Former Presidents Demand Names Be Removed from California Schools

The San Francisco Board of Education recently approved changing the long-time names of 44 schools in their district due to insufficient wokeness by the heroic, historic figures for which the schools were named.

The board voted to remove famous names like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and replace them with more deserving names as judged by today’s superior moral standards.

The truth though, is that the three former presidents have demanded for years their names be removed from California public schools because of the inferior quality of education students were receiving. It was damaging the legacies and personal reputations of the former presidents, they said.

“We had no choice in the matter,” former President George Washington told a small gathering of press, most of whom like San Francisco students had no idea of the trio’s identity because American history classes have been history for several years in the nation’s public schools and universities.

“Why would we want our names affixed to schools with such poor curriculums and students less historically astute than my horse? Great Jehoshaphat, my library at Mount Vernon had more books in it than your board of education members will ever read,” Washington sniffed.

Thomas Jefferson agreed with the nation’s first Commander-in-Chief.

“Pretty cheeky of these so-called ‘education’ administrators voting to remove our names when our lawyers filed cease-and-desist orders first. Besides, these education dullards haven’t even opened their school doors since last March because they’re ‘following the science!’ Zounds, these ‘science’ geniuses can’t comprehend basic biology because they don’t know which privy is for boys and which is for girls!”

The nation’s 16th president, as was his wont, chose to see the humor in the situation.

“The board says they want our names removed because we perpetuated slavery and genocide,” Lincoln said with a twinkle in his eye. “That’s remarkable since several states are wanting to make June 19th a holiday commemorating the emancipation of the slaves whose idea was, wait for it…mine!”

“But what about the oppression of gays and transgenders? How did you justify that?” a whiny MSNBC reporter wearing yoga pants and three masks asked Mr. Lincoln.

“My dear, I’ve seen your college transcripts and SAT scores. Alexander Ocasio-Cortez’s, too. Oh my! How did you get a degree from a school of higher learning when you thought the Civil War was fought for American independence from Canada and Dred Scott was a gangsta rapper?”

Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to all those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. 

Photos: South Dakota Public Broadcasting, history.com

Copyright 2021, Dean A. George©

Hamilton: Unapologetic Christian Part 2

(Second of two parts)

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  –  JOHN ADAMS

In January we wrote about how fervent Alexander Hamilton was about his Christian faith. Click here for Hamilton: Unapologetic Christian Part One.

A native of the West Indies and orphaned at an early age, Hamilton’s friendship with a Presbyterian minister on the island of St. Croix led to the minister and others sponsoring young Hamilton’s education in New York.

Hamilton finished his formal schooling and earned a Bachelor’s degree at King’s College, now Columbia University, in just one year.

In 1775 Hamilton created a volunteer military company and on March 14, 1776 he was commissioned Captain of New York’s Artillery. His intelligence and skill with artillery caught the attention of Nathaniel Greene, which later led to his introduction to General George Washington.

Hamilton was only twenty years told when Washington promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and made the young islander his aide-decamp in 1777. Hamilton served as a military secretary and advisor to Washington for four and a half years.

After the war Hamilton turned his talents to politics and the law. A proponent of a strong central government, Hamilton is credited with writing half of the Federalist papers and played an important role in having the Constitution ratified.

A brilliant writer and financier, he skillfully guided the world’s newest country past the pitfalls of its Revolutionary War debt as the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, quickly putting his adopted country on solid financial footing.

Hamilton was happily married to wealthy New York socialite Elizabeth Schuyler (December, 1780) and the Hamilton’s had eight children over the years. The family was well respected locally and was prominent in civic affairs.

Unfortunately like many career-minded people, Hamilton’s personal ambition sometimes caused him to relegate God to the back seat at different periods of his public life. Then as now, this often leads to spiritual problems that manifest themselves in unforeseen ways.

The worst incident for Hamilton became public in the summer of 1797 as a result of an affair six years earlier.  Infamously he became the first American politician embroiled in a public sex scandal. While serving as the country’s first Treasury Secretary during the summer of 1791, the 34-year-old Hamilton began a year-long affair with a 23-year old named Maria Reynolds.

Making matters worse Hamilton was blackmailed during the affair by the husband of the woman he was seeing. When all this became public five years later, a ruthless journalist named James T. Callender made the case that Hamilton used government funds as U.S. Treasury Secretary to make the blackmail payments.

He was eventually exonerated on using the payments for his blackmailer but his public reputation was tarnished and his future with the Federalist Party he helped found was ruined.

Stripped of his party and his honor, in 1800 Hamilton focused his efforts on opposing both the Democratic-Republican backed Thomas Jefferson and the Federalist nominee, John Adams. Ever resourceful, Hamilton raised about $10,000 from a group of investors to create a bully pulpit for his political opinions by founding the New York-Evening Post, known today as the New York Post.

