The Daily Signal - Dear Politicians: Please Stop Allowing Vandals to Deface America’s Statues

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

The American Constitutional Rights Union just began a petition to ask America’s policymakers to put an end to the toppling and defacing of the nation's monuments. Statues of George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and Albert Pike are among those vandalized since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Lori Roman, president of the American Constitutional Rights Union, joins the podcast to explain how her organization is working strategically to activate political leaders to protect history and end mob rule.   Also on today’s show, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about one North Carolinian who went out of his way to show local police officers that he appreciates and supports their service.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get you and your crew to the big shows with Go Transit. Go connects to all the main concert venues like TD Coliseum in Hamilton and Scotia Bank Arena in Toronto. And Go makes it affordable with special e-ticket fares. A one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network on any weekend day or holiday for just $10. And a weekday group pass offers the same weekday travel flexibility from $30 for two people and up to $60 for five. Buy yours at gotransit.com slash tickets. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, July 13th. I'm Robert Blewe. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we talk with Lori Roman, president of the American

Constitutional Rights Union, about their efforts to call on America's political leaders to defend our nation's historic statues and monuments. We also share your letters to the editor and a good news story about one North Carolinian who went out of his way to show the police in his community that he appreciates and supports their service. Before we get to today's show, Rob and I want to tell you about our favorite way to get the news every morning. It's called the morning bell. And each weekday, the daily signal delivers the top news and commentary directly to your inbox for free. You'll be able to read about the policy debate shaping the agenda, analysis from Heritage Foundation experts,

and commentary from leading conservatives like Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, and Walter Williams. It's easy to sign up. Just visit dailysignal.com and click on the connect button in the top corner of the page. We'll start sending you the morning bell tomorrow. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. I am joined by Lori Roman, president of the American Constitutional Rights Union. Lori, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you, Virginia.

Very happy to have the opportunity. Now, we have a great discussion ahead of us. We're talking about defacement of statues, what's happening, what we can do about it, how we should respond. But before we dive into that, I do want to take just a second and ask you to share a little bit about the American Constitutional Rights Union and what you all do. American Constitutional Rights Union was started 20 years ago as the American Civil Rights Union to stand up to the ACLU that had seemed to abandoned constitutional principles and become an arm of the radical left. It was started by Reagan folks, Reagan advisor named Bob Carlson, who worked for him when he was governor.

And then when President Reagan went to Washington, he went with him. He's known as the father of modern welfare reform. And then a name that you will find very familiar at Heritage. Attorney General Ed Meese was one of the founding board members. of what was then the American Civil Rights Union and is now the American Constitutional Rights Union. So we stand up for the Constitution, and often you'll see us litigating on voting integrity issues and often on First and Second Amendment issues. But if it's about constitutional rights, we're all over it.

Well, we certainly appreciate the work that you all do, and my goodness right now is certainly a critical time for that work. There's so much unrest in the nation right now. and it seems like a lot of that anger is being directed towards America's statues. We've seen many Confederate statues defaced, but also statues of Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, even a statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was torn down in New York. But the American Constitutional Rights Union is trying to protect these pieces of history. Can you tell me a little bit about how you all are doing that?

Well, it hasn't been that long ago. Just a week or so ago, we noticed that there weren't very many public officials who were willing to stand up against the rampaging mobs and the rioters and defend America and our monuments and our history. And so we started this project called Protect Monuments, and you can find it at protectmonuments.org, to really push public officials and give the grassroots an opportunity to have a mechanism to protect monuments. push their own public officials to take a stand against rampaging mobs. We can't have discussions and solve problems as a country if we allow lawlessness and mobs to frame every single debate. It's just not productive. There are many problems we could work on together if we thought the radical left really would be serious about working on these solutions.

