens, the board members are able to hide under their beds, or in their beds, because schools in the Falls Church system have been shut down since spring of last year. They recently voted to extend the “remote learning” farce until 2021. So, while students remain abandoned, in limbo, having not received a real education in nine months, the board has spent its time conducting a moral assessment of a Founding Father who died 200 years ago. 
Needless to say, their moral assessment was wrong. Yes, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. So did George Mason. These were flawed men, but their flaws were nearly ubiquitous in their time. Not everyone owned slaves, of course, but I doubt whether any single person on Earth in the year 1776, or any year before it, or even in the century after it, could have passed as racially enlightened by our standards today. Most of the world still cannot pass that test. In Jefferson’s time, his perspective was about as enlightened as it got, and that’s how he and George Mason and their compatriots managed to lay the groundwork for what would soon become the greatest — not to mention most diverse and racially tolerant — country on Earth.
We honor the Founding Fathers for that great achievement. We don’t honor them because they were perfect. We honor them because we are Americans, this is America, and they are the men who built it. That should be reason enough.
If it is not reason enough, then no historical figure is safe. Great people often committed great sins. Martin Luther King Jr. was allegedly a serial philanderer who watched and, <a href="https://www.insider.com/mlk-jr-rape-allegations-fbi-2019-5">according to FBI docs</a>, laughed as a woman was raped. If we cannot put Thomas Jefferson’s bad choices into context, then why should we lend that grace to MLK? If we are looking for a perfect hero among mere mortal men anywhere on Earth, anywhere in history, we will not find him. Even if we are searching simply for someone who would not be called “racist” and “bigoted” by people today, we still will not find him. Either we can choose to see historical figures in the context of their time, judge them accordingly, and celebrate them for the great things they achieved while choosing not to emulate whatever evil they committed, or we can systematically go back through time and condemn every person who ever lived, and all of our ancestors who established, fought for, and passed down to us, every good thing we have in our lives. The Left has chosen its path. And its one that leads nowhere but to insanity. 
More from Matt Walsh: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-school-district-reportedly-gives-white-privilege-training-to-teachers-this-is-anti-white-racism">School District Reportedly Gives White Privilege Training To Teachers. This Is Anti-White Racism.</a>
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author&#8217;s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

WALSH: School Board Votes To Take Thomas Jefferson’s Name Off Of School, Gives Truly Insane Reasons To Justify It

