Scottie Hughes - Ignoring American History

In times of trouble, I always look to those wiser and stronger then I for guidance. I look to those who, when faced with hardship, found a way to overcome.

Benjamin Franklin- “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Patrick Henry- “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

"We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Chickens make me happy---“Jase Robertson- Duck Dynasty

The problems that America is facing today have been caused because those on the liberal left have forgotten their own American history. They have forgotten why this country was originally founded; to escape a land of persecution for your faith, unfair taxation without representation, and a government that chose only a select few businesses to thrive. Sound familiar?

They have forgotten August 1, 1946 in Athens TN where 300 GI’s just back from defending their country in WWII had to literally take arms to fight a corrupt political family which had taken over the local government and its elections.

They have forgotten Korea Town in 1992 during the LA Riots, when it took a full 24 hours until the National Guard arrived to help the Korean businessmen who had to use their guns to protect their stores and their families from those who were rioting in the streets.

And while they have not forgotten to blame George W. Bush, they have forgotten about the citizens who had defend themselves in the wake of Katrina when the corrupt police force ran away from or even turned on its own residents.

Now, let me tell you what we have not forgotten.

We have not forgotten what it feels like the day our child is born and each of us parents make the silent vow too do everything we can to protect them and keep them safe.

We have not forgotten the images of those in the Sudan, Rwanda and Bosnia who were slaughtered when their government went corrupt and they had no way to protect themselves.

We have not forgotten how it all started with the initial push to make things fair and politically correct. However, now our country has allowed the birth of Christ to be erased from public celebration, no Ten Commandments in the Courthouse, and most importantly, the eradication of a Christian God from our public schools.

We have not forgotten the disappointment we feel every time we learn that someone we worked hard for on the campaign trail has betrayed us in order to gain favor in the eyes of leadership or special interest groups.

Actually I don’t think those on the left who keep chipping away at our rights have forgotten history. In fact, I almost wish that were the case. Because I fear it is not that they forget history, rather it is because they choose to ignore history.

They choose to ignore the millions of Americans who believe in the rights given to us by the wise men at the Constitutional Convention when they wrote the Bill of Rights.

They choose to ignore the facts that prove their justification of gun control wrong. They choose to ignore those of us law abiding citizens who honestly just want the ability to defend our home and family.

Everyday, the momentum is growing across this great country and people are using their voice, talent and resources to encourage elected officials at every level of government to vote with honest convictions and principles like the Founding Fathers would have wanted them to. This message is becoming unified. It is not only being sent to those liberals and Independents in office, but also to those Republicans who are all too often cowering down to this administration and its anti-American agenda.

This message is one that cannot be ignored because if those in office choose to ignore the voice of the American people then, I assure you, the American people will choose to ignore them the next time at the ballot box.

Scottie Hughes

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American History - Founding Fathers - Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 -1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath (a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas), Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He facilitated many civic organizations, including a fire department and a university.

Benjamin Franklin Quotes:

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

To find out a girl’s faults, praise her to her girl friends.

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Stoplight - Madison Was Right

In his Stoplight® commentary, Stuart Shepard explains why the Founding Fathers set up our government like they did.

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Daniel Greenfield - The Land of the Free or the Home of the Slave?

Originally Published on the Sultan Knish blog

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Any code of laws that has been set down in the past in order to guide the future organization of a nation is vulnerable to being rewritten by the dominant political or cultural forces of a later period. These forces will inevitably attempt to rewrite that document to give themselves absolute and unlimited power to rule as they see fit, while also providing themselves with immunity from any of its laws.

The United States Constitution was assembled with complete awareness of this reality of human affairs, and so it was designed to limit to the power of government, more than to empower it. But enough pressure against any object, physical or legal, will in time cause it to buckle. Water against a dam will find an opening in it. So too with the United States Constitution. It is startling to consider what an upheaval in the rights of individuals and states was snuck in through the Commerce clause. This was one of the weak points in the Constitution that was bored at and expanded into a hole through which the governing of the nation as a whole was transformed, and the dominant political and cultural movement, liberalism, accrued to itself unlimited power.

Not that there was anything the Framers could have done about it. Given time even the most perfect of documents can be perverted, set aside and turned into the instrument of tyrants and monsters. And they could not have hoped to better the Almighty, whose own document had been perverted in the hands of evil men. All they could hope to do was pass down a legacy of intention that would ward freedom for a time, and then hope that it would serve to keep the flame of freedom burning through the generations. That men would remember the sort of government that had been intended for them to have, the gift set aside for them, even when it was no longer present.

