Robert E Lee High School: Fill & Download for Free

Silly rabbit, no one is “denying” that.Donald Trump is saying Robert E. Lee and George Washington are the same. That’s just silly. Who is dumb enough to fall for that?George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are historically notable for many reasons, most of them positive. Robert E. Lee is known for just one thing.We could all write blocks of text about how silly this is, but who really has the patience for that?Trump is known to prefer graphics in his memos and briefings so maybe we can use some simple Venn Diagrams to help explain it. Please excuse my crude graphics design…Maybe you don’t like that characterization? Perhaps you object to me doing your thinking for you?If that’s the case, let’s put it another way and you can draw your own conclusions:Does that clear it up? Maybe that’s too simple?Okay, fine. We can add slightly more detail, but I don’t want us to lose sight of the fundamental facts, so we’re still going to keep it pretty high level.At the end of the day, the United States wants to honor people who made laudable contributions to the United States. With that in mind, let’s look again:Are these individuals equally deserving of monuments honoring them?Just as there aren’t national monuments honoring Adolf Hitler in England, France, Australia, or any of the other nations he fought against (or Germany for that matter), there should not be monuments honoring the defeated leaders of other bloody wars, and obviously not in the very nations that lost so many lives defeating them.Washington is not being honored because he was a slave holder, but for the major contributions he is remembered for. What major achievements should Robert E. Lee be honored for?If not for his notorious act of treason betraying the United States, how many would think he deserves statues?What about Thomas Jefferson? Is he honored for much compared to Lee?If you want to take issue with this, you surely can. I mean I left out so much from Jefferson’s list. He was also the US Minister to France, the founder of the University of Virginia, and the inventor of the swivel chair, but there’s only so much room.But what would we add to Robert E. Lee’s list? He did serve the U.S. Army before he inflicted more than 160,000 casualties upon its American soldiers, right?He did command West Point before his betrayal, but then again so did Benedict Arnold. Are either of them deserving of veneration by the nation they betrayed?The truth is that Benedict Arnold is the closer comparison:That “THEN” section is the only reason the average person knows either of their names, because that was the most noteworthy aspect of their life. Everything else is irrelevancy when it comes to deciding who is worthy of veneration and who is not. Anyone focusing on other details is just trying obscure the most important ones: They betrayed the United States of America and waged war against their former country.All this, and we’re not even getting into the fact that Robert E. Lee chose the side specifically fighting to continue slavery, or that most of the confederate monuments were erected during the Jim Crow era, as symbols of white supremacy. What lesson does honoring them teach?Let’s also not forget that the monuments were commissioned and erected by people who were not justly elected; people who actively denied voting rights to huge swaths of the citizenry, the very people who the individuals being honored fought a war to enslave. Is it any surprise that nearly a century later, when voting rights are not as effectively suppressed, the full citizenry is not so hot on glorifying these particular individuals?In a way, comparing Robert E. Lee to George Washington makes the point better than anyone opposing the public monuments ever could. It implies these men are equally worthy of veneration, even though one’s major contribution was to build the country and the other’s was to break it.Putting up monuments to confederate leaders during the Jim Crow era was not done to send the message, “We love history.” It was to send the message, “We may have lost the war to keep you in chains, but it was a most worthy cause, we’re proud we tried, and we’re still in charge so don’t you dare get uppity.” That’s the shameful message it sends and that’s the message that taking them down repudiates. Washington and Lee are not equally worthy of places of honor in our public squares.Germans are ashamed of what was done in their name, so they don’t put up monuments to the Nazis. They haven’t forgotten their history just because there isn’t a monument honoring Goebbels. There are photos of him in museums and history books, not statues in every town square in Germany.Jewish children don’t have to look up to giant statues of Hitler, should black children have to look up at giant statues of Robert E. Lee, the man who fought a war to keep them enslaved?Only Donald Trump and the white supremacists equate Robert E. Lee with George Washington. It’s a red herring meant to distract you.

That is true about Longstreet. His troops though thought highly of him. He won the second battle of bull run with the largest Mass assault of the war. And was so dominant at Fredericksburg that Robert E Lee said “"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it." upon seeing his abilities with his army. He also had the Confederates only major victory after Gettysburg.The Man who Robert E Lee called “the staff in my right hand.”Yet while other generals had bases and schools and monuments made for them, Longstreet got ignored. Because those monuments weren't built to honor the best fighters of the Civil War in the south.After the war Longstreet supported reconstruction and became a Republican. He endorsed Grant for president. He didn't stand with the lost cause rewriting of history by the south. He supported politics that helped blacks and was deemed a race traitor for doing so.So after Robert E Lee passed away and couldn't defend his most trusted general, white supremacists across the South began creating a lie he cost the Confederacy at Gettysburg by not following Lee's orders to run his name through the mud. Of course while he did disagree with Lee's tactics, there's no proof he did anything but follow Lee's orders.While Pickett's charge was called one of the most heroic attacks of the war, the man who ordered it was forgotten.So when the time came to build monuments to great Confederate leaders, the KKK, loyal slaves, etc he was left off the list.

What do I think about it?It would be blatant political pandering that would not improve the quality of education that school one iota.Perhaps even dumb it down even more, as “social justice” is now an euphemism for erasing and reinventing American history.