Bill of Rights

Two familiar sights could be seen in different parts of the country over the last few weeks. In Buffalo, yet another statue of Christopher Columbus was <a href="https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/city-of-buffalo-removes-christopher-columbus-statue">removed</a> at the behest of protesters. This joins the ranks of the dozens upon dozens of other statues and memorials of our historical heroes that have been taken down according to the demands of the mob, or simply torn down by the mob itself.
Meanwhile, over in Minnesota, yet another mural of George Floyd was <a href="https://www.kaaltv.com/rochester-minnesota-news/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-george-floyds-family-/5787834/?cat=10151">unveiled</a>. This one joins the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/05/murals-of-george-floyd-emerge-around-the-world.html">growing number of other Floyd murals</a> across the nation and around the world. And the murals are merely one way that our society has <a href="https://twitter.com/jamesmartinsj/status/1268963224898207750?lang=en">honored</a> Floyd. Streets have been unofficially <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/george-floyd-avenue-street-sign-petition-1510401">named</a> after him and university buildings may soon <a href="https://altoday.com/archives/34696-after-george-floyds-death-petition-circulates-to-rename-auburn-university-building">follow</a>. Nancy Pelosi gave Floyd&#8217;s family a folded American flag — a gesture more often reserved for the families of fallen war heroes — and Senate Democrats knelt silently for eight minutes in his honor. The place where Floyd died has even become something of a <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/baptisms-miracles-taking-place-in-revival-at-site-where-george-floyd-died-christian-groups-says.html">holy land</a> where pilgrims go to be baptized and miraculously healed.
The point to emphasize here is that all of this is being done to celebrate the man George Floyd. This has gone way beyond merely speaking out against his death. We are now being told that we must honor George Floyd himself. And we are being told this at precisely the moment when we are also being told that we must stop honoring men like Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other icons of history.
But if the sins of historical figures must be dredged up, and if those sins are reason enough to cast them onto the ash heap of history, then it seems only fair to look at George Floyd&#8217;s biography and see if he is actually worthy of all of these monuments and memorials. Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus apparently do not pass the test, despite their world-changing and history-shaping achievements. What about Floyd?
If George Floyd ever achieved anything of note — much less anything that matches the accomplishments of the now-scorned historical figures mentioned above — we have not been told about it. What we do know is that, despite the media&#8217;s <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/may/george-floyd-ministry-houston-third-ward-church.html">desperate attempts</a> to dress him up in as favorable a light as possible, he was guilty of committing some truly horrific evils. His lengthy rap sheet includes relatively petty crimes like trespassing, and some not-as-petty crimes like theft and drug possession, but it also features an aggravated armed robbery against a woman. Here are the details of that crime, as provided by Snopes (hardly a right-wing outfit):
<blockquote>According to police officers’ probable-cause statement, which is often the basis of prosecutors’ case against suspects, the incident (on Aug. 9, 2007) unfolded like this: Two adults, Aracely Henriquez and Angel Negrete, and a toddler were in a home when they heard a knock at the front door. When Henriquez looked out the window, she saw a man “dressed in a blue uniform” who said “he was with the water department.” But when she opened the door, she realized the man was telling a lie and she tried shutting him out. Then, the statement reads:
However, this male held the door open and prevented her from doing so. At this time, a black Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the Complainants’ residence and five other black males exited this vehicle and proceeded to the front door. The largest of these suspects forced his way into the residence, placed a pistol against the complainant’s abdomen, and forced her into the living room area of the residence. This large suspect then proceeded to search the residence while another armed suspect guarded the complainant, who was struck in the head and side areas by this second armed suspect with his pistol after she screamed for help. As the suspects looked through the residence, they demanded to know where the drugs and money were and Complainant Henriquez advised them that there were no such things in the residence. The suspects then took some jewelry along with the complainant’s cell phone before they fled the scene in the black Ford Explorer.</blockquote>
Floyd, who was buried in a golden casket at a funeral service attended by dignitaries from all over the country, is guilty of forcing his way into a woman&#8217;s house, holding a gun to her stomach in front of her child, and robbing her. This is no small transgression. It is an act of depraved wickedness, and one that has no doubt permanently traumatized the victim and her child. Imagine how that woman feels now when she walks by a mural with the face of her attacker. There is no getting around the fact that Floyd was a man who attacked and victimized the innocent. And those innocents are still alive, forced now to relive their trauma, and watch as the whole world heaps praise and adulation on the man who caused it.
It is insisted that Floyd reformed himself. Even if true, later-in-life reformation hasn&#8217;t been enough to vindicate other dead men who&#8217;ve been posthumously canceled by the mob. But there is reason to doubt the truth of the claim anyway. After all, Floyd was high on meth and fentanyl and trying to pass off counterfeit bills moments before his death. That does not appear to be the behavior of a man who has gotten himself onto the straight and narrow.
One could rightly argue that Floyd&#8217;s crimes will not have the impact of something like enabling slavery, which was a system of horrific and dehumanizing exploitation that some of our historical heroes either participated in or approved of. But why would the sins of the dead need to be historically significant in order to justify the destruction of their monuments and memorials? Is it not enough for the sin to be simply evil and depraved? And besides, most of the figures who&#8217;ve been targeted by the mob also performed many good deeds and achieved very great things. We build monuments to celebrate those aspects of their story. Floyd may not have done anything historically bad, but neither did he do anything historically good. He was a deeply flawed man who did at least one terribly evil thing and then died at the hands of the State after committing a crime. If that somehow exceeds the bar for memorialization, then Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, etc., must make it over with lots of room to spare.
More from Matt Walsh: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-the-left-wants-to-replace-believe-all-women-with-believe-all-racism-claims">The Left Wants To Replace ‘Believe All Women’ With ‘Believe All Racism Claims’</a>

George Floyd

WALSH: If We Are Tearing Down Memorials To Men Who Did Bad Things, What About George Floyd Memorials?

Christopher Columbus

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