This history is of course a matter of some debate. Those who would alter the future, begin with the present begin with the past, and then the future. Revisionist history is required by every ideology that wishes to radically change the world. The revisionist history of liberalism in particularly is quite revealing when it comes to exposing its own motives and agendas.

Those whose revisionist history recasts the past of their own people as a long series of cruel and oppressive acts, expose themselves as revolutionaries who seek to recast their own history as evil, all the better to rule over the future in the name of justice and mercy. This is altogether true of liberal revisionist history, which recreates America as a shameless tyranny ruled over by greed and lies. A typical and influential example of the genre, is A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, in which the gullible college student learns that all of American history is a sham by the wealthy to control commerce and territory. This naturally prepares him to accept liberalism's mandate for destroying America in order to turn it into a land of liberty, equality and justice.

For the left, the United States Constitution has always been a dangerous document, because it limits the power of government. Their power. And for all that the left inveighs against power and authority, it only does so because its leaders are driven to be the ones in power and wielding that envied authority. The left's model is not democracy, but aristocracy. The aristocracy of the revolutionary faithful. Back to the days of the French Revolution, the radicalism of the left sought to replace inherited aristocracy with ideological aristocracy. Instead of an elite that ruled over the masses because their descended from nobility, they wanted an elite that ruled over the masses because it had the passionate idealism to fight for social justice.

The Constitution is dangerous to them because it limits government power. Its Framers viewed government power as inherently dangerous. This is not a view shared by the left which only sees government power as dangerous-- when it's in the wrong hands. The wrong hands being the hands of the reactionary authorities or that of their political rivals who lack the same ideological commitment that they do. Rather the left believes in the transformative effects of government power to remake a society so that it can reach a perfect state of liberty, fraternity and equality. And this they do not believe can be achieved by limiting government power, but by wielding it in the name of the cause.

Representative democracy is another thing the left has never liked very much. Because its compass turns toward the false south of ideology, not the true north of the will of the people. The left will always choose ideology over the popular will, because their morality is political. The idea that a bad popular decision is better than a good imposed decision is one that is foreign to them. Representative democracy is threatening to them because majority rule is populist without being revolutionary. And what they desire is revolutionary populism employed in the service of their political ends.

The left's determination of who is allowed to participate in elections and other forms of decision making is ideological citizenship, not national citizenship. Only those who believe exactly as they do are allowed to participate in the process. Only those who share their goals and beliefs have a valid vote. As the revolution gets underway, a winnowing process occurs that purges any who do not share their exact beliefs to create a narrower and narrower standard through which no one but those in perfect agreement with their views are allowed to pass. Even when those views change. Especially when those views change.

Without any limitation on government power and with no popular representation, what you have is tyranny. The left does not see it that way, because they are incapable of defining their own actions as tyrannical. This block prevented them from condemning Stalin, even when he was carrying on spectacular acts of mass murder, and killing their own comrades and friends. This block still prevents even most liberals from equating Communism and Nazism. Because to them morality itself is political. A murder or a tyrant are never objective variables, but subjective ones defined by the moral equivalency of their ideological alliances. A Castro or a Saddam to them, will never be as awful as a Pinochet or a Franco, not based on their deeds, but on their ideological allegiances.

To the left all things are political. And if a thing is not political, they cannot be bothered to care about it. And the foundation of their morality is rooted in the ability to elevate oppressed groups out of their oppression. If the left cannot reduce an issue to an oppressed-oppressor formula, then the entire situation has no meaning to them. That is why unlike the right, the left does not care a great deal about what goes on in the bedroom, aside from areas such as rape or gay rights, which they can nudge into their oppressed-oppressor class formula. That is not to suggest that their ability to expand their political morality everywhere can or should be underestimated. The left has managed to treat everything from breakfast cereals to SUV's to brand labels as counters in their political morality. And there is no telling where, if anywhere, it will actually end.

As the dominant cultural and political movement, the left has fought a long war to transform America along the guidelines of its own political morality, exploiting social and economic fault lines, harnessing culture and organizing sections of the public to carry on its war for it. The ends however have never been what they appeared to be. While individually the left appeared to be fighting against injustice or for higher standards, from a bird's eye view it was pursuing a long range struggle whose goal was to consolidate power and remove all obstacles to the free exercise of that power.

