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The Madness:
City report on Confederate monuments raises idea of renaming Austin
Known as both the “father of Texas” and the namesake of the state’s capital, Stephen F. Austin carved out the early outlines of Texas among his many accomplishments.
He also opposed an attempt by Mexico to ban slavery in the province of Tejas and said if slaves were freed, they would turn into “vagabonds, a nuisance and a menace.”
For that reason, the city of Austin’s Equity Office suggested renaming the city in a report about existing Confederate monuments that was published this week.
Also on the list of locales to possibly be renamed: Pease Park, the Bouldin Creek neighborhood, Barton Springs and 10 streets named for William Barton, the “Daniel Boone of Texas,” who was a slave owner.
To be sure, the identified streets and parks are only suggested for reconsideration. And the city, Bouldin Creek, Pease Park and the Barton-related landmarks — a group that includes Barton Springs — were included in a lower-tier list of “assets for secondary review” in the report. Still, the report did identify several streets staff consider related to the Confederacy and worthy of more immediate action. Those streets are:
• Littlefield Street
• Tom Green Street
• Sneed Cove
• Reagan Hill Drive
• Dixie Drive
• Confederate Avenue
• Plantation Road
The city estimates that it would cost $5,956 to rename the seven streets.
While the cost of such changes might appear reasonable, opposition to similar renamings has tended to revolve around the inconvenience and expense faced by longtime homeowners and business owners who must deal with a new address. Complaints along those lines surfaced earlier this year when the Austin City Council changed the names of two streets recognizing Confederate leaders.
Before the council renamed Robert E. Lee Road as Azie Morton Road and Jeff Davis Avenue was changed to William Holland Avenue, the city gathered input from residents along those streets. A majority opposed the changes, which occurred in April.
Some accused the city of whitewashing history.
The latest report acknowledged the likelihood of opposing viewpoints and nodded to inconveniences to businesses and residents and the view that changing the names could be considered a threat to historical preservation. It also asked whether the proposed changes reside on a slippery slope.
“What’s next and where do we stop?” the report asks.
Any changes to road names would require public hearings and action from the City Council. Before the city changed the two street names in April, the city’s staff had reached out to all residents to seek their input.
A change to the city’s name, meanwhile, likely would require an election since “Austin” would have to be struck from the city charter and replaced.
The report also identified numerous historical markers related to the Confederacy on city property that could be targeted for removal. Those include a marker for the Confederate States of America that’s located at Congress Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street.
However, the city would need approval from the Texas Historical Commission and the Travis County Historical Commission to move them.
Any new street names might fall in line with a 2017 recommendation from the Austin Commission for Women that called for the city to address gender and racial disparities in the naming of public symbols. The commission also suggested preference should be given to individuals connected to Austin and having a “positive relationship and history with the community.
The Equity Office’s report concludes, “It is essential to acknowledge that societal values are fluid, and they can be and are different today compared to when our city made decisions to name and/or place these Confederate symbols in our community.
“It is also important to acknowledge that nearly all monuments to the Confederacy and its leaders were erected without a true democratic process. People of color often had no voice and no opportunity to raise concerns about the city’s decision to honor Confederate leaders.”
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The facts:
These things have been pointed out over and over again. The normal fear one might have is that a well-founded Republic, or monarchy, can be lost due to the willingness of a population devoid of a reasonable moral catechism and a devotion to productivity. Without intervention against the "progressive movement" this can and will cause the sacrifice of the cornerstone of good, plenty, and beneficence on the Planet at this time, that place being the United States. The Gods of Avarice are grooming their Carrion Buzzards even now to glean every sinew, be it meat or bone, from what is now known as the United States of America.
This newspaper article, from the ultra-left Austin American Statesman clearly steers around facts while searching for arcane and pointless comparisons to the goodness of nihilism as opposed to the badness of common law, limited government, and good moral and cultural order.
We have arrived at that point where university professors and politicians who specialise in buying votes with other peoples' money have trained up a solid two generations of sophomoric robotrons. They fit well into the class of proles who would learn to listen to the never ending public address announcements in Orwell's "1984".
It will, or perhaps already has, caused the end of American character and exceptionalism. These believers upon the Government have fulfilled the prophesy of a culture where…"…Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right…(Orwell - 1984)"
Oddly enough, by that point in life, Orwell's words and his method of thinking seem to increasingly give credence to a hidden, conservative, traditionalist, and limited government way of thinking. Perhaps he was not even aware of it himself. His leftist and egalitarian notions served him well enough for the greater portion of his life. I think, however, one could tell that the little genie of correct thinking, somewhere in his brain or soul, told him that socialism and communism and other forms of totalitarianism would always bring hardship and disaster to any country or culture.
