"Stonewall" Jackson has towns, counties, parks, rivers, creeks, lakes, forests and buildings named for him all across the southern US. But that is now bad. A press excerpt:
"The debate comes down to this: Was Stonewall-Flanders Elementary School named for the legendary Confederate general Stonewall Jackson or for stone fences that adorned front yards in the neighborhood? Harlandale Independent School District trustees will consider the question as they decide whether to grant a former district administrator's request to rename the school after Cesar Chavez, the late social activist.... Calzoncit says Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was a racist and the school should not bear his name"
Source
Note that NOBODY is defending the naming of the school after Jackson. They are defending the name on the basis that it does NOT refer to Jackson. It seems to be universally accepted that nothing should be named after a racist. But almost everybody was racist before World War 2 (including that great fan of Aryans, Democrat President Woodrow Wilson) so should we celebrate none of our ancestors? Psychologists even tell us that we are ALL racists so should we just stop naming things after people?
Northern Ireland Shows the Way
(This post is outside the normal scope of this blog but I hope that we are all more relaxed over the holiday season and I think lots of readers here will be interested in it)
Northern Ireland: That's where Protestants and Catholics are always shooting one-another, Right? Maybe. But note this:
"A United Nations report has labelled Scotland the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America. England and Wales recorded the second highest number of violent assaults while Northern Ireland recorded the fewest. The study, based on telephone interviews with victims of crime in 21 countries, found that more than 2,000 Scots were attacked every week, almost ten times the official police figures. They include non-sexual crimes of violence and serious assaults. Violent crime has doubled in Scotland over the past 20 years and levels, per head of population, are now comparable with cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Tbilisi".
Source
So what's going on? We know that Scotland lives under very draconian gun bans. What about Northern Ireland? Why is its crime-rate so LOW despite the religious tensions? Answer: Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that is generally armed, or at least where you cannot assume that any given person is not armed. So it's that good old deterrent effect at work again. As in the USA, the more guns, the less crime.