Because the United States was a representative democracy with strong limitations on government power, the left's task was two-fold. In a dictatorship, the left could have simply attacked the power structure itself. However in the United States, power rested with the American people. They were the ruling class. Which is why they had to be co-opted, replaced or destroyed. In a dictatorship, the left could have also simply taken power and exercised it. Because of Constitutional limitations, the left has instead had to undermine those limitations by pretending to embrace them, and then get the public used to expanding them in the name of preserving their freedoms. Judicial advocacy allowed the left to imitate Lenin's "Two Steps Backward, One Step Forward", expanding Constitutional intent to seemingly provide more freedoms, in order to ultimately destroy it and any protection against government authority it offered with it. This two-fold approach allowed the left to play civil libertarians, as they always have, even as their ultimate goal remained what it has always been, absolute power.

They are now closer to harnessing that power than ever before. Their plan is proceeding on schedule. The fall of free enterprise. The transformation of religion into social justice. The unworkability of government. All of it is leading down one road. Their road.

The left is the product of absolute arrogance that has directed all its aims toward achieving absolute power. For all its progressive posturing, it is run by egotists who believe that if they were in charge, things would finally be set to right. Their ideas are medieval. Their tactics are utterly amoral. They have no boundaries, because they like to think that their enemies have none. And we are their enemies.

The American Experiment was built to elevate a people and their laws above being tools of their government. This noble achievement succeeded. That is why so many who believe that laws exist to enable a government to use its people as mere tools, have been so determined to destroy it. To the left there are no individuals and no people, only classes. Only groups crying out to be equitably redistributed in the name of creating a perfect order. And they have always despised the American Experiment, castigating the idea that the popular vote without the oversight of the guardians of social justice can achieve an equitable society, as hypocritical and deceitful. That is an idea that the American liberals of the day are driven by. It burns through their revisionist history and their rhetoric. It is what drives their exposes and condemnations. All of it aimed at one thing. The replacement of America as we know it, with their system. And they are closer to it than ever before.

Where the Constitution promised Freedom, the Left promises Equality. But the former did so by limiting government. The latter promises to do so through the unlimited exercise of government power. Those are the stakes here in a very old contest, ever since Thomas Paine sailed back to the Continent in a huff accusing Washington of betraying the revolution. The original American Revolution took power only to return it back to the people. The left's Second American Revolution would remove power from the people in exchange for protecting them from each other. The state of freemen vs the nanny state. That is the choice here.

When you limit government power, you expand individual freedom. When you expand government power, you limit individual freedom. As government power expands, it begins to impose a particular social order. This social order benefits those who are already in power. Law then becomes a tool by which the dominant cultural and political forces remain in power and impose their will on the people.

The Framers understood this, as even we cannot, because to truly understand freedom, one must experience tyranny. Freedom has no meaning except in the context of oppression. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were Documents of Resistance, created to stand against tyranny as doctors would create antibiotics against infection. But the infection still crept in and we are all sick with the disease. The documentary antibiotics forced it to come through a back way, to use more guile and stealth than it would have needed to otherwise. But the crisis is nevertheless here.

Given a chance, the left will do to America, what they have done to nation after nation. Suck it dry and destroy it. Because their ideology represents a dead end. Their ideas are so old, that there is sand and dust on their breath. It is the promise of a benevolent tyranny, the protectors of the people who will protect the people from everything, but what they really need protecting from, themselves. They have no new ideas. Only old ones relabeled, rebranded and polished to make them seem new again. The American Experiment was a chance to break the cycle of kings and tyrants that had dominated so much of human history. The left would destroy that experiment, in the name of their own experiment. And their experiment has always proven to be fatal to the test subject.

The question before us is whether freedom will survive or perish. Whether we will be the land of the free and the home of the brave, or the land of the fee and the home of the slave.

Daniel Greenfield

Visit Daniel's Blog Sultan Knish by clicking HERE

Daniel Greenfield is a blogger and columnist born in Israel and living in New York City. Daniel is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a contributing editor at Family Security Matters.

Daniel's original biweekly column appears at Front Page Magazine and his blog articles regularly appear at Family Security Matters, the Jewish Press, Times of Israel, Act for America and Right Side News, as well as daily at the Canada Free Press and a number of other outlets. Daniel has a column titled Western Front at Israel National News and his op eds have also appeared in the New York Sun, the Jewish Press and at FOX Nation.

Daniel was named one of the Jewish Press' Most Worthwhile Blogs from 2006-2011 and his writing has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, Melanie Philips, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Judith Klinghoffer, John Podhoretz, Jeff Jacoby and Michelle Malkin, among others.

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Stoplight - Founding Principles

In his Stoplight® commentary Stuart Shepard explains how our nation's founding principles still define us today.

