Legislators waving Confederacy’s bloody shirt in our faces

Legislators’ reactionary support of symbols of the Confederacy is yet another heavy-handed incursion into local government, shutting out concerns of every Florida community by centralizing control in Tallahassee.

The latest legislative abomination would let anyone sue for “lost history” if a public historic monument is defaced or removed. Local government would have no control. The bill would allow triple damages plus punitive damages in court for removal of a public monument that anyone deems historic.

Protection would go beyond statues to include plaques, markers, flags and banners considered permanent displays dealing with a historical person, event or events, entity, military service or public service of a resident of the area.

The aim of this distasteful measure’s backers is to protect the Confederate flag wherever it flies.

The bill that passed in the Senate’s Government Oversight and Accountability Committee last week sets no minimum age for a so-called monument. It would protect not only long-standing statues of Robert E. Lee and other leaders of the Confederacy in their failed exit from the United States of America, but also any monument, plaque or banner placed in public in the future.

If someone put out a Confederate flag – and some would – state law would protect the flag. If it were in Liberty City it would be illegal to touch it.

Beyond the Confederacy, new flags of communist Cuba or Venezuela or Russia would be protected too. That wouldn’t bother the Legislature much, but you know how that would play in Miami.

Also protected would be hundreds of historic markers, plaques and statues throughout Miami-Dade County. While most don’t offend us today, affections change. Symbols of the Confederacy were revered for years but today most Floridians want them gone. That, in fact, is the cause of this legislation, to keep displaying a heritage that the majority abhors.

Plaques and monuments in Miami-Dade to Jose Martí, George Merrick, Brigade 2506, Hernando de Soto, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, Christopher Columbus, Henry Flagler, Toussaint Louverture, Carl Fisher, Simon Bolivar, Martin Luther King Jr., Commodore Ralph Middleton Munroe and many others seem revered now.

Yet, some seek to remove memories of Columbus and other peoples who wouldn’t be politically correct today – like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who also had slaves. Even George Merrick is questioned.

As Republican Senator Ed Hooper of Clearwater said in supporting the bill, “this country is not that old, but we have history. Not all of that history is pretty, but it’s our history.”

No, it’s not all pretty, and we must protect our history. But this misguided legislation that prevents change forever is not the right way.

Not only would this bill protect the Confederacy and the founding fathers, but it would protect public figures from every nation. In Miami-Dade, we honor people not from the Confederacy but around the world, because everywhere produced some of our residents’ history.

If the day after this bill became law anyone here were to memorialize in public people or military efforts from anywhere, it would be part of our heritage and so protected against removal in perpetuity. Think of Russia and China, whose stars rose and then fell. Then think of what could happen elsewhere over the decades.

Imagine the possible conflicts over memorials, with no local say in it.

The bill doesn’t cite what locations are protected. A plaque inside a public building listing past deeds would be protected, as would hundreds of street markers honoring living persons. Sometimes these are removed when the honoree is jailed or disgraced (you may remember some of the headlines).

Removal of street designations shows that acclaim can turn to disdain. Yet peccadillos are part of history and this legislation would protect the markers in perpetuity.

The logical step to move painful monuments – such as the effort to destroy this nation in a civil war – to a museum wouldn’t be allowed.

“I’ve heard that argument for many years regarding monuments that people just don’t like for various reasons,” said Senate bill sponsor Jonathan Martin of Fort Myers. “A lot of photos that I’ve seen, I’ve done a lot of digging on this, and I’ve yet to see a single one of those monuments put in a museum for anybody to see.” Anything relocated, he said, must get equal prominence and visibility.

Painful as it is to see our state protect monuments to those who tried to destroy this nation to preserve slavery, it’s also distasteful to see our legislators bar local governments from resolving local concerns.

I would love to see out-of-area legislators try to identify the people we memorialize here without using Google. They wouldn’t have a clue. Local leaders would do far better.

So, why in the world would state government think it knew more than we do about what our public history should be?

They’d be better off sticking to the Confederacy and forget the sham of trying to make this about anyone’s history but their own.