WHAT'S IN A NAME?!

Four years ago, I wrote the first part of this Robservation. It doesn’t seem that long ago but it was. Not surprisingly, things have not even come close to changing. You might even say that things under the new administration are far worse. Why? Because they are. But I felt compelled to reiterate the first part of this and to add a couple of more items. The lie is still in force and like the Wizard of Oz, the alphabet networks are hellbent on not letting us look at the man behind the curtain. Here we go.

THE LIE

According to a 19th century legend, the Truth and the Lie met one sunny summer day. The Lie told the Truth, “It surely is a very beautiful day today, is it not?”

Truth looked around suspiciously and raised her eyes to heaven for the day was indeed really beautiful. “Indeed, it is,” she said. So, the two spent all day playing together until they happened upon a swimming hole. The Lie said, “Hey, Truth, it is so hot right now and the water appears to be very nice, let’s go swimming together!”

Truth, always suspicious of the Lie, tested the water with her toes. The water was deliciously refreshing, she agreed and the two quickly undressed and started swimming.

Suddenly the devious Lie rushed from the water, put on Truth’s clothes and scurried away. Furious at the Lie’s deception, Truth emerged from the water in order to expose the Lie and recover her own clothes. The world, ever watching however, seeing the Truth naked and uncovered turned its eyes with contempt, fear, horror and rage.

Truth, abandoned and dishonored, returned to the swimming hole and disappeared forever while hiding in her shame. Only occasionally does she make herself known but only to be quickly driven back into the depths of darkness.

Since that fateful day, the Lie has traveled the world over dressed as the Truth while satisfying the needs of deceived societies and a decadent world that does not want to see nor acknowledge the naked Truth.

Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1896.

August 20, 2018, snowflake and fascist ANTIFA types knocked down the Silent Sam statue on the UNC Chapel Hill campus. I am not here to defend Silent Sam or definitely not the guy who erected the statue, but anarchy is not my gig. When reading about this and other such statues being destroyed or taken down, I came across the biography of a truly evil guy but I cannot understand why people are not clamoring for his statue to be removed from a college campus. This guy was born way back in 1649 and served in several business capacities until his death in 1721.

Records show that this man participated in and profited greatly from a flourishing slave trade. In other words, he was not just a slave owner but a slave trader. The worst of the worst. For example, in today’s world he wouldn’t be the Crackhead but the guy who supplies Crack to little kids. He wouldn’t just lust over child pornography, but he would have made it and participated in it. This is the kind of guy he was. He also enforced a law that at least ten slaves should be carried on every ship bound for Europe. In his capacity as judge, he also on several occasions sentenced so-called “black criminals” to whipping and enslavement. When the demand for slaves began to increase rapidly, to keep up with growing demands, he and other English merchants apparently even began to kidnap young children and deport them to distant parts of the world, very much against their will.

In addition to being a slave trader, kidnapper and all-around dirt bag, he was eventually fired in 1692 for his illegal profiteering in a myriad of business dealings. Nice guy, huh? Yet his statue remains prominently on the college campus that bears his name, Yale University.

Yeah, you heard it right. Elihu Yale. I find it amazing how so many people, especially those from the north, hate and denigrate all things southern and feel it acceptable and their right to destroy historical monuments down here while keeping their monuments to horrific people intact and relevant school names in place. Before we allow any more destruction and social re-engineering here, let’s all flood New Haven, Connecticut, rip down the statue of a ghastly man while forcing an acceptable name change. If it works for a Robert E. Lee high school, it should work equally well at Yale University. Yup the Lie is forever “at it.”

Let’s flash forward four years and see what the lie is up to now.

1. George Washington University 2022: Ridiculousness at its best. One would think that after several years of this nonsensical push to remove all things American from within America, this foolishness would stop. But at the same time, why would anyone be so naïve as to think this? When there is never any legitimate pushback or standing up for oneself, the wannabe ruling class of socialists are going to keep pushing. Why wouldn’t they?

Recently, there was an Op Ed piece in the Washington Post that called for George Washington University to change its name because of course, George Washington owned slaves, was a bad man, blah, blah, blah. The way I look at it. It is time to tell people to simply shut up and move on. The most disturbing part of this article, and the irony should not be lost on anybody but here is a hint, “The Washington Post.” Am I the only one here seeing this?

2. Running up against a 2024 deadline, there will be a total of 9 US Army installations that will be forced to change their names. The most notable is arguably Fort Bragg which is now Fort Liberty and Fort Lee which became Fort Gregg-Adams. Of course, the narrative on many news sites about Fort Lee is that it was named after the “slave-holding leader of the Confederate forces during the Civil War.” At least one institution said no to the woke crowd, Washington and Lee University, and kept its centuries old name intact. Where is Elihu Yale when you need him?

3. Since 2020, at least 82 schools have changed their names of their “racist” namesakes. An addition of three will be from here in Montgomery; Jeff Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Sidney Lanier. (www.cnn.com/2022/09/05/us/confederate-named-schools-update-reaj/index.html). So, exactly where does it end? Who knows.

People who know me know that I love history. The good and the bad. Like the saying goes, history is not for me to throw away but to learn from. Too many people want to throw it away and insert their own version of history. I just finished reading the book, 1984 for the first time since high school. The removal of all thing’s history was central to the story. We see that today. Slavery was bad, no doubt. But what about Black slave owners? What about Blacks that kidnapped and sold other Blacks to the slave traders? What about the many Native American tribes that had and often abused Black and White slaves? “Hey, Rob. We can’t talk about that.”

My point is simply this. The whole goose and gander thing. If we are going to denigrate one area of history, we must denigrate all of it covering the same topic. Sorry. The whole Robert E. Lee – bad; Elihu Yale – good, argument is ridiculous. We have young people in this country who praise the likes of Che’ Guevera, Stalin, Lenin and Marx while hating on the American founders. They extol communism and socialism while hating democracy and capitalism. This is why it is so dangerous to erase your history and selectively place propagandist history in its place. Sometimes, it may even begin with something small like the removal of a statue or a name. Be careful what you ask for.