But we believe that the destruction of the monuments is just a means to an end. by a few factions of very radical leftists and Marxists who want to tear down the country, they want to demean and demoralize Americans, and they want to create a new Marxist version of America, and we can't let it happen. It is true that monuments are just a symbol of all this, but if you allow lawlessness and mobs, you'll keep getting more lawlessness and mobs. So it's time for public officials to stand up. So we want Americans to go to protectmonuments.org, sign a petition in support of the monuments, and then get your public official to download our pledge for public officials and send it to your public official and say,

we want you to get out from behind your desk, stop quivering behind your desk, and come out and protect America. And if we all do that, perhaps we can grasp some of the backbone of the American people into some of our, cowardly leaders. And I do not include President Trump in that. He has been fantastic on the monuments. So what is the response that this petition has received so far? Well, yesterday was the first day we blasted it out. We sent it out to over 10,000 public officials across the United States just yesterday. Some are signing the pledge. Those are starting to trickle in. We have Americans signing the petition. And we're very hopeful that we also have a hotline, a tip line, so that people can call us. or email us and let us know if there is a statue being destroyed or lawlessness and mobs ruling in your

area. Let us know who the cowardly public officials are. We're not afraid to name them and shame them. So if you would allow me just for a moment to kind of play the pessimist, if you will, and I think sometimes we see petitions and kind of these calls for action, but it can be really hard to turn that, you know, signing your name on a piece of paper into movement forward, into action. So how do you all plan to ensure that, you know, those leaders who are being called upon to take a stand will actually follow up, you know, their words with action? Well, it is true. These days, people are afraid to sign petitions and put their names to things. And that is one of the unfortunate consequences of allowing mobs and lawlessness in our country. And that's a sad fact.

But even if no one signs the petition on our website, and even if public officials don't hear too much directly from their constituents, which we hope they will, we're going to keep pushing them, we're going to keep sending them emails, we are going to keep placing ads and running ads, and we are going to put out press releases and social media to shame those who are too cowardly to stand up for America. And so we have other means. If American citizens are really not feeling comfortable sending things directly, then we have other means.

And those are very public means to call up public officials and say, stand up to mob looting and lawlessness, protect the statues. That's a symbol, but it is part of a bigger problem of allowing destruction and violence in our country that is very, very alarming. And what we know is that as long as we're spending time with violence and destructive acts, we cannot have productive conversations about the things that we need to have productive conversations about. Which leads me to believe that the radical left and the Marxists behind this are using many young people, using in some instances the ignorance of young people who are doing crazy things like putting down the statues of abolition.

They don't know what they're doing. They have not been educated. And I believe they're being used by very dark forces who are trying to promote Marxism. And they're using young people who don't know exactly what they're doing, who are getting caught up in a frenzy. And I think that's very sad. But we need to stand up to those forces who are in many cases using people who do not know that they're really, really being used by people who want to over throw America as we know it. Well, and I'm, you mentioned having a conversation, and I think that at the end of the day, both sides want that. You have this radical fraction that you mention that doesn't want to talk. They just want to burn things and tear things down. But I think when we actually get down to the root of what this conflict is about, there's a desire on both sides of the aisle to actually.

sit down and have that productive conversation. Do you think that's true? I think that's certainly true. And if you go to our website, protectmonuments.org, you will see a quote there from Elvita King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., who has always been a great and calming voice, asking for us to have productive dialogues and civil discussions and to love and forgive one another. and she is encouraging people to work out our problems and our solutions without destroying property. And so it's important that we look to leaders like that who are willing to lead civil discussions, who are willing to follow the plan and the example of her uncle Martin Luther King, Jr., to have peaceful resistance when we feel the need for resistance in our country that we encourage,

peaceful protest when we feel the need for protest in our country, and certainly we encourage that. But all of that is the purpose of peaceful protest is to get us to the point where we can have civil discussions and solve problems together legislatively or culturally. And that can't happen as long as we're allowing lawlessness to rule. Martin Luther King Jr., he understood that, and we're thankful for his example. But I see not enough people in our country who are are willing to stand up and follow his example. Thankful for Alveda King, the way she has done it. Also on our website, you'll see Lieutenant Colonel Alan West and Ambassador and former Secretary of State of Ohio, Kim Blackwell.

All of us urging people to stop the destruction, let's have a peaceful dialogue. You know, after George Floyd's death, there were polls that ranged between 84 and 97% of Americans agreed that that was police, brutality, it was excessive, and there was a problem we needed to solve. Imagine Americans don't agree on anything to that level. That would have been a wonderful starting point to have peaceful and wonderful and productive dialogue together about police brutality. And when it happens, of course, we support the majority of police who do not engage in such activity, but we're perfectly willing to have as Americans a discussion about how we make things better and make sure that things like that never happen again. That could have happened. But public officials and

others allowed us to get to the point where lawlessness ruled and we cannot solve problems in this situation. So let's stop the lawlessness. Let's stop the destruction. And then let's focus on having some dialogues on what we need to improve in our country. I think America has always been great about that, always looking for ways to more fully live up to the ideals in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. So we hope people will go to Protect Monuments.org help us stop the mobs and start the discussion. When do you think it maybe is appropriate for a statue to be moved to a different location because maybe it is highly offensive to some people?

