Opinion: Monument Removers = Mob?

Statue Protest at Linn Park in Birmingham

     Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has slapped down the growing  number of Alabama communities that have decided to pay the $25k fine as the "price" for removing confederate monuments put up largely long after the civil war to protest the emerging Civil Rights movement. From his news release:

“First, any elected official who removes a historic monument or statue in violation of Alabama law has broken the law. He has not simply decided to ‘pay a fee’ so that he can lawfully have the monument or statue removed. He has committed an illegal act.

“Second, any elected official sworn into office by taking an oath to uphold the law, who then breaks a duly enacted and constitutional law, has violated that oath.

“Third, despite what some newspapers might have you believe, any elected official who disregards the duties of his office in this manner has done so not out of courage, but has done so out of fear. This should not be celebrated, for disregarding the law subverts our democratic system.

“Our government vests the power to make laws in the legislature alone. If an elected official disagrees with a law, he can work through his legislators to see that law changed. That is how our system works.

“I urge my fellow Alabamians to take note of those casting votes and spending their tax dollars to violate a law of this state. It is now a question of when not if these same leaders will cast aside yet another law—being guided only by the political winds of the moment.

“Around the country, we have seen what happens when city and county officials allow the mob to take over. It all starts with subtle non-enforcement of laws and ordinances, and quickly devolves into utter lawlessness. As a state, we must remain vigilant that those elected to govern our localities do not lead us slowly down the same road.”

(Full statement is HERE.) 

State  Confederate Memorial in Montgomery. (The confederate flags were removed by Governor Bentley, who also appointed Marshall as AG in 2017. He had been appointed as Marshall County D.A. by Gov. Don Siegelman in 2001.)

      Marshall does not use the word confederate in his news release, but that's why the "protection" law was approved by the Republican majority legislature and signed by GOP Governor Kay Ivey (who bragged about it in her first election campaign ad. "We can’t change or erase our history, but here in Alabama, we know something Washington doesn’t — to get where we’re going means understanding where we’ve been”.)

     Speaking of where we've been, I wonder if Marshall would have taken the same stand against 1950's and 1960's Civil Rights protestors who put themselves in line for arrest to make a point. 

     He is too young, having born on October 2, 1964, six months before "Bloody Sunday" in Selma.

     But had he been older, would he have said MLK and the others "committed an illegal act" which "should not be celebrated, for disregarding the law subverts our democratic system."

     Will members of the Montgomery School board face the same  scorn from Marshall when they rename the four schools named for confederate figures? And when they leave the Robert E. Lee statue in some dusty warehouse instead of in the front of the High School that was named for him? Will Marshall seek to arrest  the school board "mob"?

     Perhaps he should promote an upgrade to the law when the legislative session begins on February 2nd, deleting the $25k "fine" and instead imposing a decade of prison time for the mob of offenders.

     (Marshall is a Republican, but up till 2011 he was a Democrat.)