Robert E. Lee Boy Scout Council, Richmond, VA, to be Renamed. More PC for the Boy Scouts...

WRVA Radio ^ | 5/13/03 | VMI70

[VMI70]

This past weekend, my son and I went on his troop's annual father-son hike. His troop is one of many in the Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which is headquartered in Richmond, VA.

On Sunday, during the church service at the end of the hike, it was announced that the Council directors had voted to change its name from The Robert E. Lee Council, which has been in use for many decades, to something else.

This morning, the news broke on the local radio station: WRVA 1140 AM, Richmond's Morning News with Jimmy Barrett.

[let us cross over the river]

My vote is for Thomas J Jackson also. How many Yanks know that he started the first Black Sunday school in Lexington Va and supported it through his army pay ?

[HELLRAISER II]

Do you honestly believe that all Southernors are Nazi like if they don't wish to change history or names of historical land marks or change the names of our schools and buildings just because you think that's the way suppose to be?

[AppyPappy]

WP is obsessed with the Civil War. He loves to refight it whenever possible. Just ignore him. He's stuck in the past.

[HELLRAISER II]

Well let's see, tell him to kiss our grits and leave the damn name the way it is.

[Huck]

Well let's see, tell him to kiss our grits and leave the damn name the way it is.

Tell em yerself. Seems to me the council directors get to say so or not.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Why don't you and your neighbors get together and vote that it is agreed that the federal government is to turn over some nearby instalation to you? Sounds simple, and legal too -- LOL!

[jgrubbs]

They don't want to think that Jackson actually cared about the slaves, that he saw the slaves as a missions field for him to reach with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is just too politically incorrect!

[HIDEK6]

How about the "Stonewall Jackson Council?"

[HELLRAISER II]

And they should show a little backbone and tell them that they're going to leave it just like it is. If they don't they're a bunch of panzies.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Do you honestly believe that all Southernors are Nazi like if they don't wish to change history or names of historical land marks or change the names of our schools and buildings just because you think that's the way suppose to be?

The neo-confederate or "southern" heritage movement is nazi-like in its use of propaganda. Their whole canto is based on lies, half truths and easily acceptable buzz phrases like "Heritage, not hate." This is Newspeak worthy of the best "1984" propagandist. The -heritage- WAS hate.

Walt

[jgrubbs]

That would be a good name. This past weekend was the anniversary of Stonewall's death. Jackson died on May 10, 1863.

[WhiskeyPapa]

It burns me up to see you and your crew alway's preaching about the South even though the North was just as guilty.

Certainly President Lincoln thought the north and south equally guilty. See his second inaugural address.

What I take issue with is the sanitization of the history of these events by the "heritage" neo-reb fringe element, and their shills like DiLorenzo and Williams and the bums at the League of the South and Sons of Confederate veterans.

Walt

[Scoutmaster]

Setting aside whether it was correct or not to change the Council name, your analysis of how how the Council Directors measure up against the twelve points of the Scout Law simply based on their vote to change the name is nonsense.

How does that vote deem them not "kind" or "reverent"?

Perhaps one or more believed that the change was right -- but knew it would be met with objection. Wouldn't that make him "brave"?

In short, personal attacks on the Council Directors based on a decision that has valid arguments on both sides is neither helpful to the discussion, nor Scout-like.

[samuel_adams_us]

Some people are politically correct freaks. Same kind of people whom our founding fathers spat upon.

[Grand Old Partisan]

A terrific old book, "The Rewards of Patriotism" by Lucy Stewart, goes over this in detail.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Do you honestly believe that all Southernors are Nazi like if they don't wish to change history or names of historical land marks or change the names of our schools and buildings just because you think that's the way suppose to be?

Me?

"That the general satisfaction with the surrender of Lee should beget a kind feeling for the rebel General is not unnatural. But it is a great folly to invest him with any romance. Robert E. Lee may be an honest man, as doubtless many of the rebels were, but beyond that he has no claim of any kind whatever upon the regard of the American people.