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Wild Bill for America - Spitting on JFK

JFK was Tea Party all the way. If he were alive today the Democrats would call him a racist.

Visit the Wild Bill for America Blog

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Anne from PA - United States Capitol Tour with David Barton

David Barton is the founder of WallBuilders, an organization dedicated to presenting America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage. David is author of numerous best-selling works and a national award-winning historian who brings a fresh perspective to history.

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George Washington - Prayers for Himself and America

"If it is Thy holy will that we shall obtain a place and name among the nations of the earth, grant that we may be enabled to show our gratitude for Thy goodness by our endeavors to fear and obey Thee. Bless us with thy wisdom in our counsels, success in battle, and let our victories be tempered with humanity. Endow, also, our enemies with enlightened minds, that they become sensible of their injustice, and willing to restore our liberty and peace. Grant the petition of Thy servant, for the sake of whom Thou hast called Thy beloved Son; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done."
George Washington

"We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy Holy protection; and Thou wilt incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
George Washington

"O eternal and everlasting God, I presume to present myself this morning before thy Divine majesty, beseeching thee to accept of my humble and hearty thanks, that it hath pleased thy great goodness to keep and preserve me the night past from all the dangers poor mortals are subject to, and has given me sweet and pleasant sleep, whereby I find my body refreshed and comforted for performing the duties of this day, in which I beseech thee to defend me from all perils of body and soul.

Direct my thoughts, words and work. Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb, and purge my heart by thy Holy Spirit, from the dross of my natural corruption, that I may with more freedom of mind and liberty of will serve thee, the ever lasting God, in righteousness and holiness this day, and all the days of my life.

Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the Gospel. Give me repentance from dead works. Pardon my wanderings, & direct my thoughts unto thyself, the God of my salvation. Teach me how to live in thy fear, labor in thy service, and ever to run in the ways of thy commandments. Make me always watchful over my heart, that neither the terrors of conscience, the loathing of holy duties, the love of sin, nor an unwillingness to depart this life, may cast me into a spiritual slumber. But daily frame me more and more into the likeness of thy son Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time attain the resurrection of the just unto eternal life. Bless my family, friends & kindred unite us all in praising & glorifying thee in all our works begun, continued, and ended, when we shall come to make our last account before thee blessed Saviour, who hath taught us thus to pray, our Father."
George Washington

NOTE: Prayers are from George Washington's hand written Prayer Journal.

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Remembering The 56 Signers Of The Declaration Of Independence

Remembering 56 very important men in our American history... At this crucial meeting, the creation of this document declaring boldly their intent to form an independent nation, citing the rights that had been endowed to them by their Creator, and violated by their King, 56 brave men affixed their names forever to a call heard all around the world. With their brave stand, a new nation was born in liberty and prosperity. This is a tribute to those often-forgotten, but hightly influential men - the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.

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PolitiChicks - America's 4th Of July Declaration

For many, the Fourth of July is a day for barbecues, baseball and fireworks. The ritual ceremony performed in this episode of PolitiChicks is designed to help us remember every year what the Fourth of July is really about, and to remind ourselves how fortunate we all are to be Americans, free to celebrate of the birth of our exceptional country.

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Lurita Doan - Obama Has No Faith

Acts of faith are performed each day in this country, and we are all the better for it. But sadly, Barack Obama does not seem to have faith in the American system, nor does he believe in American exceptionalism, nor does he believe that Americans can make it on their own without government handouts.

In short, Obama doesn’t have faith in us.

Faith has become an inflammatory topic in the 2012 election. In policy, speeches and campaign ads, the president has used faith as a means to demagogue his Republican opponent. Faith has been used by the left-wing extremists as a diversionary tactic, to attack Catholics and divert attention from a floundering economy. Faith has been used by Democrats as a political tactic to try to turn women against the Republican party. But, faith plays an even bigger role in the 2012 election than Democrats may realize because every day, the president shows a lack of faith that reveals his disdain for America.

For example, Barack Obama does not seem to understand that every small business that opens its door is the result of a profound act of faith. An entrepreneur believes in himself and his idea enough to take the risks, sometime to use his life’s savings, to create a better life.

Each time a business hires a new employee, it is an act of faith shown by both parties—the business believes that it can support the increased staff costs and will grow enough to make the expense worthwhile. The employee shows faith that the business will keep its doors open and offer opportunities for upward mobility.

But each small business also shows its faith when it counts on its government to create a climate with policies that support and encourage that growth.

