Destroying our history

Failure to Honor Washington: a Triumph of the Left

On this, what would have been George Washington’s 279th birthday week, Americans will go about their business, a free people, without acknowledging – nor celebrating – the man whose toil on their behalf was measureless. I say “free people,” sadly aware that we’re becoming less free, and that diminution of Washington symbolizes the push to “alter” history to make this so.

This, of course, derives from the Left, which spreads tales – false ones – of racism amongst the Founders, and which last year had members of the NAACP hide the General from view. Indeed, they boxed him in, shielding the Offender, even as they praised theauthor of the line, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

And now “President’s Day” disrespects George again. The equivalent of “every leader gets a prize,” it mocks history, inspires no one, and displays the lengths to which fools go to be foolish. There is no par between George Washington and James Polk, between Thomas Jefferson and Millard Fillmore, and to assert otherwise says: 1) that no president is different from any other; 2) that individuals must bow to the Collective; and 3) that history is a dull, generic ride.

False on each count. When you honor everyone, you honor no one, and honor becomes meaningless. The name of the law which created President’s Day – The Uniform Monday Holiday Act – is absurd, much like the mush it inspired. Debating the bill, Rep. Dan Kuykendall (R-TN), foresaw the outcome:

“If we do this - change the date of the Washington holiday – ten years from now our children will not know what February 22 means. They will not know or care when George Washington was born. They will know only that in the middle of February, they will have a three-day weekend for some reason…. This will come.”

It has. The progressive effort to rewrite history and to demonize – and erase – the Founders has succeeded. General Washington is now less revered than Lady GaGa. Obscurer still is the honor President Coolidge bestowed on him:

“Wherever men love liberty, wherever they believe in patriotism, wherever they exalt high character, by universal consent they invoke the name of George Washington. No occasion could be conceived more worthy, more comprehensibly American, than that which is chosen to commemorate this divinely appointed captain.”

Divinely appointed captain.

Makes one wish His Excellency were alive. And that somehow, through Providence, he could lead us again.