Talk:Seal of North Carolina

someone completely messed up this page. I tried to restore it as much as possible — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.188.247.124 (talk • contribs) 2006-05-23T23:48:08

Remove photo of Winston Monument Photo—it is NOT the Seal of North Carolina!!!
The photo of the Confederate monument to Major Winston from Greensboro may be a nicely-taken photograph, and it may even be a good example of the art of the cast-bronze bas-relief, for all that I know.... but it is NOT the State Seal of North Carolina, and should be removed from this page!

Read the accurate description of the Seal as given in the text on this page. North Carolina’s State Seal depicts two allegorical female figures: Liberty, standing, holding a liberty-pole in one hand and a Constitution in the other hand, and Plenty, who has one hand on her cornucopia, but with the other hand she should be offering THREE EARS OF GRAIN, the fruit of agricultural labor.

The Confederate monument at Greensboro rather obnoxiously beats those ploughshares back into swords; the goddess Plenty is not offering three ears of grain, but a fistful of ammunition.

You can call this witty or subversive or clever if you like, just as I have called it rather obnoxious. But whichever you prefer, those are statements of opinion, and have no place on Wikipedia, which is duty-bound to report matters of fact. And it is a fact that the scene depicted on the Greensboro Confederate monument does not accurately depict the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina.

The Confederate monument in the photo posted depicts a polemical parody, a debased defacement and belligerently deliberate alteration to the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina, as it is currently described in state law (and in more of less the same form that it’s had in state law since 1883, and in actual depiction since 1836, and with a slight difference from 1793 to 1836, in which period Liberty was sitting down and Plenty was standing, but still holding grain, NOT arrows. It also used to depict a Pyramid, to let everyone know the eye of Amun-Ra was staring at Caesar.  They removed that from the state seal, too, which is a shame because clearly a little more oversight would have prevented Confederate propaganda from sneaking onto this page.)

And I know it seems similar at first glance—-but visible symbolism matters. And truth and accuracy matter. That is why the official state motto of North Carolina is ESSE QVAM VIDERE: “to BE, rather than to SEEM”. Please take down the photo of the Confederate Monument, or else provide a warning label regarding its alterations to the official symbolism of the seal.

Thank you, SILENCE DOGOOD — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1002:B0C0:2841:B807:6F5C:C2D1:8E83 (talk) 15:36, 19 August 2020 (UTC)