Obama has shown that he doesn’t have faith in small businesses or the judgment of entrepreneurs. Instead he believes that only the government can make wise investment decisions or hire the unemployed.

Obama has shown that he doesn’t have faith that investors will do the wise things on their own. And so, he urges his Administration to invent even more restrictive mindboggling regulations al l designed to further the government’s ability to manage, direct, and ultimately control private enterprise.

Obama has shown that he doesn’t have faith in his fellow American to provide charitably, despite decades of evidence that Americans are the most generous people, the most philanthropically-inclined people, on the history of the world.

We are a nation of faith. America was first discovered, in a profound act of faith, by an explorer, Columbus, who sailed west at a time when most people believed the world was flat. Columbus’ belief, that the world was not flat, was an act of faith that made our great nation possible.

The colonists who came to America had faith that the new world would be different than the old world. They had faith that with hard work and perseverance, they could build a better life for themselves and their family.

Our founding fathers showed their faith in the principles that founded this great nation—to the point where they were willing to lay down their lives to break from England in a belief that the American system of government that they were creating was worth the sacrifice and would stand the test of time. But, Obama doesn’t seem to have any faith in the founding fathers’ belief in limited government.

Abraham Lincoln had faith in the union of the states and fought harder than any during the civil war to keep the nation together, insisting on pardons for Confederate soldiers and determined to move the nation past the great divide of the civil war.

Our nation showed its faith when we sent men to the moon, in an act of faith, so daring, so breathtaking in its scope that it is heartbreaking that our current, faithless presidential leadership has now cancelled the program.

Faith in the future, faith in our children, faith in a better life, faith that one man can make a difference—these are some of the immeasurable gifts that our country gives to the world each day. Our country, its origins, its innovation and its continued success inspire others to action and offers hope to the oppressed throughout the world. Our country is a beacon that attracts people from countless nations to our shores in the hopes of a better life.

Our great leaders and past presidents understood that America is a nation of faith and called upon that faith to bolster the nation during times of hardship.

On the eve of the D-Day Invasion, knowing that America was involved in a great struggle President Roosevelt prayed not for a quick victory, but for faith:”Oh Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled."

There is a wide and growing gulf between our current president and the American people, and that chasm is all about faith, for clearly, Obama has little faith in Americans as a people, capable of all things great and good.

Faith is frightening to Obama because with faith comes hope, and with hope comes independence and a belief in the future, a belief that difficult deeds can be done, and frontiers can be conquered. In sharp contrast, Barack Obama believes that Americans should place all of their hope and faith in the government rather than in themselves.

America is a faith-based nation, and whether the president likes it or not, our country is all the better for it.

Lurita Doan

Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government.

Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Mary Grabar - Editors Collude With "Distinguished" Professors to Silence Education Reform Debate

What happens when an education editor wants to advance her own liberal agenda, even as her newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, brags about “Bringing Balance to Opinions”?

She publishes an op-ed by a “Distinguished Professor” demolishing a bill she dislikes. She denies the same opportunity to a supporter of such legislation, who does not have tenure because of her conservative views. The education editor acts like she has done her duty by bringing on the scene an “expert,” before whom too many legislators bow down in obeisance. So the public is kept in the dark, and the bill, Georgia SB 426, the “Teach Freedom” act, never gets out of subcommittee.

This is what happened after this writer proposed a column to Maureen Downey at the AJC, on Tuesday, March 6. The email was not answered. Two days later, a column by James C. Cobb, the Spalding Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Georgia, appeared in Downey’s “Get Schooled” blog. The column was then published the following Monday on the Opinion pages with the title “Taking an Ideological Ax to U.S. History.” The following Friday it was featured as #1 among the “top 10” on the History News Network and then on the following Monday with the title, “Georgia Senate Tries to Whitewash the Founding Fathers.”

To my second email inquiry, Downey replied, “I might be interested for online if your piece speaks to this bill specifically.” In other words, the Distinguished Professor will have a prominent place on the printed pages that Georgia legislators read, but I “might” get a shot at a post on her blog—if I stay within the lines.

Professor Cobb begins his op-ed by presenting himself as taking the high moral ground: “In the 43 years that I have taught United States history in both state universities and the public schools, I have done my best to resist the temptation to turn my lectern into a ‘bully pulpit’ for proselytizing my personal political gospel” (but his university web page reveals a focus on race, class, and gender.)

He continues, “Not surprisingly, I also get my back up when others, with no particular preparation in the field but a truckload of ideological axes to grind, attempt to prescribe both the content of historical curricula and the lessons that are to be drawn from them.”

