I love my Readers.
In response to this little comment of mine in the last News Roundup:
From the Dept. Of “Defense”:
...if I were a donor, I’d also hold off till they rename it the “Robert E. Lee Military Institute”.
…Reader Mike S. suggests via email:
I am second to none in my respect for General Lee (I’ve a framed print of him in my library), but VMI should be renamed “Thomas J. Jackson Military Institute.”
Gen. Jackson was a professor at the Institute before the Late Unpleasantness.
Gen. Lee was a graduate and later the commandant of West Point. THAT facility should be renamed for Lee.
All good points. However, most people (especially the Racial Grievance Industry) probably have no idea of who Thomas J. Jackson was (maybe unless “Stonewall” is included in the nomenclature), but every damn one of them knows about Marse Robert.
So historically I’m in full agreement with Reader Mike; but in terms of social impact on the Wokists…?
It’s a tough call.
Note also that Jackson taught slaves to read which was against the law at the time.
Yeah, and no doubt some race hustler is going to decry the fact that he taught them to read English and not Ubungu.
Since he did it so they could read the Bible, I would expect the atheists to get involved too.
I must respectfully disagree, Kim.
Even if we extend to the confederates the courtesy of assuming sincerity of belief in the justness of their cause, they nonetheless committed treason against the United States of America. We can admire Lee as a leader (I do, and own many books on his life and leadership philosophy), but he’s still a traitor and shouldn’t be celebrated as a hero of our country. Quite honestly, as a student of history, I can think of very few decisions we made in our country’s history as damaging as half-assed reconstruction, which allowed for the creation of the “lost cause” mythos which still plagues us today. We would have avoided the passage of Jim Crow laws, the absurdities of Plessy v. Ferguson, Lum v. Rice, and Korematsu v. U.S., and very likely a great deal of the racial separations and animosities we’re dealing with today.
As General George H. Thomas, a Virginian who was not a traitor, once wrote: “The crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand-in-hand with the defenders of the (U.S.) Government.”
Exactly – I was going to write pretty much the same thing. I will also add that they were all Democrats too.
As a Canadian living in Alberta, which desperately wants out of the corrupt, thieving, socialist kleptocracy of Canada, I fail to see how fighting to leave a “voluntary” union is treason.
It appears you think Republicanism is like socialism – you can easily vote yourself in, but you always have to shoot your way out.
Some problems with that thought. First the literally started the war. Secondly, there were more than a few citizens in the south who were not game to leave and the Southern states suppressed and in some cases murdered them (Note the “Treue der Union” Monument for one example). The South didn’t just want to secede, they wanted war, and they got it. Their freaking problem.
More broadly: I have no objection to taking down statues of Lee, Jackson, etc., nor renaming bases, institutions, etc. Every generation has its heroes, and this generation, like the last, is entitled to choose who it venerates and honors.
I DEEPLY object, however, to showing up in the middle of the night and tearing them down. Each of those statues and institutions has a controlling body who makes those decisions. Want to take the Lee statue in the park down? Go talk to the park board. Convince them. Make change the way we make changes in an orderly representative republic. Do that, and I’ll support it. Frankly, most of the leaders of the Confederacy were traitors, and have no business being so honored. But if you simply show up with crowds and chains, I’ll oppose it, and support those persons being arrested, charged, and convicted.
I’ve never been able to wrap my arms around the notion of naming buildings/bridges/roads after the losers, or erecting monuments to them.
In agreement with GMC70’s second graph, though. A great uncle of mine grew watermelons which became prized targets of the larcenous lurking about, until he opened fire with rock salt/rice loads administered by his 410. He maintained that the rice would expand & become even more painful than the salt if not removed. I submit my uncle’s example to the Southern monument protectors among us.
Re: naming roads – I grew up in the Northwest, which was an epicenter of white supremacist assholes during the 80s & 90s. Richard Butler, Aryan Nations, The Church of Jesus Christ Christian, The Order, Randy Weaver, etc.
We’ve all seen those adopt a highway signs – “Keeping your roadways clean & beautiful, sponsored by [insert civic group name here]”
Aryan Nations applied to put their name on one of those, and were turned down. They sued & won. The court ruled Big Bro had no cause to deny the application. Aryan Nations got their sign, and the county council renamed the road after Booker T. Washington. Win win.
Offered without comment–
https://gatesofvienna.net/2023/03/requiem-for-a-culture-part-5-the-graves-of-the-ancestors/
Jackson had been staff there and last I was there the slicker he was wearing when shot was on display in the museum.
Uncle Bob was never anything to VMI.
I believe he taught there about 10 years prior to riding off to war from the Institute. His house is still there in Lexington. About 2 years ago the Institute removed his statue from in front of the barracks gate named after him, and when I read the mealy-mouthed justifications for doing that from the superintendent and some board members, I damn neared gagged.
My boy was a graduate of the last all-male class to matriculate, and the stuff that went on as they admitted women over the next three years he was there made me puke. The feminazis claimed the proposed similar school for females would cheat them of the VMI experience, and the first thing they did after court-forced admission was demand changes to the routine and traditions. I can still see a platoon of guys carrying one of their dykey females across the finish line of a training exercise because she couldn’t finish it, and the women never had to get the knob haircut all the rat line men are force to have.
I’m an Australian, and I’m very familiar with the story of General Jackson.
For Americans not to be acquainted with him, even if he is seen as a traitor or otherwise, is scandalous.