Today is Presidents Day, a day
set apart to honor all Presidents of the United States. Once upon a time, long,
long ago, in a nation long forgotten, we celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s birthday
on February 12 and George Washington’s birthday on February 22. Then some deep
thinker thought that we should lump all the presidents into one holiday. I do
not agree with whoever it was for several reasons, one of which is that some
presidents deserve honor and others do not.
Obviously,
I am not the only person with this opinion because I found an article titled “George
Washington Deserves His Own Day, Not Presidents Day” by David Azerrad at The Daily Signal. Here are just a few
paragraphs, but please the article.
Washington,
the “indispensable man” of the revolution who was rightly extolled for being “first
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” has not
been lumped together with the likes of James Buchanan, Jimmy Carter, Franklin
Pierce, and John Tyler.
It gets
worse. Washington’s good name and great legacy are now shamelessly invoked to
justify positions that he would never have envisaged.
In a Time Magazine special edition on
Washington, historian Joseph Ellis matter-of-factly remarks: “He began the
political tradition that produced a Union victory in the Civil War, the Federal
Reserve Board, Social Security, Medicare and, more recently, Obamacare.”
Washington,
who called on Americans to display “pious gratitude” for their Constitution and
warned against any “change by usurpation,” is now a partisan of the sprawling
welfare state and the unprecedented individual mandate.
Ellis
even has the gall to hail Washington – the man who gracefully and voluntarily
relinquished power after two terms when he could have stayed on for life – as the
father of “strong executive leadership” and the precursor to Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, who stayed in office for an unprecedented 12 years.
Obviously, Ellis is
another deep thinker! Do you think that he really believes what he wrote? I
hope that you see from those paragraphs why we need to have an annual day to
remember our first President, even George Washington. He must be turning over
in his grave for being linked to FDR and Obamacare! Be sure to read the entire article here.
I believe that George
Washington deserves to be honored annually because he was a great man. I also
believe that we should celebrate his birthday every year in order to teach the
rising generation about this great man. None of us has seen a President that
could measure up to George Washington! We need to honor him for being the first
as well as to teach others why he was so great.
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