The Name Doesn’t Hurt, Nor is it Shameful

All you Pathos Leftists with your little red signs “But the Name HURTS”, pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off, and go on with your lives; Robert E. Lee never did anything to hurt you (but someone is putting a mighty effort into convincing you that he did).  All you Ethos Leftists with your little gray signs “Shame on the Name”, go tell it to the mass grave of Virginians and other CSA dead in Thornrose Cemetery who died fighting to protect their homes from the swath of “total war”… see if that makes you feel morally higher.  All you Logos Leftists with the white signs “Reclaim the name:  Staunton High”, take it upon yourselves to find anyone who remembers that as the name of the local high school here in Staunton…. Oh, nobody alive today can attribute that to their culture.  Can we call this “cultural mis-appropriation”?

Hmm… What we really have here is a multifaceted attack, each with a claim that is a fallacy of logos, ethos, or pathos.  But, never mind the high school name… they could change it to Queen City High School:  home of the Champions of Diversity; the result would be the same…

Someone injected a racially-charged controversy into a community that was relatively free of such front-page rancor.  Shame on THEM, indeed.  They obviously have not learned from Reconstruction-Era politics and the dreaded “Carpetbaggers” in our nation’s history that this is a bad idea.  But, judging from their dumbed-down version of Robert E. Lee’s significance in history, it is no surprise that they didn’t learn a whole lot from the era that followed the Civil War either.

What it boils down to is Leftist politics in the vein of the new Socialist Movement.  They have weaponized indignation, exploiting the plight of ethnic minorities with a troubled history, such that they can exert political leverage, both when their party of choice holds the power AND when their representation does not constitute the majority in government.

This is a Socialist Revolutionary technique that, in its burgeoning manifestation, seems innocuous or even beneficent, and therefore passes by with little notice.  The technique is to exert political power to force public policy by special interest groups whose political representation does not possess the majority in government.  This is an underhanded way of subverting the legislative process by majority rule inherent in our Constitution.  Instead of lobbying representatives to make decisions, they force-feed the public their leveraged changes by casting allegations of “hurt”, exploiting an ethnic minority whose ancestors encountered past adversity, and “shame”, promoting guilt among the majority that they are furthering said “hurt” unless they make the desired change.  This can rise to the political extortion including unwarranted indelible labels of bigotry should one decide to oppose said change.  For instance, the dissenting opinion offered herein will most probably incur an onslaught of invective, alleging that the sentiment is racist.  My motivation is quite the opposite, however:  I dissent in the hope that Leftists will stop using racial divisiveness as a political pawn.  Their actions are far more to the detriment of those they claim to be helping with their push for “inclusiveness”.

Here’s a recap of what I have been noticing interpolated with what I know from my historical studies:

• Leftists are intent on “fundamentally changing America”… their hubris has led them to openly state this; we no longer need to suspect.
• When their party of choice holds the power of government, they change as much as they can in the time they hold the power.
• Leftists have long had sway over the American education system and they use it to indoctrinate disaffection toward America.  Again, whereas back in the 90’s it was subtle enough that I could only suspect it, it now is quite palpable.
• Much disaffection toward America is through emphasis on the plight of minority groups throughout history
• What at first began as “bleaching” the Confederate figures from our history has now evolved into a move to eradicate figures such as Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson (just to name a few)…
• What harm is it in abandoning the name of a Confederate figure as the name of a local high school?  Plenty.  It is a gateway change in policy successfully forced by a numerically inferior group who lacks the democratic potency to legitimately do so.
• Through this ostensibly beneficent, “diversity-promoting”, “inclusive”, “safe-for-all” decision, a micro-population leveraged a policy change in this city OVER the wishes of a dissenting majority.
• This is not how our Democratic Republic works, according to the Constitution.  It is a fundamental change in our policy dealings and sets a disturbing precedent that undercuts our Constitution.
• This leads to the unavoidable question, “What’s next?”  What is the next change these agents of Socialism will coerce through “hurt”, “shame”, and “guilt” in this manner that subverts the power rightfully exerted by the political majority.  Laying the groundwork through seemingly minor changes, greater attacks are likely to follow.  They wouldn’t be putting this much effort into simply changing names of schools, otherwise.
• So, Leftists control when they hold the political majority AND have found ways to leverage control when they do not.

The sad thing is that the “inclusiveness” they are providing lip-service to promoting with this ridiculous move is ultimately going to have the opposite effect:  The change will end up spreading rancor within our community and having an overall divisive effect.

But, that doesn’t matter to them.  Ultimately, they will have gotten what they wanted:  the unwarranted power to force change…