Well, as long as we're having civil discussions and we're voting on things, as Americans, I think we all feel pretty comfortable if there's a legal and civil process going on to make these decisions. I think none of this feel comfortable when it's done in haste, when it's done because we're being bullied by someone or pressured by someone. But if we can let cooler heads prevail, then we can have discussions and not rush into things, I'm sure there are situations where communities will decide that they may want to move a statute or they might want to put it in a museum or they might realize that maybe some context needs to be put in a plaque next to it. Those are all things I think as Americans we could agree on in a civil way,

and we're perfectly open to that. But let's not do it because of a frenzy that's being created where we're not really thinking about the long-term effects of erasing some of our history. You know, I am the great-great-granddaughter of a man, my great-great-grandfather, George Stilwagon, who served as a volunteer in the Union Army and was wounded and captured and sent to the most brutal southern prison camp at Andersonville. And so I grew up not having great fun stories being told to me about the war. and every memorial day my family would take me to the grave of my great-great-grandfather and tell me this story of his wound and his capture at Lovejoy Station in Georgia

and how he happily volunteered to be a part of the Union Army. So I often think if I met the great-great-granddaughter of the person who shot my great-great-grandfather, would I have any ill will toward her? And the answer is no. wouldn't. Would I love to see a statue maybe of her great-great-grandpa who shot my great-great-grandpa probably wouldn't love it? But I wouldn't destroy it. If my kids went and saw such a thing, I think I would use it as a learning opportunity. I would talk to them about the war. I would tell our family's story. But never in my wildest dreams would I think have taken out a sledgehammer

and destroying it. Well, and Lori, so much of what you're saying, I think goes back to that root of education to having those conversations about America's history with our kids when they're young, when they're teens, and being honest that, yes, there are parts of America's history that obviously are dark, but we also have to look at how far we've come as a nation. It just seems so critical to really, especially right now, be thinking about, okay, how do we maybe rethink civics education in our schools and make sure that it's being taught really well. Well, one of the things I've noticed is the United States is very forgiving. We go to war with different countries and then we forgive and we move on and we even help them

rebuild. We're not as forgiving, it seems, with our own fellow Americans. The U.S. has been on a journey. And I believe that we are constantly striving toward the ideals of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. But it's a process. And as Americans, I think we need to focus on forgiveness. We have to forgive our ancestors at some point and move on and say it's up to our generation to continue to look for solutions in a civil and productive way, not a destructive. way, but a civil and productive way. I wish we would just have more folks stand up along the lines and the example of Martin Luther King Jr. And we're looking for public leadership at, you know, protect monuments.org. If you're a public official and you want to stand up and say, I'm here,

I want to lead a discussion. I want to provide leadership in stopping lawlessness, but looking for solutions. We're happy to work with you. We can't wait. But we're called. We're called. calling out public officials, please come forward, stop the lawlessness, and help us start the discussion. We're looking for leaders. And I did a radio show earlier this morning with a delegate in Maryland who helped fish out the statue of Columbus out of the harbor the other day after it was dumped in there and who is sponsoring legislation to protect historic monuments in the state of Maryland. That's the kind of leaders we need. the leaders who think they can hide behind their desk or under their desk and wait until this

blows over, it's not going to blow over. When you allow mobs, you get more mobs. When you promote civil discussion, you get more civil discussion. It's time to come out from under the desks and fight for America, protecting our history while still solving our problems together in a civilized way. So what are one or two practical actions? that our listeners can take today? Well, protectmonuments.org, there's three, really four things you can do. You can sign a petition in support of protecting monuments. The more names that are on there, the more weight we have when we go to public officials

and say, folks want you to protect monuments. The other thing they can do is download the public officials pledge and send it to their public official and put some pressure on them. I want you to sign the pledge. They need to hear from their constituents. that there is a real desire to stop lawlessness and protect property. The third thing they can do is donate to the cause. There's a donate button there. Donate and help us protect monuments.

