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Posted on 05/04/2009 11:12:18 AM PDT by Publius804
Actor Duvall enters battle to save Va. battlefield
By STEVE SZKOTAK
LOCUST GROVE, Va. (AP) - Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall has fired a verbal salvo against plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter near a Virginia Civil War battlefield where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee first fought the Union's Ulysses S. Grant.
Duvall, who is a descendant of Lee, said he will help preservationists in "chasing out" the retailer from a site near the Wilderness Battlefield.
At a news conference on Monday, Duvall said he has no grudge against Wal-Mart but believes in capitalism coupled with sensitivity.
Duvall was joined by Congressmen Peter Welch of Vermont and Ted Poe of Texas, representing states that lost many lives at the Wilderness battle 145 years ago.
The Wal-Mart proposal must first be approved by Orange County supervisors.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
What does Beijing have to say about this?
I don't. I think that if people want to preserve this site they should buy the land and preserve it. And besides, it's not like they are building the memorial "on" the battlefield. It is "near" the battlefield. Just how far away from a battlefield must one be in order to engage in free enterprise, in your opinion?
Also, just how big of a battle must it have been for you to impose your "no free enterprise" zone? Would your preserve every site where a couple of cavalry scouts met and fired off a few shots? If not, what is the cutoff?
He is a great actor and a good samaritan.
I’m behind him all the way.
a Virginia Civil War battlefield where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee first fought the Union's Ulysses S. Grant.
Obviously they're
building it on the battle field
You mean, there is land just sitting around that doesn't belong to anybody? Who knew?
Also, according to Wikipedia, The Wilderness was fought over an area covering 70 square miles. Add in your definition of "near" a battlefield, and you are perhaps talking about 100 square miles of land that you want to be off limits.
If Judge Ted Poe is agin it, I’m agin it.
Either "put up" the $$$s to purchase their land [at fair market value], or [no offense intended] "shut up".
So just how close to a battlefield is too close for people to do what they want without your approval? 1 mile? 20 miles? 50 miles?
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” ..............Certainly not the during the battle of the wilderness, when troops on both sides were burned to death. Too many burnt spirits lurk in the woods of the wilderness.
Good for Duval. They don't need a Walmart on historical grounds. If you look at any moderately sized community there is usually a Walmart within a 5 mile radius.
Walmart always finds somewhere else to build. They have serious money.
Let the locals vote to see if they would rather have jobs and lower prices or the field.
Then I'm sure you also support Eddie Rendell's Gettysburg casinos, too...
Did you consider buying the land for yourselves and then doing as you pleased with it, or did you just bully the government to restrict someone else's property rights?
In Virginia, it's hard to travel 5 miles in any direction and not be on 'historical' ground.
Don't know the first thing about them. Private property should be used as owner desirs. If we think that a battlefield needs to be preserved then we should buy the land and set it aside, not pressure the owner to use the land as we desire.
Of course, getting back to the question at hand, ol' Honest Abe was one of the two greatest enemies of the US Constitution who ever walked the face of the earth [the other being John Marshall himself].
I suppose he’d also be in favor of turning Ground Zero in Manhattan into a strip club if the locals want it.
‘Duvall, who is a descendant of Lee, said he will help preservationists in “chasing out” the retailer from a site near the Wilderness Battlefield.
Sounds like the proposed retail site is not actually on the battlefield. ‘
Its not on the battlefield. I appreciate concerns about preserving the CW battlefields, having visited almost all of them in the ‘eastern theater’ including the Wilderness/Fredreicksburg/Chancellorsville location...but that Wal Mart means JOBS in a area that sorely needs them.
And I’ll add Robert E Lee would be embarrassed by the shear number of memorials to himself that currently exist in Virginia and at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
He would appreciate every one in honor of his troops.
Bottom line for me is Duvall would better serve the preservation by contributing and raising funds for those battlefields already preserved, and hurting for operating costs in today’s economy than stopping GROWTH of the local economy.
JMHO.
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