In other words, citizens and their representatives (“with no particular preparation in the field”) should just shut up.

Professor Cobb, however, does not address the kind of “field preparation” our teachers do receive.

Back in 2010, in the wake of a test-cheating scandal in Georgia, I discussed at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education the pathetic preparation teachers do receive. I noted that a Clayton State University Assistant Professor of Education, Mari Ann Roberts, in her AJC op-ed on the scandal wondered why students should even have to know the dates of the Civil War.

I also noted Clayton State’s weak requirements in subject areas for education majors, especially those teaching middle school social studies; they spend only 12 credit hours out of a total of 122 in upper-division classes in their primary subject area, with another 12 in the secondary subject area. Only three of the four required upper-division social science classes are from the history department, and they include the watered-versions geared toward education majors.

Indeed, a scan of web pages of education professors across the state shows an emphasis on far-left ideological concerns rather than on the subject matter, like history or math. For example, Jennifer Esposito, Associate Professor of Research, Measurement, and Statistics in the College of Education at Georgia State University, lists her areas of interest as, “Urban education, popular culture, race, gender, class.” At Georgia Southern University, Michelle Reidel’s teaching and research areas include not only social studies, but “Teaching for Social Justice.” William Reynolds’ interests are “Post-structural analysis of curriculum issues, curriculum theory, film studies, cultural curriculum studies, critical teaching, critical thinking, Freirian approaches to pedagogy”--the last a reference to the Marxist theorist Paulo Freire.

But Professor Cobb accuses reformers of ideological bias: “A textbook example of such an effort to control the textbooks is Georgia Senate Bill 426...‘The Teach Freedom Act’ seeks to ‘modify requirements for instruction’ in U.S. history and other related social studies disciplines. In keeping with the spirit of a similar initiative launched with Tea Party backing in Tennessee, this legislation is premised on the belief that ‘a positive understanding of American history and government is essential to good citizenship.’”

The mention of the “Tea Party backing” invites sophisticates onto the bandwagon. (To learn how professors talk about the Tea Party at their conferences, see my article here.) Professor Cobb continues, “The problem from the get-go here is that the bill seeks a positive understanding rather than an informed one.”

But is it all right that students have an entirely negative understanding of this country’s history? Future teachers are being taught by America-hating ideologues. In 2009, I wrote about social studies teachers sharing subversive teaching strategies. Last month, education professors and activists helped themselves to the facilities and education funds of Georgia State University to hold a teach-in, where in addition to strategizing on making their students lobbyists against bills restricting illegal immigration, they strategized on incorporating curricula banned in Arizona that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government and inspire hatred toward certain ethnic groups. How to use Rethinking Columbus (one of the banned books) was the topic of a workshop I attended with professors, education students, and teachers there. (Read my account on my site, Dissident Prof.)

Professor Cobb, referring to an old version of the bill, then calls the sponsors “poorly informed on the history of their own state.”

He focuses on a single, tangential issue about slavery in Georgia, a point about which historians might debate. But the point serves as diversion. He disregards the legislation’s intent: to address the problem of inadequate attention to teaching about America’s founding era and the founding principles of our government in public K-12 education. Instead, Professor Cobb seeks to safeguard the type of revisionist history that infuses our classrooms.

Dismayed by the bill’s provision that history be taught “chronologically,” he continues, “History is more than a mere succession of events. . . . Students may like the idea of simply memorizing the main events of each year from 1776 to 1787, but such an approach promises little in the way of a comprehensive understanding of developments such as ‘growing dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation,’ a mandated point of emphasis in SB 426.”

In this, he misrepresents the bill, which addresses the inadequacies of the current standards, now with thematic units based on minor figures, arranged haphazardly. The bill does not call for “simply memorizing the main events.” Knowing key dates in context will prevent ignorance, like that of our current generation of graduates who often cannot even place key events--like the Civil War--within the correct half century. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed that only 24% of high school seniors achieved a level of proficiency or above on the 2010 test on civics, a decline from 2006.

Nevertheless, Professor Cobb concludes, “Regardless of whether it best serves the agenda of Glenn Beck or Jesse Jackson, to institutionalize such a narrowly constructed narrative of the past based on such a heavily ideologized [sic] assessment of the needs of the present is to encumber future generations with a version of history that they may hardly recognize, much less find instructive.”

Unfortunately, too few of our professors object to the Jesse Jackson version of history, which is “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western civilization’s got to go,” to quote the chant he led on the campus of Stanford University in the 1980s.