The notion of changing the name of Austin, the Capital of Texas is well beyond ludicrous. Stephen Fuller Austin was essentially a good Mexican, during the time he was a Mexican. It was the numerous excesses and unpredictability caused by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna that brought about Austin's, almost reluctantly, leading Texas into a war, and an ultimate separation from Mexico.
He moved well among the Mexican / Spanish cohort of populace that existed in Texas before the arrival of scores and hundreds of colonists, principally from the American Southland, Ireland, and a few from western Europe.
He suffered unjustifiable imprisonment at the hands of the volcanic, drug addicted, and manic / depressive Lopez de Santa Anna. During his time of incarceration in Mexico City, a friend came to his side at the prison…an attorney and political activist…Lorenzo de Zavala. As things would lead on, de Zavala would manage to argue for Austin's release for lack of reasonable charges. Austin returned to Texas, trying to stave off the looming war, but finding the matter next to impossible.
Lorenzo de Zavala who was from the Yucatan, but had travelled widely in the world, including the United States, France and Spain where he served as Ambassador from Mexico, as well as Governor of the central State of Mexico also held property in Texas. He arrived shortly after Austin's return, apparently convinced Austin that because of the slaughter and destruction of the City of Zacatecas and much of the agricultural and mining might of the State of Zacatecas that Texas had to prepare for war against a large, well-trained, well fortified army that was moving north.
It is known and needs no further elucidation in this publication concerning the fact that the Texian forces somewhat miraculously defeated the main corps of Lopez de Santa Anna's force, including the capture of the Generalissimo Presidente himself. But what is not known widely is that Lorenzo de
Zavala, with his legal knowledge, and being a republican democrat, as well as a very active York Rite Mason, agreed to "help" script the Declaration of Independence, as well as the first Constitution of the Republic of Texas. Lorenzo also is thought to have contributed the equivalent of 3,000,000 dollars to the Texian cause (…it is difficult to calculate the value of that sum now, but it would be massive, perhaps 100,000,000 dollars).
He also served as the first Vice-President of Texas (interim), while Estevan (Stephen) Fuller Austin served as the first President of Texas. Lamentably both men would die late that same year of multiple involvements with influenza and pneumonia, thereby forcing Sam Houston to serve an interim term before the election of Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar to the office in 1838.
The point of all of this is to prove that one of the reasons Texas was born as a Republic was because of the bond between two profoundly close friends…both drawn from places distant to Texas, from two different lands, two different languages, but who understood each other perfectly.
My anger forces me to withdraw from droning on further. The notion that Austin, as a man of his time, would be literally thrown into some convenient dustbin in order to placate a zombie mass of snowflake marxists is infuriating beyond my point to reasonably control my further writing this evening.
May the force be with us.
El Gringo Viejo
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| Stephen Fuller Austin 1789 - 1836 |
He moved well among the Mexican / Spanish cohort of populace that existed in Texas before the arrival of scores and hundreds of colonists, principally from the American Southland, Ireland, and a few from western Europe.
He suffered unjustifiable imprisonment at the hands of the volcanic, drug addicted, and manic / depressive Lopez de Santa Anna. During his time of incarceration in Mexico City, a friend came to his side at the prison…an attorney and political activist…Lorenzo de Zavala. As things would lead on, de Zavala would manage to argue for Austin's release for lack of reasonable charges. Austin returned to Texas, trying to stave off the looming war, but finding the matter next to impossible.
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| Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Saenz (1789 - 1836) |
It is known and needs no further elucidation in this publication concerning the fact that the Texian forces somewhat miraculously defeated the main corps of Lopez de Santa Anna's force, including the capture of the Generalissimo Presidente himself. But what is not known widely is that Lorenzo de
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| One can note the name, Estevan F. Austin on this formal Mexican document |
He also served as the first Vice-President of Texas (interim), while Estevan (Stephen) Fuller Austin served as the first President of Texas. Lamentably both men would die late that same year of multiple involvements with influenza and pneumonia, thereby forcing Sam Houston to serve an interim term before the election of Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar to the office in 1838.
The point of all of this is to prove that one of the reasons Texas was born as a Republic was because of the bond between two profoundly close friends…both drawn from places distant to Texas, from two different lands, two different languages, but who understood each other perfectly.
My anger forces me to withdraw from droning on further. The notion that Austin, as a man of his time, would be literally thrown into some convenient dustbin in order to placate a zombie mass of snowflake marxists is infuriating beyond my point to reasonably control my further writing this evening.
May the force be with us.
El Gringo Viejo
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