Archangel Michael statue may yet win the battle against the ACLU after an army of warriors rallies to its cause



A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area commissioned a pair of 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside their new public safety headquarters.

Upon learning that the city of Quincy's new statues — one depicting Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman Christian, and the other depicting the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon — also carried religious significance, the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of secularizing activist groups joined a few locals in suing last May to block the installation.

'The ACLU has pitted itself against the very heroes who keep our communities safe.'

The city, which will make its case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court with the help of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on May 6, has received an outpouring of support from first responders' groups and unions, religious groups, and others keen to defend free speech found intolerable by thin-skinned critics.

The International Association of Fire Fighters and its Bay State affiliate, among the groups that submitted court filings in support of the city, noted that "for the firefighting community, there is perhaps no better image for this project than St. Florian."

Norfolk Superior Court Judge William Sullivan, the Democratic appointee who blocked the planned installation in October, previously argued that the statues "serve no discernable secular purpose."

The IAFF flatly rejected that argument.

RELATED: Whose past predicts your future?

Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

"Florian, to be sure, is venerated as a Catholic saint. But that isn't why the City of Quincy is putting him on its public safety building," the IAFF's court filing reads. "Rather, that choice reflects a centuries-old tradition that honors Florian — entirely apart from his significance in the Catholic Church — as a symbol of the courage, selflessness, and sacrifice of firefighters around the world."

Moreover, the association underscored that Florian's legend is now "part of the cultural fabric of firefighting."

The National Association of Police Organizations similarly said of the St. Michael statue, "Although Michael's origins are religious, his significance extends far beyond that context. He is the archetype of core law-enforcement virtues: justice, courage, leadership, and defense of the innocent."

The National Fraternal Order of Police echoed this understanding and drove the point home:

The erection of these statues shows no semblance of religious subordination or favoritism. For this Court to prohibit these statues would not only run contrary to the text and purpose of the Religion Clauses of the Massachusetts Constitution but would also rob the people of Quincy of a special opportunity to honor their firefighters and police officers.

While the Knights of Columbus highlighted America's and Massachusetts' rich histories of acknowledging religion in public art, the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty discussed the likely fallout of the ACLU prevailing in this case and how that result might disproportionately impact minority faiths.

They noted, for example, that a ruling against Quincy might set a precedent for denying practicing Jews the ability to build an eruv in public — a demarcated area, created by placing nearly invisible wires on existing utility poles, that permits Jews to carry essential items on the Sabbath.

The American Legion said in its filing that giving the secularists a win here "would put the Massachusetts Constitution on a collision court with the federal one." The Legion noted further that while a state may not favor a religion, it "also may not favor nonreligion by adopting a posture of hostility towards faith."

Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and attorney for Quincy, stated, "By picking this fight, the ACLU has pitted itself against the very heroes who keep our communities safe."

"This broad coalition of firefighters and police — along with diverse faith communities, public policy experts, and legal scholars — proves just how out of touch the ACLU has become," Davis continued. "We’re hopeful the court will see through this attack and side with Quincy."

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The Left Threw Columbus Into The Harbor — Now Trump Is Putting Him Back

The Trump admin seems to grasp a truth that its predecessors too often ignored: America is neither an abstraction nor a mere economic zone.

'Thugs do not rule America': Replica of Columbus statue toppled by liberal mob may soon have a home — the White House



President Donald Trump is preparing to install a statue commemorating Christopher Columbus outside the White House. So there's no mistaking the counterrevolutionary and restorative nature of this act, the White House will reportedly erect a replica of the figure that iconoclasts unceremoniously tore down and tossed into Baltimore's harbor on July 4, 2020.

Columbus' four transatlantic voyages opened the way for European exploration of the Americas. While once celebrated for his courage and ambition — such that counties, cities, and towns across the United States were named after him — the Italian "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" who sailed under the Spanish flag has in recent years been subjected to routine defamation and denunciations by liberals.

Columbus' memory and likeness were especially popular targets during the left's Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination and iconoclasm campaign of 2020 that saw graves dug up, animals and places renamed, church windows busted, and cities torched.

As various municipalities and institutions such as the Smithsonian advocated for dropping Columbus Day in favor of "Indigenous Peoples' Day," radicals vandalized and toppled statues commemorating the Italian explorer across the country.

'Thugs do not rule America.'

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city's Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, in search of a target. After harassing restaurant patrons and other residents, the thugs set to work on toppling a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the great explorer — acts that were brushed off by city officials — the cheering mob chucked the broken pieces into the harbor.