His story is very briefly told. Educated an army officer, he acknowledged the doctrine of State sovereignty, and, honestly holding it, he followed his State when she seceded. Now even if a man believed that his State had a right to secede at her pleasure, if he thought the occasion insufficient, as Lee confessed he did, he would silently acquiesce, and no more. But if the occasion were infamous, if the object of the exercise of State sovereignty at such enormous peril to the lives and happiness of his fellow-citizens were nothing but the perpetuity of human slavery, a noble and generous man would have protested with all his heart. Robert E. Lee offered his sword.

From that moment he has been an active soldier. His military skill has been much overrated. Stonewall Jackson, his Lieutenant, achieved his most famous successes, and Lee's two aggressive campaigns were ignominious failures. No man can be held guilty of a want of genius. But will those who are so eager in extolling General Lee inform us why this Christian hero had not a word to say in regard to the atrocious treatment of our prisoners in rebel hands, especially at Belle Isle, under his eyes? Will the flatterers of this Virginian gentleman explain why his reports of operations in the field were so unfair and deceptive? Will the friends of this simple-hearted soldier say why he tried a trick of words in his final correspondence with General Grant?

There is no act known to us during his long career as a rebel in arms which should favorably signalize Robert E. Lee among hundreds of his fellow-rebels. Why does not Johnston, or Ewell, or Longstreet, or Hill deserve the same praise? What excellence of character or excuse for conduct has he which they had not? Do those who speak so softly of his crimes feel as gently about Jefferson Davis? Yet Davis at least heartily believed in his cause, and it was Lee, at the head of the army, who made Davis's crime so prolonged and bloody.

We have no emotion of vengeance against General Lee. We would not hang him -- not because he has not deserved hanging, but from motives of state policy. Neither are we inaccessible to admiration for a foe. Major André we can pity, but General Arnold we despise. Robert E. Lee was an American citizen educated by his country, who, from a mistaken sense of duty, deserted his flag. Had his story ended there it would have been sorrowful. But he drew his sword against that flag not because of any oppression or outrage, but because by peaceful and lawful means it bade fair to become the symbol of justice and equal rights; and he drew it, thank God! in vain. There his story ends, and it is infamous."

--HARPER'S WEEKLY. A JOURNAL OF CIVILIZATION. / Volume IX, Issue 434

Lee was a bum, and not just because I say so.

Walt

[samuel_adams_us]

And I bet you think Grant wasn't right, even though he was a complete drunk and a loser before the war started.

[HELLRAISER II]

Let me ask you a question Walt, go back to the last Presidential election and pretend just for a moment that the U.S. split into two sides because of the Election fiasco. One side is Bush supporters the other side Gore supporters, the next thing you know there's a war. Which side is right, which side is wrong? Which side is Traitor, which side is Patriot? You know what it doesn't even matter because the winner will alway's rewrite history regardless of the facts, that's just the way it is and I just get pissed when P.C. nutcase's continually assault our heritage & history. They're changing history and haven't even fought anyone yet or is that exactly what they're doing now? Assaulting us, fighting us and finally conquering us. I got news for you America is next, Old Glory is the next target and some of ya'll can't even see it happening.

[nevergore]

As a southerner and a Scoutmaster, I have a deep abiding respect for the honor, dignity and heritage of the South regarding the states rights issues brought forth by the Confederacy.

The slavery component of the Confederate platform was it's immoral underbelly and will continue to haunt it for years....

Most BSA Council's are named after the area (ie: Atlanta Area Council) and not a individual.

Most of us could agree, regardless of our viewpoint, that Robert E. Lee was both inspirational and divisive in many ways.

The purpose of Scouting is not to make a politcal statement but to grow young boys into good, moral men and future leaders.

If the council felt a name change was appropriate, so be it, heritage supporters should pick and choose their battles wisely regarding heritage.....

Scouting is a great program for young boys....

NeverGore

[samuel_adams_us]

Is being politically correct teaching these young men to be moral and just? Or is it teaching them to bend over to authority?