We should teach history, not erase it.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to delete the names of two of their highways. Lee Highway and Lee-Jackson Memorial will now be simply known by their number, Routes 29 and 50, respectively. The highways were named after Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
Everything the government does costs money. At an estimated cost of $2.9 million, the price tag for this is expensive.
During a recession, during record high inflation, during record costs at the grocery store, why would Fairfax County choose to spend $2.9 million on virtue signaling? That’s a lot of disposable revenue to throw around and it certainly sends a message to taxpayers on where Democrats have their priorities. The road names, which are already popularly known by their route numbers, are not harming anyone, but record high inflation is.
Democrats continue their purge through American history. The ironic part of it all is that leftists claim we need to teach all of history, a nice sounding talking point that the Youngkin administration has also used. Of course, it is rather hard to teach all of history when some of it is being deleted before our eyes. As we watch the change, the next generation will be robbed of the same opportunity. Teaching all of history appears to mean only teaching the parts one likes, and then erasing the rest.
While we support the idea that current generations through their localities should be the ones to decide how government represents its past, we would encourage those localities to stop erasing history. Only those entirely ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. The remedy is education, not greater ignorance.
