Dallasites, #ConfederateStatues, mountains, molehills and gnat-straining

The Lee statue in Dallas, the day of the big downtown protest at the Confederate monuments site.

OK, some Dallas, or Dallas-area, residents, are reportedly complaining about the $450K or so it cost to remove the Bobby Lee statue from Oak Lawn Park.

(Note to Dallas City Council — keep that temporary reversion to the park's original name and make it permanent.)

You know what?

That $450K is out of a city budget that will spend nearly $1.3 billion next year just out of the general fund. In other words, we have people gnat-straining over THREE-ONE HUNDREDTHS of a percent, written decimally as 0.03 percent.

But, really, it's not Dallas residents who are gnat-straining. It's wingnut talking heads like Tyler O'Neil at PJ Media. As for O'Neil's "but the other driver"?

Big red herring.

The driver of the semi could have crashed into somebody else. After all, HE ran a red light.

Second, shouldn't O'Neil be, instead, repeating the wingnut mantra of "personal responsibility" and lambasting the semi driver? Shouldn't he laud the crane driver for blocking the red-light runner from instead possibly hitting a car and killing other people instead of himself?

Yes, he "should" on the first. And serious, the second would have been quite likely had Murray, the semi driver, not hit the crane.

And, speaking of, contra O'Neil, but vis a vis the federal regulatory state? Was Murray driving over hours or committing other violations? O'Neil never asks.

That's in line with not telling you who died, and that Murray, who did die, was at fault.

See, the likes of O'Neil don't actually care about Murray. He's just a tool, or a "tool," in that sense, to create red herrings and straw men in situation like this.