RELATED: Debate is always welcome, but violence is never acceptable

A piece of the Christopher Columbus statue is pulled from the harbor in Baltimore on July 6, 2020. Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Artist Tilghman Hemsley hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family's art studio. Using 3D scans of the remains, the artist, working in concert with his son, digitally reassembled the statue, then created a mold to fashion a replica out of crushed marble and resin, reported the Baltimore Sun.

"We brought it out of the harbor and reconstructed it, rebuilt it," Hemsley told the Sun. "So it's not really our artwork, but we were instrumental in putting it back together. It's like Humpty Dumpty."

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the newly thinned-out Washington Post that he and his allies ultimately raised and spent over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

'One of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth.'

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United and a former Democratic Maryland state senator, told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

Pica's organization took a straw vote and unanimously decided to send a statue to the White House. They reportedly signed the loan agreement on Wednesday.

Pica told the AP that he was "cautiously optimistic" that the statue would make it to the White House and noted that it could possibly be installed "within two weeks."

Two people with knowledge of the counterrevolutionary initiative told the Washington Post that the statue will likely be installed on the south side of the White House grounds, by E Street and north of the Ellipse.

Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates who was involved in the effort to recover the statue, stated, "Thrilled at the possibility our Columbus statue could be placed at the White House! Stolen, vandalized, and dumped in the harbor in 2020 yet never forgotten."

"Six years later it rises again as a symbol of Italian American pride. Thugs do not rule America," added Mangione.

The statue's potentially imminent installation comes just months after Trump issued a proclamation honoring Columbus, calling him "the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth."

Trump pledged to "to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory."

Although the White House would not comment on any statues, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to Blaze News, "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump."

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Democrats Don’t Get To Play The Patriotism Card While Embracing Anti-Americanism

The anti-Americanism within the Democrat Party leaves no room for its members to play the patriotism card in opposition to Trump.

Left-Wing Cultural Revolutionaries Are Decapitating Statues And Calling It Art

When they told you Confederate statues were going to museums, you didn't know they meant this.

Blue-state city battles ACLU to install archangel Michael statue honoring police



Thomas Koch, the mayor of Quincy, Massachusetts, commissioned two 10-foot-tall bronze statues to complement his city's new public safety headquarters, a 122,000 square-foot facility that will ultimately house both the police department and the fire department's administration offices.

One of the statues that the city asked renowned sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov to design depicts the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon. The other statue depicts Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman soldier, dumping water on a burning building.

'The statues of Michael and Florian honor service — not a creed.'

Despite the broader cultural significance of both figures and their longstanding association with first responders, groups loath to see any public signs of Christianity joined a number of local residents in suing to block the installation of the statues.

While the Norfolk Superior Court granted a preliminary injunction last week blocking the installation of the two statues, the city of Quincy, evidently unwilling to surrender to iconoclastic secularists, has teamed up with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to file an appeal.

"We respect every citizen's beliefs, religious or not. But the statues of Michael and Florian honor service — not a creed," Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch said in a statement to Blaze News. "We’re hopeful that the court will reverse this order and allow our city to pay tribute to the men and women who keep our city safe."

The lawsuit

The lawsuit filed in May by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, names a number of Quincy residents as plaintiffs including

  • a Unitarian social justice warrior;
  • a self-identified Catholic who finds the "violent imagery" of good triumphing over evil to be "offensive";
  • a local synagogue member who suggested the images "may exacerbate the current rise in anti-Semitism";
  • an Episcopalian who believes that walking past such statues would amount to "submission to religious symbols";
  • several Catholics turned atheists apparently keen to avoid some of the imagery they grew up with; and
  • a lapsed Catholic who suggested the image of Michael stepping on the head of a demon was "reminiscent of how George Floyd was killed."

The lawsuit states that "affixing religious icons of one particular faith to a government facility — the City's public safety building, no less — sends an alarming message that those who do not subscribe to the City's preferred religious beliefs are second-class residents who should not feel safe, welcomed, or equally respected by their government."

RELATED: Exposing the great lie about 'MAGA Christianity' — and the truth elites hate

Quincy City Hall. Photo by Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images.

The complaint hammers home the significance of Michael in Catholicism, where he is recognized as the patron saint of police, yet neglects to note that Michael also features prominently in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic religious texts and traditions as well as in the Western literary canon and pop culture.

While the suit hints at possible civic or professional accomplishments on the part of Florian that could be recognized with a statue, it again suggested that as the patron saint of firefighters, a statue of the historical figure would similarly "send a predominantly religious message."

The plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit that the city violated Article III of the Massachusetts Declaration Rights, and suggested that the installation of the statues "will not serve a predominantly secular purpose," but rather to "promote, promulgate, and advance one faith, subordinating other faiths as well as non-religious traditions."

