Shrine to Democracy

News that I missed, courtesy of The Babylon Bee:

KEYSTONE, SD—As protests against statues across the country escalate and talk turns toward tearing down Mount Rushmore, President Trump has authorized the use of the monument’s laser eyes.

The laser eyes security defense feature was installed in the mountain by Richard Nixon as an anti-Communist measure in the early 1970s, and now it’s finally being deployed against Communists as was its original intent.

“Tear it down! Tear it do—AHHHHHHH!!!!” screamed protesters as George Washington’s eyes suddenly began glowing red. “Run!!!”

“USE OF LASER EYES AUTHORIZED. DESTROY ALL COMMIES,” said the carving of Washington as his head slowly turned and he began firing powerful laser blasts at the crowd.

“DEATH IS A PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNISM,” boomed Abraham Lincoln’s robotic voice as his targeting system centered in on a 35-year-old protester from Portland named Rayne Meadows.

“YOU’VE THROWN YOUR LAST MILKSHAKE, SOY BOY,” intoned a gruff Teddy Roosevelt, while Thomas Jefferson said, “THE TREE OF LIBERTY MUST BE REFRESHED WITH YOUR BLOOD!”

Go here to read the rest.  Mount Rushmore was carved in the twenties and the thirties of the last century.  Two million Americans visit each year.  The site was chosen with the help of the Sioux to avoid picking  a mountain sacred to their traditional tribal beliefs.  It is largely the work of sculptor Gutzon Borglum who was born in 1867, the son of Danish immigrants.  He made a career out of sculpting heroic figures of American history, which suited the mood of the nation in the times in which he lived.

He did the initial work on the bas relief of Stone Mountain Georgia which features the largest bas figures in the world of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  The conception was his, but artistic differences, and local resistance to his domineering personality, caused him to  be dismissed from  the project.  One of the supporting groups behind the project was the Ku Klux Klan, and Borglum became a member, how much due to his sharing their beliefs and how much due to their financial backing of the project is open to debate.  Henry Augustus Lukeman would cave the bas relief until his death in 1935 with the project being completed in 1970.

Sculpting of Mount Rushmore took from 1927-1941.  The project ended with the death of Borglum in 1941 and the running out of funds.  The completed work is only a part of what he envisaged, but I doubt if the stark majesty of the uncompleted work could possibly be improved on.  A symbol of America the world round, it has naturally come under assault during the current madness.  Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem, mother of three and still more of a man than most politicians, has pledged to defend Mount Rushmore.  It has been called the Shrine of Democracy, and naturally the foes of democracy hate Mount Rushmore as demons hate, and fear, Christ.

When I was a teenager, or perhaps a young adult,  I recall reading a story by science fiction author Poul Anderson.  The title of the story eludes me.  It was set in the then far future in the twenty-first century.  An orphan, a small boy, and his grandfather lived in Georgia.  The elderly grandfather was a veteran of the Vietnam War.  America was now under the control of a Communist regime, much to the disgust of the grandfather.  He is thrilled however when he learns that the foreign puppet masters are allowing the local regime to restart the American military.  The grandfather is enthusiastic, telling the orphan that the nation was on its way back and giving out a Rebel yell.  The opening ceremonies for the new American military are to be held at Stone Mountain, and the grandfather and the orphan attend.  At the ceremony the new American military use their artillery to destroy the bas relief, the announcement being made that this is part of a new campaign by the regime to destroy the vestiges of the hated old America.  The story is narrated by the orphan, who notes that after that night something within his grandfather died, and that though he lived a few years afterwards physically, he might as well have been buried that night.

The orphan grows up, and becomes years later an unwilling agent of the regime.  He becomes an undercover agent who helps destroy a cell of the Jeffersonians, rebels against the regime.  After the cell is destroyed he gets to read some of the literature of the Jeffersonians  about the history of the America that was, and the story ends with him weeping for the loss of that America and the freedom for which it stood.  I would much sooner die on the spot than see my last years spent in a live action version of that slave dystopia.