Less than a week after the newspaper was created Hamilton’s first born son Philip was shot in a duel defending his father’s honor. Fourteen hours later, with his mother and father at his bedside, Philip professed his faith in Christ before succumbing.

The death of their eldest child crushed the Hamilton’s and their remaining six children. Their oldest daughter Angelica was 17 at the time and suffered a mental breakdown after her older brother’s death from which she never recovered.

Still mourning three months later, Hamilton revealed his own spiritual thinking in a letter to Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush on Feb 12, 1802: “My loss is indeed great…he was a fine youth…But why should I repine? It was the will of heaven, and he is now out of reach of the seductions and calamities of a world of folly, full of vice, full of danger…I firmly trust, also, that he has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity.”

In 1802 Hamilton proposed a Christian Constitutional Society that had two goals: The support of the Christian religion and the support of the Constitution of the United States.

Cynics say that the real purpose of the society was to create a new political party to oppose the other two parties, but in the letter outlining the plan to society co-founder James Bayard Hamilton wrote, “I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.”

Unfortunately like his son Philip, Hamilton was also killed in a duel, this one with Vice-President Aaron Burr on June 27th, 1804. Burr blamed Hamilton’s opposition for costing him both the 1800 presidential election and the 1804 New York gubernatorial election and justified the duel by claiming Hamilton attacked his honor at an upstate New York dinner party.

Historical accounts vary on details of the duel, some saying Hamilton intentionally missed because he personally opposed dueling. Regardless, Burr’s shot struck Hamilton in the abdomen just above his right hip.

Knowing the wound was serious, the next evening Hamilton requested communion be administered by the rector of Trinity Church, the Rev. Benjamin Moore. Moore initially refused because the church forbade dueling, but he agreed the second time he was summoned by his mortally wounded parishioner.

Hamilton’s final words to Rev. Moore hours before his passing were these: “I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.”

 

 

Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.

Source: founders.archives.gov, washingtonpost.com

Photo source: americangallery.files.wordpress.com, qph.ec.quoracdn.net, us.history.org

Copyright 2018, Dean A. George©

America’s Schizophrenic Holiday!

Presidents’ Day is like a holiday Rorschach test.

Ask a dozen people who the day is meant to honor and many will say George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthdays were both in February.

Some say President’s Day celebrates all presidents while others believe it commemorates the Mount Rushmore four.

Four years ago Chicago’s e-coupon marketer Groupon did a marketing gag on Presidents Day where they offered $10 off any $40 purchase from participating local businesses.

The statement on their website promoting the special read like this:

“The $10 bill, as everyone knows, features President Alexander Hamilton — undeniably one of our greatest presidents and most widely recognized for establishing the country’s financial system.”

For history-challenged readers, aka, high school students or Ivy League college underclassmen, the gag was Alexander Hamilton was never President of the United States, but served in President George Washington’s cabinet as the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury.

For readers who may be college juniors and seniors, nor did Hamilton invent the $10 bill.

He is however, the celebrated star of a popular musical where theater goers may pick up a historical fact or two between choruses.

Groupon reportedly claimed the spoof was a huge success, although a small group of litigious-minded Americans tried unsuccessfully to sue on the grounds they claimed the company had plagiarized April Fool’s Day.

They pressed for damages, claiming that the February stunt created a panic when thousands of Americans feared it was April 1 and they were late filing their taxes, causing them to get hooked on opioids and injure themselves while doing their returns on Turbo Tacks.

Alright, alright – I made that part up about the bogus lawsuit, but hey – we all celebrate Presidents Day in our own way!

Another sign of this dysfunctional holiday is the wandering apostrophe. Is it Presidents’ Day, President’s Day or Presidents Day?

However you write it, the apostrophe in Presidents Day has serious displacement issues.

The final reason why Presidents Day is schizo because unlike the Fourth of July, Veteran’s Day or even Valentine’s Day, it isn’t observed on a specific date but rather on the third Monday of February.

This makes it more like Thanksgiving, which is held on the fourth Thursday of November, except Thanksgiving has better food than Presidents’ Day, and Black Friday shopping rather than white sales, but at least they have the non-specific date thing in common.

This much I know for sure. Our Declaration of Independence says we have the right to life, liberty and three-day holiday weekends, and wherever you put the ‘Pres’idents Da’y apostrophe, this is an inalienable right – as long as you are a state or federal government employee or work for a bank.

 

Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who tolerate everything but free speech and conservative ideals, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see. 

Photo sources: wtdn.com, change.org, picsmine.com

Copyright 2018, Dean A. George©

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