The allegation of a violation of state law as opposed to a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution appears to have been strategic. After all, the U.S. Supreme Court has made expressly clear that "simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause."

Mayor Koch rejected the plaintiffs' thesis, underscoring in a sworn affidavit that he regarded it as "appropriate to erect statues of two internationally recognized symbols of police and fire service, an act which would also serve to inspire the men and women who work in the building."

"There was nothing religious about this decision," continued Koch. "The fact that Michael and Florian each happen to be saints venerated in the Catholic Church is ancillary to their significance in the Police and Fire services, respectively."

The injunction

Quincy suggested in the suit that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they were "simply offended by the planned statues, and, unwilling to confine themselves to the ordinary means for airing ideological disagreements with the government — the political process — have sought to make a lawsuit out of it."

Norfolk Superior Court Justice William Sullivan, who was put on the court by former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, was evidently not persuaded.

On Oct.14, Sullivan denied the city's motion to dismiss the lawsuit and granted a preliminary injunction against the erection of the statues, noting that the plaintiffs had demonstrated "that they are likely to succeed at proving that the permanent display of the oversized overtly religious-looking statutes have a primary effect of advancing religion."

RELATED: Clinton labor secretary panics after Trump asks the archangel Michael for help fighting evil

Photo by: Claudio Ciabochi/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Speaking to Koch's suggestion that the statues have secular significance and purpose, Sullivan wrote, "To the extent a statue of Saint Michael provides inspiration or conveys a message of truth, justice, or the triumph of good over evil, it does so in his context as a biblical figure — namely, the archangel of God. It is impossible to strip the statue of its religious meaning to contrive a secular purpose."

Rachel Davidson, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts, celebrated the ruling, stating, "We are grateful to the court for acknowledging the immediate harm that the installation of these statues would cause and for ensuring that Quincy residents can continue to make their case for the proper separation of church and state."

"Massachusetts citizens are free to practice their personal religious views by placing statues of saints or other religious iconography on private property," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. "But such religious iconography emphatically does not belong on government buildings where all must feel welcome."

The appeal

Becket, a firm focused on protecting religious liberty, announced on Tuesday that it will join the city of Quincy in appealing Sullivan's decision.

"If allowed to stand, the decision would push cities across the Commonwealth to strip historic symbols from civic life whenever they carry religious associations," the firm said in a statement. "But the Supreme Court has upheld the use of symbols with religious roots in public life, including a World War I memorial featuring a cross, when they carry historical, cultural, or commemorative significance."

Using private funding in the 1920s, the American Legion constructed the 40-foot-tall Peace Cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, to honor soldiers who perished in World War I. The sight of the cross evidently enraged iconoclastic secularists, who sought to have it toppled. While the Fourth Circuit proved more than happy to oblige them, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in its 2019 American Legion v. American Humanist Association ruling that the cross did not violate the Establishment Clause.

The court also rejected the relevance of the test articulated by SCOTUS in its 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling as a way of guiding the court in identifying Establishment Clause violations, noting that the Lemon test presented "particularly daunting problems" in such cases that "involve the use, for ceremonial, celebratory, or commemorative purpose, of words or symbols with religious associations."

While the Supreme Court has effectively rejected the Lemon test, Justice Sullivan leaned heavily on it in the Quincy case.

"Everyone is free to have their own opinions about public art, but in America, the fact that something may have religious associations is not a legitimate reason to censor it," said Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket.

"Our nation, like many others, has long drawn on historic symbols — including those with religious roots — to honor courage and sacrifice. The court should reject this lawsuit’s attempt to block these symbols of bravery and courage," added Davis.

Quincy Police Chief Mark Kennedy's office indicated the police department will have no comment as the issue remains in the hands of the court.

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Rock bottom: Why must deliberately ugly sculpture invade all our public spaces?



We have a crisis of trashy public “art,” and sculpture is one of the main offenders. More on this below; I have to buffer your reading experience with a reminder of actual beauty before we dive to the bottom of the aesthetic dumpster.

When I was 8 years old, my grandmother gave me a small hardback book of Greek mythology. I can’t remember the title. It was written in the 1940s and probably used as a textbook or primer for college-level courses.

They say that some children have a face only a mother can love, but not even the father of that piece could look at it and see anything but a gargoyle at hell’s check-in kiosk.

It smelled exactly as you’re imagining right now: that scent of a 20th-century quality-bound book from the library stacks. Though only about seven inches by four inches, it had onionskin pages like a Bible, and there must have been 900 of them.

