Austin Liberals Want to Rename City for Someone More Politically Correct

“What’s next and where do we stop?”

That’s perhaps the most pertinent line in a recent report published by the Austin, Texas Equity Office, which has taken it upon itself to identify streets, parks, and buildings in the city that need to be re-named now that liberals have collectively decided that anyone associated with the Confederacy must be banished to the Hall of the Forgotten.

The council identified seven streets ripe for “immediate action,” and estimated it would cost roughly $6,000 to wipe these streets clean of their Confederate heritage. How this improves the city, who is calling for this to happen, and why it needs to be done now are questions left unexplored, but a report in the Austin Statesman does note that there has been plenty of pushback from residents.

“While the cost of such changes might appear reasonable, opposition to similar renamings has tended to revolve around the inconvenience and expense faced by longtime homeowners and business owners who must deal with a new address,” the paper reports. “Complaints along those lines surfaced earlier this year when the Austin City Council changed the names of two streets recognizing Confederate leaders. Before the council renamed Robert E. Lee Road as Azie Morton Road and Jeff Davis Avenue was changed to William Holland Avenue, the city gathered input from residents along those streets. A majority opposed the changes, which occurred in April.”

Because what difference does it make what THE ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO LIVE AND WORK ON THESE STREETS think about it? Democrats on the City Council want to slap each other on the back at the country club and congratulate themselves for being oh-so-progressive and politically correct. That obviously trumps any petty concerns about, you know, the local economic impact.

Nevertheless, the City Council not only went ahead with the renaming of those original streets, they seem fully in favor of renaming some more of them.

Moreover, the report suggests that there may be a bigger issue facing the city of Austin: The name of the place itself.

Because Stephen F. Austin once opposed an effort Mexico made to ban slavery in the Tejas province, his legacy isn’t one the city would like to embrace going forward. Never mind, of course, that Austin perhaps did more than any other single historical figure when it came to developing what would eventually come to be known at Texas. By today’s standards, he was apparently a racist, so get us another bucket of whitewash; we’ve got some history to erase.

“It is essential to acknowledge that societal values are fluid, and they can be and are different today compared to when our city made decisions to name and/or place these Confederate symbols in our community,” the Equity Office concluded.

Taking that truth into account, and noting the lightning-fast rate at which the left is changing our “societal values,” the Austin City Council might want to hold off on changing the name of the city to honor another historical figure. By the time everything is set in stone, they’ll have found something wrong with that person’s legacy and we’ll be forced to go through the whole process again.

Or, hey, we could just leave well enough alone and recognize that no one is perfect?

Sorry, crazy suggestion, never mind.