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5A OPINION £he ®xmt$ gainesvilletimes.com Weekend Edition-March 17-18, 2023 Nate McCullough Group Editor | 770-718-3431 | nmccullough@gainesvilletimes.com Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. WISCONSIN 3CXAHAL lOVW fXl&Wi CfiNT«NT A&eNO/ I ASSURE YOU, UNLIKE SILICON VALLEV BANK, MV ASSETS ARE BACKED UP BY MAGIC flff® J , RAINBOWS. V PHIL HANDS I Tribune News Service Following the law on Jan. 6 was the least Pence could do J. Scott Applewhite/Pool visTNS Vice President Mike Pence reads the final certification of Electoral College votes cast in November’s presidential election during a joint session of Congress, after working through the night, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 7, 2021. A Capitol Police officer is criticizing Pence for still downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection. JONAH GOLDBERG goldbergcolumn@gmail.com On Saturday night, Mike Pence unleashed his anger at Donald Trump. “History will hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6,” Pence declared at the Gridiron Dinner, a normally jovial event for prominent journalists. “Make no mis take about it: What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way. President Trump was wrong. His reck less words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day.” Now, Pence is right to be angry about Jan. 6. Trump put his exceedingly loyal vice president in a horrible position: Be faithful to the president and his base or be loyal to the Constitution and the country. This was, no doubt, a pain ful choice for Pence. And Pence did the right thing by refusing to play along with Trump’s scheme. But it’s worth remembering that Pence’s decision on Jan. 6 was shocking to a lot of people because he spent four years being a loyal cheer leader for Trump, through the president’s countless scandals. It’s also worth remember ing that, really, it was the least Pence could do. So, while I am glad and grateful for what he did, some of the praise feels excessive. If all your friends decide to rob a bank but you refused to go along, that’s great. But there’s no hero ism in choosing not to rob a bank. After all, not all painful choices are necessarily hard choices. That’s what makes his show of anger at Trump now so discomfiting. He says “his tory will hold Donald Trump accountable” for the events of Jan. 6.1 am confident he’s right. But it will take longer for that to happen because Pence has little interest in helping history reach its conclusion. For over a year, he’s held back on expressing his anger about Trump putting his life in danger and inviting a constitutional crisis. Why? It seems hard to believe he was waiting for new facts to emerge since he was in possession of many of those facts. Pence wanted nothing to do with the House Jan. 6 committee, insisting that it had no right to his testimony. “I believe it will establish a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice president of the United States to speak about delib erations that took place at the White House,” he said in November. Yet when the Justice Department issued a sub poena for his testimony, he found another excuse: He couldn’t help with that investigation because he was a member of the legislative branch on Jan. 6. “On the day of Jan. 6,1 was acting as president of the Senate, presiding over a joint session, described in the Con stitution itself,” Pence said last month. “And so, I believe that that Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution actually prohibits the execu tive branch from compelling me to appear in a court, as the Constitution says, or in any other place. And we’ll stand on that principle and we’ll take that case as far as it needs to go, if need be to the Supreme Court of the United States, because to me, it’s — it’s an issue of the sepa ration of powers.” In other words, when the legislative branch wanted him to explain what he knows, he said he couldn’t because he’s a member of the executive branch. When the executive branch asked, Pence was suddenly a mem ber of the legislative branch. Now, as a constitutional matter, neither argument alone is ridiculous. But taken together, he’s basically trying to be the Schrodinger’s cat of vice presidents. If he was really interested in helping history hold Trump accountable, I’m sure the Justice Department — or the Jan. 6 committee before it — would have been happy to rescind the subpoenas in exchange for his voluntary testimony. And there’s the problem of asking “history” — which has a lot of stuff on its plate — to do the job he’s unwill ing to do. He knows the facts. He knows that since Jan. 6, Trump has called for the suspension of the Constitu tion to reinstall himself as president. While he hasn’t formally declared he’s running for president, his team all but admits preparing the ground, spreading the word about how he’s better positioned than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the like. Shouldn’t someone run ning for president be able to tell the truth — and vent his anger — without so much hemming and hawing and political calculation? Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at- large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ‘While I am glad and grateful for what [Pence] did, some of the praise feels excessive. If all your friends decide to rob a bank but you refused to go along, that’s great. But there’s no heroism in choosing not to rob a bank. After all, not all painful choices are necessarily hard choices.’ New name or not, Lanier could use rebranding Should Lake Lanier be renamed? That’s the question the feds are asking, as you may have read recently. Lake of Death? Hauntings Lake? Lake Too Many Drownings? Perhaps one of those would be more appropriate, based on the perception reflected on social media. Lanier could use some serious rebranding, espe cially for those living in the big city to our south. It’s a beautiful spot visited by 12 million people a year, but mention boating on Lanier to someone in Atlanta and you may well get a raised eyebrow. Combatting that negative perception is not exactly what the feds have in mind, though. Their effort would be a rebranding of sorts — moving away from all ties to the Confederacy — but that has little to do with the realities of Lake Lanier. I couldn’t have told you Sidney Lanier served as a private in the Confederacy before this recent reporting, though if I’d looked at the time period he lived, I might have guessed. The lake’s namesake was known for his poetry and wrote “The Song of the Chattahoochee,” which seems to be what was being celebrated when the lake was named. He also was summoned to enlist in the Confederate Army, where he served until his capture by Union troops. That’s a lot of signs to change over an issue that doesn’t seem to have been the point in the first place. The bigger issue for many has been Lanier’s supposed ties to Oscarville community and the trag edies committed against Black residents who lived in that area of Forsyth County before they were forced out. So back to that reputation — these rumors have taken on a life of their own in urban folklore, spawning TV show segments and even horror films. Part of this story is tragically true. What it has to do with Lake Lanier — I haven’t figured that out. In 1912, the Black residents of Forsyth County were forced to flee their homes following violence and lynchings. Several Black men were accused of assaulting White women, in particular 18-year-old Mae Crow, whose body was found in the woods near Oscar ville. What ensued was a bitter fight between White and Black communities, with White residents trying to take what they may have believed to be justice into their own hands. A mob seized one of the men accused and hanged him from a telephone pole in the town square. Others were quickly con victed by White juries and hanged. Learn more about the events in this exhibit from the Georgia Library Learning Online. A wave of violence sur rounded it all, with White residents riding through the Black community burning homes and throwing explosives into buildings, according to reports at the time from the Gainesville News and Dahlonega Nugget. Decades later, Forsyth County still struggled tremendously with racial tension and hatred and it was known as a place unwelcome to any Black people. Riots and marches that garnered national attention were held in the 1980s. Some have worked to heal those deep wounds, and Forsyth has become a more welcoming place as it has grown. So, now back to Lake Lanier — the timeline has been conflated, touching off the folklore and rumor of Lanier being haunted by those involved in the 1912 tragedies. Lanier was built in the 1950s with the damming of the Chattahoochee River. Many residents, most but maybe not all of them White, were relocated as the government worked to secure the land needed for the future lake. Many Black residents had pre viously lost their land. Of the 58 Black landholders forced out in 1912,24 were able to sell their land, below its value, according to reports documented in the GALILEO exhibit. For others, there is no record of sale and White neighbors were able to take it and gain ownership by paying the property taxes on it. The lake does cover some of what was once Oscarville, while the community still exists in east ern Forsyth County. While parts of this story have gotten twisted into literal horror films, the Forsyth County tragedy seems much more important to Georgia residents than any ties of Lanier’s to the Confederacy. Maybe the feds will discover that as they move forward in their considerations of whether to rename the lake. Maybe the truth of what happened can become the dominant storyline rather than the supposed haunt ings and mishmash of pieces of history. Rather than renaming the lake and spending who knows how much on signage — perhaps our federal tax dollars would be better spent educat ing the public about the facts of what happened in Forsyth decades before the lake was built. Or per haps we could spend that money working harder to prevent the tragedies that happen each summer as people drown in Lanier’s murky waters. Whatever its name, it’s been a huge asset to North Georgia and it also demands a healthy fear from any person who wants to play in its waters. Shannon Casas is director of audience for Metro Market Media, parent company of The Times. She is a North Hall resident. vj % SHANNON CASAS scasas@gainesville times.com (the (Times Founded Jan. 26,1947 345 Green St., Gainesville, GA 30501 gainesvilletimes.com EDITORIAL BOARD Publisher Stephanie Woody Group Editor Nate McCullough To submit letters: Send emails to letters@gainesvilletimes.com or the contactform at gainesvilletimes. com. Include name, hometown and phone number. Letters are limited to one per writer in a month’s time on topics of public interest and may be edited for content and length (limit 350 words). Submitted items may be published in print, electronic or other forms. Letters, columns and cartoons express the opinions of the authors and not of The Times.