Pictures from History/Getty Images

Set in stone

The book always fell open to the same page because I always looked at that one. There was a black-and-white photograph of Bernini’s bust of Medusa. It fascinated me, and only later did I realize that the figure of Medusa drew me so powerfully, in part, because my mother was a gorgon.

But it wasn’t just that. The detail and life Bernini infused into stone took my breath away. How could a piece of marble be made so like a human face that we try to divine the emotion in the carved eyes?

Photo: Shhewitt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Have you seen the statuary of veiled figures? They offer the most incredible illusion of the Virgin behind a gossamer veil of the thinnest translucent silk. To look at a statue like this is to feel a glimmer of the divine. And this example, the Veiled Virgin, was carved in the 19th century. This means that until fairly recently, there were still skilled sculptors who have earned the title “artist.”

So what the hell is this?

Adam Moss via Flickr/Creative Commons

Brucille

I can tell you what it is not: Lucille Ball. It appears to be a bronze casting of Brucille Lall, Lucy’s evil trans-identifying cousin. Who could believe that the figure is offering Vitameatavegamin, when it’s obviously liquid arsenic? "Just like candy” indeed.

The sculptor behind the piece (the late David Poulin), which was installed in the comedy legend’s hometown in 2015 to honor her, gave up his craft after the negative public reaction. He complained to local media that he was tired of being razzed for a statue that was “not one of my best works.”

Well? They say that some children have a face only a mother can love, but not even the father of that piece could look at it and see anything but a gargoyle at hell’s check-in kiosk.

You have to ask: What possessed the city government in Celoron, New York, to pretend that this is normal? Is it the sunk-cost fallacy? Is it embarrassment at wasting money on a figure that has sent local children to long-term therapy?

Hug it out

Whatever motivates this behavior was probably also at work in Boston when it commissioned and placed this atrocity downtown. Called the Embrace, this bronze oversized ... whatever ... allegedly depicts a hug between Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King.

Boston Globe/Getty Images

Take it in. If it helps, you can let Boston Mayor Michelle Wu explain to you how this piece “differs from the singular, heroic form of many memorials to Dr. King and others, instead emphasizing the power of collective action, the role of women as leaders, and the forging of new bonds of solidarity out of mutual empathy and vulnerability."

Or, like one local Reddit commenter, you can just trust your own eyes: "Could have been something amazing but instead we get a somewhat pornographic bronze turd."

This turd, the work of a successful black artist named Hank Willis Thomas, beat out 125 other designs. Thomas says he didn't want to "oversimplify" MLK's legacy by proposing something that actually looked like him.

Sure. Or maybe he figured his best chance to win was to submit something so bizarre and off-putting that the judges would have no choice but to mistake it for brilliance. And why not? Liberal white people (like the billionaire entrepreneur who spearheaded the project) love to demonstrate their sophistication by praising provocatively ugly and incompetent art — especially if it allows them to take credit for supporting "diversity."

Less impressed by the Embrace was a cousin of Coretta Scott King, who simply called it “an atrocity.”

Monumental entitlement

Dismembering your subjects so that only a grotesque pair of floating limbs remains is one way to make a name for yourself as a public artist. Another way is to dispense with the tired notion that only people who have accomplished something should get a statue.

That's the approach of black British sculptor Thomas J. Price, who specializes in oversized monuments to mean-looking, fat black women who appear to be waiting to speak to the manager.

Here's Grounded in the Stars, the 12-foot bronze sculpture Price installed in Times Square last spring.

Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images

You see, what Price is doing here is "challeng[ing] historical notions of representation in NYC's most iconic public space." Oh. Someone better tell the many black women who find the statue "humiliating" and "insulting."

Another recent piece by Price is a 13-foot statue of a surly-looking young black woman holding her cell phone out in classic I'm-going-to-treat-this-crowded-bus-like-my-living-room-and-have-this-annoyingly-loud-conversation-on-speaker posture. (Credit where it’s due — that does indeed capture the entitlement of many women today.)

Shutterstock

But is putting it in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria alongside classical and Renaissance sculpture really "a significant conversation with the canons and aesthetic models that have defined the history of Western art for centuries"? Or is it just another big, resentful middle finger to "whiteness" and its oppressive standards of beauty?

Simply the worst

But wait — there’s more! The latest insult to black womanhood is a grotesque tribute to the legendary Tina Turner, who died in 2023. It must be seen to be believed.

Shutterstock

You know this is the work of a black artist because any white person creating such a monstrosity would immediately be charged with a hate crime. Fred Ajanogha (“also known as ‘Ajano’”) is an Atlanta-based "master sculptor" who works in the storied "Benin Bronze" tradition of his native Nigeria.

