This is Viewpoints for Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016

A lone voice?

An article by Charles Lane of the PostPartisan blog surfaced on Jan. 27, with the feigned suggestion that a monument be erected honoring Confederate Gen. James Longstreet. Lane erroneously implied that Longstreet was the lone esteemed voice in the South calling for the country's reconciliation. Lee urged his men to go home after the war and be good Americans.

General Forrest is said to have presented his sword to his (then U.S. Army officer) son with the admonition to use it to defend the U.S. with the same zeal and fervor as he had the South. Lane does not mention that Longstreet was ostracized before, during and after the war because he was Dutch-Catholic and he differed with Gen. Lee about Gettysburg strategy. Yet, Lane seemed to be scrounging for even the slightest substantiation (like Longstreet joining the Republican Party or commanding a bi-racial unit in 1870) to make "Lee's Old Warhorse a sanitized Confederate acceptable to even the most politically correct.

However, when you seek to destroy someone else's heritage to promote your own, you are of all humanity the most disingenuous. Hillary Clinton recently tried it by displaying her selective views on Reconstruction as Stacy Dash was reminding the black community that they should not be allowed to have it both ways regarding segregation and integration. In an era of Confederate purge and threatened reparations even duplicitous voices are calling for what writer Charles Lane termed "a full and fair reckoning."

-- John Wayne Dobson

Macon

Politics a mess

First of all, I want to congratulate The Telegraph in welcoming back Gris. I have so missed his column and he writes about just regular folks, like you and me. It is so nice to have him back.

I read Friday's Viewpoints by Valerie Wynn and though I am not a native Maconite, I have been here for 22 years, so I guess that makes me a partial Warner Robinite. I got here as soon as I could. I agree with Wynn on her comments on Michael Myers about politicians and Donald Trump. Our political situation is not just a mess, it's a super sinkhole with all politicians pointing at one another blaming each other for what is not getting done while circling the drain and not even knowing where they are going. We can do without the drama and noise. Just roll up the shirt sleeves and get down to brass tacks and get the job done.

I absolutely believe in term limits. If you can't accomplish something in two terms, you are in the wrong job. And I agree they don't need the outrageous retirements that they get nor should they be entitled to health care or any of the other perks they get when they finally take their sorry behinds back home.

A poor man or woman cannot afford to run for a political office. You have to be a multimillionaire to run for office and have a number of PACs giving you campaign money. What happened to integrity and honesty and willingness to do the work to get our country back on track? And please don't give me any baloney about how stupid or naive I am. If you are willing to accept the status quo, then please keep your behinds at home. The rest of us need to come out and vote out the worthless politicians we are stuck with because they are no longer serving any useful purpose.

-- Cathy Gill

Warner Robins

Job performance

We, the taxpayers, have four sitting U.S. senators, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, running around this country seeking election to the highest elected office in the land all the while ignoring the job of running this country, a job to which they have been elected but ignore. God bless America.

-- Ken Brown

Byron

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 9:22 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016 ."