The war in Arkansas to remove Robert E. Lee’s name from the joint Robert E. Lee/Martin Luther King holiday is now in full escalation. For those of you who have not been keeping up with this news, there were two bills filed at the State Capitol, HB 1113 & HB 1119, by Rep. Nate Bell and Rep. Fred Love to have an exclusive Martin Luther King holiday. After the initial overwhelming defeat of HB 1113 last Wednesday, Lee’s detractors have now changed tactics and are now playing the race card along with monetary factors to force this bill through. Proof of this is what Rep. Nate Bell has written on his Facebook page as follows.
“I regularly travel around the country both in my official capacity as a state rep and for business. I make it a point to seek out business leaders and entreprenuers to ask them about choosing an Arkansas location for their business. I often hear the combined Martin Luther King/Robert E. Lee holiday mentioned as “proof” that we are a bunch of backward, uneducated racists. Whether that’s true or not, really doesn’t matter. In economic development, perception matters most. If they think it, they’re not coming here. Locating in one of the 47 states without the perceived embedded racism is just too easy and especially so given our high taxes and regulatory burden. Separate celebrations honoring Dr. King and General Lee just make sense and doing so eliminates one more barrier to job creation in our state and costs us nothing. I’m asking all good people of good will to stand with me to pass HB 1113. It’s time for Arkansas to thrive.”
First of all, he says that he hears that we are a bunch of backward, uneducated racists. In my opinion, having a joint holiday of one white southerner and one black southerner proves there is no racism involved except to those who clamor for it to be. Secondly, who is the one uneducated here by claiming there are 47 states. The last I checked, Hawaii became our 50th state in 1959 which was of course before Rep. Bell was born.
I don’t recall Arkansas-based corporations such as Walmart, J.B. Hunt, Dillards, et al hurting financially or desiring to relocate to another state due to this false allegation. As far as our high taxes, Rep. Bell voted for the largest tax increase in Arkansas history by means of an unconstitutional law so he is largely contradicting himself again.
I know by now, many of you are wondering, what has any of this have to do with Anti-Federalist politics? It has everything to do with it due to the fact that the family of Robert E. Lee played an integral part of creating the principles of limited government in this country. Two of his uncles were signers of the Declaration of Independence, one of whom authored the Tenth Amendment to the Bill of Rights and later became Virginia’s first US Senator. His father was a general under George Washington in the Continental Army and later became a US Congressman and governor of Virginia. His mother was a great-grandaughter of Alexander Spotswood who was colonial governor of Virginia and Robert later married Mary Custis who was the granddaughter of George Washington’s wife, Martha Washington. John Adams exclaimed in 1779, “The family of Lee has more men of merit in it than any other family.”
Basically, what Rep. Bell is saying is that we should sacrifice our heritage and the principles of limited government that the Lee family played such an integral role in creating for an alleged guarantee of economic prosperity that he cannot deliver. Lastly, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Loy Mauch
The Anti-Federalist 