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Via WaPo
Gen. Robert E. Lee objected to the idea of raising Confederate monuments, writing in 1869 in a letter published in the Republican Vindicator that it would be wiser “not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife.” He wrote those words in declining an invitation to join officers on the Gettysburg battlefield to mark troop positions for posterity, believing that this battle and the strife accompanying the Civil War were best left forgotten.
How sadly ironic at a time when the country cannot remove statues of Lee fast enough that his noble sentiments on war and remembrance are not rekindled and viewed as wise and controlling. He deserves to be honored as someone who recognized the importance of healing the rift and the importance of a reunited country.
Stephen W. Grafman, Potomac
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There’s a statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle in New York and a federal holiday dedicated to him, yet he enslaved and brutalized thousands of Indians. Native Americans are exposed to President Andrew Jackson’s likeness on the $20 bill, and he treated them horribly and was responsible for the Trail of Tears. President Harry S. Truman intentionally killed roughly 200,000 civilians with nuclear bombs, including women and children, and Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman was a thug.
These are just a few; there are many other figures in our past whose “hero” status we could question. These are hard and painful issues to debate, but if we’re going to remove monuments and tributes, we shouldn’t cherry-pick the issues.
Randy Jackson, Virginia Beach
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This seems like an opportune time to re-run our satirical post on Trump’s wall which can be found copied below in all its hilarious glory…….
I’ve gotten a lot of mail lately regarding my perceived aversion to Donald Trump’s agenda and while I initially brushed off the criticism, I had an epiphany last night.
Yes indeed, I had a “come to Jesus” moment and as of Wednesday afternoon I fully support this “big, beautiful” wall. Let me tell you why.
When you really sit down and think about it, Americans should have built a wall a long time ago. But not necessarily on the southern border.
America should have started by building a wall along the Eastern seaboard.
As you may or may not know, illegal immigrants have been flooding into this great country of ours for a very long time. This was a problem way before Trump.
Once I found that out, I did some research and it turns out the new President’s characterization of Mexican immigrants applies equally to the illegals of yesteryear. America let them in and guess what they did? They raped and they spread disease. The bastards even spread disease on purpose!
But that’s not all.
Do you know what else they did? They pretended to be our friends and then, when we weren’t looking, they stole our land and built illegal settlements on it! Of course we’re a forgiving people, so we tried to look past that rather egregious incursion.
And our benevolence didn’t stop there.
One time, the illegals damn near starved/froze to death because they underestimated the severity of our winters and wouldn’t you know it, they were too damn stupid to store up enough food to last until spring. So do you know what we did? We gave them some of our food and we saved their f*cking lives, that’s what we did.
Now you’d think that after that, they’d show some respect for us. But they didn’t. Instead they took more land, built moresettlements, and when we tried to stop them, they shot us.
We tried shooting back, but that didn’t work out very well because we were firing arrows and they had gunpowder.
These type of injustices continued for decades and eventually we packed up all our sh*t and moved far enough west to get away from these heathens. Or so we thought.
The next thing you know, they’re moving west too (some sh*t about “manifest destiny” and gold).
By the time it was all over, we were relegated to what they called “reservations” where we were forced to eke out a living selling trinkets in order to afford a pint of cheap liquor.
Oh, and I forgot to mention they named a holiday after that time we saved their lives — the smart-asses.
So please (PLEASE), Mr. Trump: build that wall before all of this happens again.
