What’s In A Name? Plenty, And Pete Hegseth Gets It
Liberal Democrats do many strange things that I don’t understand or agree with. The tearing down of statues and changing the names of military bases I found to be especially disturbing on several levels. Who do these self-righteous tyrants think they are, and why are so many people tolerating this destruction of American history?
There is a saying attributed to either Spanish philosopher George Santayana or Winston Churchill. It has several slight variations, but they all propose the same wisdom concerning ignorance of the past. I prefer, “Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.”
I am not proposing that if slavery isn’t remembered, it will return, and neither is the quote. What these small-minded radicals can’t comprehend is that period of our history, bleak as it may have been, cannot and should not be erased. It was a period of American history that we as a nation overcame. During that time, Southern Democrats fought in the American Civil War to protect slavery from President Abraham Lincoln and the newly formed Republican Party. No honest person who has reviewed the relevant evidence can dispute this.
The Civil War pitted brother against brother and Americans against other Americans. The war that lasted four years, 1861-1865, resulted in between 620,000-850,000 deaths, depending on which estimate you follow. In either case, it is by far the deadliest war in U.S. history. Most died from infectious diseases brought on by poor living conditions.
However, a new America was born out of all that bloodshed. The times were very different then, and even those who fought for slavery to remain did so because, as delusional as it was, they believed it was the right thing. They were misled by simply existing during that period of time. It’s horrible and tragic, but so many paid the ultimate price that it is inconceivable to try and blot it out.
Per the asinine National Defense Authorization Act for the Year 2021, an eight-member Naming Commission issued a final report recommending new names for nine military bases named after Confederate generals. The report also addressed the disposition of all Department of Defense assets associated with the Confederacy on those bases.
In its final report, the 2021 Naming Commission explained why it had targeted certain bases for renaming.
Fort Benning “was named after Henry L. Benning, a lawyer, ardent secessionist, bitter abolition opponent, and senior Confederate Army officer. He is on record as saying that he would rather be stricken with illness and starvation than see slaves liberated and given equality as citizens.”
In another example, the report described Braxton Bragg, namesake of Fort Bragg, as “a slave-owning plantation owner and senior Confederate Army officer.” He was generally regarded as inept, “temperamental, a harsh disciplinarian, and widely disliked in the pre-Civil War U.S. Army and within the Confederate Army by peers and subordinates alike throughout his career.”
At the heart of modern wokeness is believing in one’s moral superiority. This conviction drives woke activists to wage an endless campaign against anything that does not conform to their vision of how the world should be. In this instance, they did not pursue nuance or consider the ways of the world at that time; instead, they aimed to eliminate all aspects related to the Confederacy.
The nine bases renamed were:
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, renamed to Fort Liberty, Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia
renamed to Fort Walker; Fort Lee, Virginia, renamed to Fort Gregg-Adams; Fort Pickett, Virginia, renamed to Fort Barfoot; Fort Hood, Texas, renamed to Fort Cavazos; Fort Benning, Georgia, renamed to Fort Moore; Fort Gordon, Georgia
renamed to Fort Eisenhower, Fort Rucker, Alabama, renamed to Fort Novosel, and Fort Polk, Louisiana, renamed to Fort Johnson.
The newly confirmed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, can see through the bluster of these spoiled fools. Yesterday, he spoke about the elimination of wokeism in the military, posting this on X.
“Every moment that I’m here, I’m thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, in Germany, in Fort Benning, in Fort Bragg, and today, there are more executive orders coming that we fully support. Indeed, the first such order mandated “removing DEI.”
Notice that Hegseth referred to the bases by the names they were previously known by before the Biden administration unleashed the fiendishly ignorant woke snowflakes onto them in committee form.
The high-handed radicals have had their time. Their self-indulgences about situations they have no capacity to understand are coming to an end. Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and the American Military is a great place to begin.
