Erasing History: West Point to Eliminate Robert E. Lee’s Presence
How can we learn from our history if it’s removed from view?
by Doug Bandow
December 29, 2022, 10:21 PM
History is a bit like Otto von Bismarck’s famous line about sausages and laws, which, he said, no one should watch being made. Think of all the people you’ve seen in pictures and statues or on coins and currency. Consider figures captured in busts and memorialized in books. Visualize military conquerors and nation builders.
Who among them meets current standards of purity? Think Roman emperors, British kings, Turkish sultans, Russian tsars, medieval popes, Mongolian khans, multinational generals, German kaisers, and more. Good luck. Maybe an abstemious monk or long-lost Vestal Virgin would pass the test. But not even many of them.
The problem is not just being born before the present rules were promulgated by Wokedom’s high priests. How many modern men and women can meet those standards and survive scrutiny? Even the sainted Barack Obama opposed gay marriage while serving as president. So did a majority of voters in California just 14 years ago, including many African Americans. Joe Biden opposed busing long ago, a heresy for which he was criticized by then-candidate Kamala Harris. Should they all be driven from the public square and confined in cultural purgatory, never to be heard or seen again?
The purge of American history continues.
West Point says it intends to remove a bust and portrait of Lee, rename streets and buildings named after him, and even replace a quote from him in a plaza. Apparently, evidence of the academy’s most celebrated graduate — second in his class with no demerits, appointed superintendent later in his career, and celebrated Civil War general who met many of his subordinates and adversaries while running the famed institution — will disappear. It will be as if he never existed.
more
https://spectator.org/erasing-history-west-point-to-eliminate-robert-e-lees-presence/