And the fourth thing is they can go there to our hotline and they can report if there are problems in their community. If you think the public officials in your community are allowing the the monuments to be destroyed without protection. And if they are letting riding and destruction rule the streets, we want to hear from you, tell us who's doing it. We'll name them and shame them. We'll run ads. We'll do press releases. We will call them out on social media and on radio and ads and let us know. So four things they could do if they want, if they go to protect monuments. dot org, but we could sure use your help. Let's all stand up together and protect America from lawlessness and mobs ruling. That's not who's supposed to rule. We're all supposed to rule.

And it's time for us to stand up for ourselves. Lori, thank you so much for joining the show and telling us about the petition and the work that you all are doing. Thank you so much. Thanks for the time. Thanks for all your great work. Do you have an interest in public policy? Do you want to hear some of the biggest names in American politics speak. Every day, the Heritage Foundation host webinars called Heritage Events Live. Webinar topics range from ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic to the CARES Act and the economy. These webinars are free and open to the public. To find the latest webinars and register, visit heritage.org slash events. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show. Virginia, who's up first?

One of our podcast listeners left us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, writing a great podcast to hear the side of liberty and constitutional human rights in a time when the dangerous Marxist left is working to destroy the country. And in response to the problematic women interview with Air Force veteran and Senator Martha McSally, Harold Harmon of Georgia, writes, I thoroughly enjoy the podcast. As I listened, so many thoughts came to my mind. Senator McSally has touched on very important issues. What she says about fear and at holding you back is so true. Conquering fear is the key to succeeding in any venture. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. So send us an email at letters at daily signal.com. If you're tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger and bigger government, it's time to partner with the most impactful conservative organization in America.

We're the Heritage Foundation, and we're committed to solving the issues America faces. Together, we'll fight back against the rising tide of homegrown socialism, and we'll fight for conservative solutions that are making families more free and more prosperous. But we can't do it without you. Please join us at heritage.org. Virginia, you have a good news story to share with us today. over to you. Thanks so much, Rob.

Well, you know, a Chick-fil-A gift card might seem like a pretty simple gift, and it probably is, but simple acts of kindness go a long way, especially right now. Dan Marshall lives in Concord, North Carolina, a city of about 98,000. And amid recent riots and protests defaming police all over America in the wake of George Floyd's death, Marshall decided that he wanted to do something to show the police in his, community just how thankful he is for their service. Marshall got on the phone and he called his local Chick-fil-A and explained that he wanted to purchase gift cards for all of the officers and sergeants at the police station. The store manager said that he would also contribute an additional gift

card for a chick-fil-a sandwich for each of the officers. And when Marshall contacted the police chief to explain his intentions, the chief responded in an email writing, Thank you so much for the kind gesture. Your words alone mean more than you will ever know. We certainly appreciate any establishment. I do know the troops often frequent Chick-fil-A because they're comfortable going there. I have 22 officers and four sergeants that work in the district. I know each of them would be extremely grateful for your generosity.

And wow, Rob, I was personally really challenged by this act of kindness because it's so simple. It doesn't take a lot of time to go buy some gift cards and drop them off at the police station, but it does speak volumes of the support for our men and women who risk their lives every day to keep us safe. And, you know, it could be something even simpler. It doesn't have to be a gift card. It could be a box of cookies or handwritten thank you notes. But I think Mr. Marshall has really given us such a great challenge to think about, okay, what are those simple ways that we can show our support for our police officers?

right now. That's such a great story, Virginia, and it is such a simple act of kindness that you can do. I'll share a personal story after my son broke his arm last fall at a baseball practice. The local fire department and EMT showed up to take him to the hospital and get his arm set. And, you know, this is something that really touched my heart because he said, you know, I want to do something to say thank you to those people who came to my aid in a time of needs. So we did bring them a box of cookies. Probably should be doing more than just that. But yeah, this is a great reminder that there's just little things that we can all do in our community. And thank you for bringing us these good news stories every week, Virginia, because I do think that they hopefully inspire others to take action.

Yeah, I hope so. Well, and, you know, it's summer. It's a great time to get out and think of those creative projects that you could do with your kids like Rob, you did with your So get creative. And for any of you that do do something kind, do an active kindness for the police in your community, let us know. Find us on Twitter. And we would love to share that on the Daily Signal. That's right. Well, we're going to leave it there for today.

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