Making a sculpture with this ancient wax-casting technique does indeed require a certain mastery. What it doesn't require, apparently, is any sort of reference photo of Ms. Turner.

Do admit — it looks like he gave the legendary singer Down syndrome, as well as hair lifted directly from the McDonaldland Fry Guys.

This Trisomy Tina now graces Turner's small Tennessee hometown. Fan's of Turner's song "Nutbush City Limits" know it as a pleasant community full of proud locals intent on keeping it that way. They make sure it's clean. They don't allow motorcycles or liquor.

Most of all, they don't tolerate any out-of-towners disrupting things with their dumb, big-city ideas. "You have to watch what you're puttin' down." Unfortunately, it looks like times have changed, even in old Nutbush.

Why Democrats Demonize Christopher Columbus And Lionize Che Guevara

Many have lost the intellectual faculty necessary for making good judgments about our history — and thus also about our present and future.

Press pool shocks Trump with reaction to Columbus Day news



President Trump was shocked at reactions from members of the press on Thursday while making an official proclamation about Columbus Day.

Appearing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, the president spoke to the media about his landmark peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Before his remarks though, he made time to sign a document about the historic explorer Christopher Columbus.

'We love the Italians.'

After a short history lesson from staff secretary Will Scharf about Columbus' travels to the New World in 1492, Trump promptly summarized the document by stating, "In other words, we're calling it Columbus Day."

Shockingly, the press erupted in applause.

"Yes!" one person was heard saying as Trump looked off to his staff, puzzled.

"That was the press that broke out in applause," the bewildered president pointed out. "That was — can you believe that? I've never seen that happen before. The press actually broke out in applause."

Laughing, Trump then presented the newly signed document before delivering one of his famous one-liners.

RELATED: DEBUNKED: The left's claims about Christopher Columbus are FALSE

"Columbus Day, we're back!" Trump said, showing the document off. "Columbus Day! We're back, Italians! OK? We love the Italians."

The proclamation honors Columbus' life, faith, courage, and perseverance while further cementing October 13, 2025, as Columbus Day. It also discusses attempts by progressives to cancel Columbus with claims he is a controversial figure.

"Outrageously, in recent years, Christopher Columbus has been a prime target of a vicious and merciless campaign to erase our history, slander our heroes, and attack our heritage," the document reads.

Describing "left-wing radicals" who have toppled statues and monuments of the explorer while tarnishing his character, Trump declared in the writings that "those days are finally over."

"Our Nation will now abide by a simple truth: Christopher Columbus was a true American hero, and every citizen is eternally indebted to his relentless determination," Trump wrote.

The shift in federal guidance comes after President Joe Biden issued the first presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples' Day — to be observed on Columbus Day — in 2021.

"For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures," Biden wrote at the time. "Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society."

RELATED: Saving History

A depiction of Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) claiming possession of the New World, 1492. Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images

On Thursday, Trump further praised Italian Americans for their contribution to American culture.

"United States and Italy share a special bond rooted in the timeless values of faith, family, and freedom," Trump explained.

Finally, the White House said it will direct the American flag to be displayed on all public buildings on Columbus Day to honor his legacy as well as "all who have contributed to building our Nation."

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NYC unveils hideous bronze statue in Times Square – ‘It’s there to condemn you’



On April 29, a 12-foot bronze statue of a plus-size woman named "Grounded in the Stars" was unveiled in Times Square, New York City. The artist, Thomas J. Price, said it was meant to “confront preconceived notions of identity and representation” and “encourage empathy.”

Jill Savage of “Blaze News | The Mandate” isn’t buying it. “It’s so beautiful,” she says sarcastically.

But Jill knows she’s not the only one cringing at this woke gesture. To get the pulse of the Blaze audience, she took to X and posted:

— (@)

On this episode of “Blaze News | The Mandate,” Jill shares the best responses.

Blaze Media’s very own Steve Baker responded with:

KyleH replied with this hilarious comment:

And finally, G’s response:

“It seems like a more fitting statue in a way than the one in the movie,” laughs Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson.

In all seriousness, though, historically, monuments have commemorated achievement. Peterson points to the Theodore Roosevelt equestrian statue from outside the American Museum of Natural History that New York City removed in 2020, claiming it symbolized colonialism and racism. Never mind Roosevelt’s contributions to conservation, global explorations, and leadership.

Compare that to Price’s statue.

“Why is that statue there? It's there to condemn you. It's the opposite of ennobling,” says Peterson.

“It's a really dangerous thing when you start to not only pull down the good statues but put up things that are ugly and that are making you condemn yourself. It's a very evil, wicked thing they're doing,” he adds.

To hear his solution to restoring beautiful art in our country, watch the episode above.

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