Political correctness run amuck

It seems our republic is now being taken over by the forces of political correctness to the detriment of our history.

Take for example Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, who made the Louisiana Purchase and extended his objectives to Spanish possessions in the Southwest as well as British Canada because he envisioned the West as a refuge for oppressed peoples of the corrupt Old World.

Yet, he has been roundly criticized by the forces of PC for his unenlightened attitude on race. His name has been removed from the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis with the place renamed Gateway Arch National Park, memorializing Gateway Arch architect Eero Saarinen rather than a founding father whose vision of America’s continental destiny gave birth to Westward Expansion and the expression “Manifest Destiny.”

The Gateway Arch changes are only a part of a systematic attack on our frontier heritage and this attack has been ongoing for several years.

In 1991, Congress renamed Montana’s Custer Battlefield National Monument as Little Bighorn National Monument, and in 2016, South Dakota’s Harney Peak, named for Mexican War hero William S. Harney, was renamed Black Elk Peak in honor of the Sioux warrior Black Elk who took part in the 1876 massacre of Custer’s command.

Should we honor Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral who masterminded the World War II attack on Pearl Harbor, at the memorial to the Battleship Arizona and the sailors who died on it? I think not.

No less a frontier icon and legend than Kit Carson is now subject to scorn in New Mexico. His campaign against the Navajos, ordered by his commanding officer, Major General James H. Carleton, which led to their removal from traditional tribal homelands then endured the “long walk” to a reservation at Bosque Redondo already occupied by Mescalero Apaches. Taos residents have campaigned to strip his name from the city park where he is buried, and his tombstone has even been defaced. Kit Carson was a champion of Indian rights and it was through his efforts the Navajo were allowed to return to their homelands.

The battle over Confederate symbols and monuments rages on, even in Texas. Too many people associate the name “Confederate” with advocating slavery rather than a movement to preserve the South’s traditions and culture and sustain a way of life without interference.

The high tariffs in the North compelled the Southern states to pay tribute to the North and bear an unequal burden of expenditures. An analysis of revenue at the time showed the total at $107.5 million, with the South paying about $90 million – to the North’s $17.5 million.

The old “taxation without representation” thing. All the South wanted was to peacefully separate.

It’s even degenerated to a point where a City of Austin committee suggested the city should not be named after Stephen F. Austin because he supported slavery. In San Antonio, there is a movement to redesign the Alamo grounds denouncing it as a monument to slavery and racism, not a shrine to Texas liberty.

And, the Dallas City Council recently voted to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee, a vocal opponent of slavery, from Lee Park, and arguments persist about the fate other historical Confederate images.

Recent changes in teaching of history has focused on race, class and gender and developed an obsession with victimization. History has become blind and is focusing on the horrors of colonialism as hopelessly nationalistic and inherently racist. It’s focused in many cases on the mistreatment of indigenous peoples and ignored the fact there really was a war going on between settlers and various tribes with injustices on both sides. What would these people do about monuments to the Buffalo Soldiers, who were African-Americans fighting after the War Between the States against Apaches and others? Unfortunately, today many pass judgments on those who lived 150 years ago based on their “enlightened”, “progressive” attitudes now.

Today, we find ourselves emphasizing what divides us and allowing little room for a Western story that points out the bonds that unite us: the story of the struggle, sacrifice, rugged individualism and triumph that made people proud to be Americans, regardless of place of origin, and celebrated the frontier path that made possible the rise of a great nation.

We must welcome our history, warts and all, to keep the American West alive, because any nation that forgets and ignores its past really has no future.