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Admit it, we've all felt a little envy, perhaps even anger, toward the (know-it- all) straight A student, or the sports wiz we grew up with. It was as if their success somehow subtracted from what we were. Envy, born of pride and jealously, often caused us to look for weaknesses in those who excelled, finding a weakness in them made us feel better. That same envy and self-justification, is the underlying motivation behind the maddening modern trend for authors, producers, and commentators, to trash the great personalities of history. It is as if they cannot stand to think that those great figures from our past were really that great. What makes it worse is that those personalities are dead, and not in any position to defend themselves, thus they become easy prey to historians who, like playground bullies, seek to justify their own immorality and shortcomings by ravaging reputations of great men and women from history.

It is everywhere. This year the schools in my town refused to celebrate President's Day. Some now claim that Lincoln was a depressed homosexual, and George Washington, an unfaithful, cheating cad. I hear claims that Columbus was a racist, native- phobe, and tyrant; Thomas Jefferson, a slave keeping, hypocrite who fathered children by his slaves. You name the personality and someone, somewhere, has made allegations based on invented, rewritten or misinterpreted history with the intent to impugn their targets. The ever-expanding lies and innuendos against the great leaders of our past are bad enough, but the crime is aggravated by the fact that so many others are willing to accept whatever they hear as the truth. It is as if the modern media, textbooks and writers are accepted as canonized scripture, and their allegations as the word of God from Sinai. Few seem to stop and question the inconsistency between the allegations of moral decadence, and other great actions, philosophies, and writings produced by those leaders. We seem happy to assume the worst, and justify our own weaknesses; after all we're only human.
This trashing of the titans must be stopped. It not only unfairly maligns the heroes of our past, but it establishes an underlying philosophy that justifies moral laziness among our people. "President Washington did it, so you are excused" or "Since no one is really great, I need not try to be." Such philosophies contribute to the moral decay of our nation. It is essential that anytime we come across those seeking to trash the titans, we challenge their claims, dissect their proofs, reveal the inconsistencies between their claims and other knowledge we have of those great leaders. We should even challenge history itself, which is no better, no more accurate, no more reliable, then the scruples of the mortals who wrote it. False histories abound and we need not accept them at face value. Through the application of logic and the use of reasoning, we can reveal the false claims for what they are. We must at least try to give voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.

Learn more about this author, D. Keith Shurtleff.
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