“Distinguished professors,” whose credentials are usually conferred by a mutual admiration society of radicals, shouldn’t have the final word on legislation proposed by the people’s representatives.

Mary Grabar

Mary Grabar is a writer and college English teacher, whose parents escaped from Slovenia in 1959 and spent a year in a refugee camp in Austria. They immigrated to Rochester, New York, when she was two.

Her views have been formed by experiences as an immigrant during the racial violence in Rochester in the 1960s and then at her alma mater, Benjamin Franklin Junior-Senior High School.

She tried to be a liberal, but then quickly realized that it was an exclusive club. Her conversion to conservatism was cinched when she returned to school in the master's program in English in the 1990's.

In spite of the hostility of most of the faculty and the torture of having to wade through postmodern nonsense, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2002.

Mary Grabar is a frequent Columnist at Town Hall.com and writes articles for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Newspaper.

Visit Mary's Website and her other Website: The Literate Citizen

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Lurita Doan - American Values - F Words

Americans seem to have become accustomed to the casual use of the “F” word, with celebrities tracking, proudly, the number of times they “drop the “f” bomb” in public.

The frequent use of the “f” word has coarsened our public discourse. But, many of our most emblematic American values, the very characteristics that shape our national character and contribute to American exceptionalism, have been given a bad rep by liberals because they, too, are “F” words.

Freedom from an overly intrusive government that thinks that only government knows what is best for Americans. Democrats prefer to support over-expansive government intrusiveness in the lives of all Americans, and over-regulation of our industries that is stifling American competitiveness.

Faith, the belief that something exists that is greater than we. The acknowledgement that, regardless of the religious diversity that currently exists in our country, we were founded as an essentially Judeo-Christian society, so much so, that we have no qualms about putting “In God we Trust” on our nation’s money is a concept which Democrats seem to abhor and Republicans embrace.

Free Enterprise and the belief in a capitalist society, in which a man can change his stars through innovation, hard work and perseverance. Democrats seek to change that emphasis and shift the country’s job creation power base from one of individual initiative to one of government granted entitlement.

Family and the importance of the family unit as a stabilizing and creative force in our society is a system which has served this country well for over 200 years, but which, now, Democrats have put under attack. A growing dependency on government support, the sad increase in the number of divorces and the dramatic increase in the number of children born to single mothers has destroyed the primacy of the traditional family at great expense to the nation.

Frugality, in all matters economic, epitomized the early years of this nation. Sadly, we have come a long way from the days of Alexander Hamilton, who with painstaking care set the foundations for our current Treasury system and the handling of national debt. In just the last three years, Obama and Democrat spendthrifts in congress have caused the national debt to balloon to over $15 trillion dollars, more than our Annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Four trillion of that debt has been incurred in the past three years, when Democrats expanded entitlements, subsidies, pork projects and crony capitalism.

Founding Fathers have been revered for their vision, their dedication and their sacrifices in creating what has arguably become the greatest nation on earth. Democrats regularly demagogue TeaParty activists because they argue the need to return to our roots and rely on the Constitution to guide our legislative decisions.

Fearlessness has characterized Americans whether battling tyranny abroad or tackling gnarly issues at home. But, in today’s “gotta do whatever I gotta do to get re-elected” mentality, we see Obama saying and promising whatever he thinks will garner him a second four years, regardless of practicality and regardless of fairness.

Friendly has always been one of the main American characteristics, whether characterized by Ambassador Ben Franklin, or Mark Twain or the jovial Will Rogers. But Democrat demagoguery of Republicans with whom they have an honest disagreement on policy has risen to new, vitriolic heights. President Obama, who speaks often of lowering the volume, is one of the main ringleaders egging on hostilities through accusations of racisim, elitism and fanning the flames of class warfare because he simply can’t run on his record of the past three years.

There are many other “F” words that could describe the best of Americans: forceful, fortitude, frank, fruitful, future-focused, fixers of problems. But, all these words share one thing in common: they characterize what is best and brightest about our country and its citizens.

Some politicians, desperate to stay in power, are perhaps, recently best described by “D” words as they descend to disputatious, divisive disagreements designed at damaging, deceiving and dissembling.

Returning our country to our Founding Fathers’ vision of individual responsibility, civility and comity in our legislative dialogue will take hard work from both parties. Only time will tell if they are capable of meeting the challenge.

Lurita Doan

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Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government.

Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Mary Grabar - News Flash! Progressives Hail 'Founding Fathers,' Praise The Constitution

In a turn-around that made the Dissident Prof’s head spin more than Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist, the Center for American Progress, the think tank co-founded by George Soros, posted several articles and held conferences praising (gasp!) the founding fathers. The respectful reference comes in an article posted last month on the organization’s web page, and co-authored by the organization’s longtime President and CEO, now chairman of the board, John Podesta, President Clinton’s Chief of Staff. CAP has been described as first being “the official Hillary Clinton think tank,” and then as the major source of advisors for President Barack Obama.

Dissident Prof discovered that CAP’s public display of this new-found love for the founders goes back to at least 2010, as witness this article in which this shocking sentence was found: “Progressives throughout history have venerated the ideals of America’s Founding, particularly as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.”

What? Dissident Prof almost choked on her leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Those slave-holding, earth-and-woman (and probably animal) raping xenophobic, reactionary, greedy capitalist patriarchs? This was not what all the textbooks she had been required to use and all the feminist and postmodernist criticism she had had to read in graduate school had said.

This was something that she, as the kids like to say, could not wrap her head around (in spite of its dizzying rotation). But as always, Dissident Prof is worried about the effect on students, for CAP has many student outreach and pedagogical propaganda programs, like Campus Progress. Have all the teachers across the land been instructed in this new dictum? Will they be giving bad grades to those students who have diligently been reading their Howard Zinn textbooks and who continue in the old vein when they write their journal entries and present their collaborative projects? How will their dutifully memorized characterizations about the founding fathers as white privileged European males who plundered the land, who exterminated peace-loving Natives who recycled, and who set up the government to ensure that they as a class would control all the wealth for perpetuity be met by teachers? Have the memos been sent to all teachers and professors about this new estimation of the founding fathers?

Dissident Prof, after she administered herself smelling salts, re-read the opening line of the article titled “The Constitution Is Inherently Progressive”:

“Progressives disagree strongly with tea party views on government, taxation, public spending, regulations and social welfare policies. But we credit the movement for focusing public debate on our nation’s history, the Constitution and the core beliefs that shape American life.”

Recalling her assigned deep reading of Jacques Derrida, she zeroed in and deconstructed the reference to “tea party.”

What? Not tea-baggers? Not Astro-turfing, fascistic, racist reactionaries? Did she note a change of tone?

Taking a swig of her cheap white wine, she calmed herself enough to read carefully. Aha! She should have known. She always has to give progressive students a D for content on their papers, for they provide very little support for their claims. And while she might acknowledge their facility with language and high-flown turns of phrase, she almost always has to bring down their grade for logical contradictions. Progressive students are the ones most likely to whine about getting a low grade on a paper that has very little red ink on it. They also have difficulty understanding that a paper with no substance cannot earn a high grade.

Although Dissident Prof will not recap entire class lectures to John Podesta and fellow CAP scribes, she will give just a hint of the many, many ways they misrepresent the founding fathers.

First, their contention that the founders were “radicals” is farthest from the truth. The Constitution is based on a careful study of governments from the ancients on. It is based on a realistic assessment of history and human nature. The founding fathers did not work in the academy or think tanks, but had experience in the real world; they worked in professions like the law or ministry. They were craftsmen, farmers, and inventors, but yet were widely read; they were respectful of tradition and retained a lapsarian view of man.

Based on his extensive reading and study, Father of the Constitution, James Madison, in Federalist 10, warned about a “pure democracy.” Anticipating Karl Marx, the SDS, and lice-infested OWS protestors in “general assemblies,” Madison wrote, “Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.” In fact, Madison acknowledges the inevitability of factions that are based on “the various and unequal distribution of property.”

Progressives, however, herald social programs that increasingly redistribute wealth. The attempt to eliminate factions, or special interests, through equalizing property is an evil that contradicts the purpose of government, which is to protect the individual and his property. Madison, at the end of Federalist 10, in fact, calls the “equal division of property” a “wicked project.”

But this is what CAP presents about the Constitution:

Much of the conservative rhetoric against progressive treatments of America’s founding revolves around criticism of the belief that the Constitution is “living law”. . . . Progressives have argued since the days of Thomas Jefferson that the Constitution is not a fixed, static document that locks future generations of Americans into late 18th century constitutional interpretations. The genius of the Constitution lies in its ability to adapt to the changing norms and knowledge of new eras. The Founders wanted citizens to draw on the best available evidence and evolving understandings of democracy to keep the spirit of individual liberty and political equality alive.

That’s not what Founder George Washington writes in his Farewell Address:

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however, specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.

Like Madison, Washington urged Americans to rely on experience: “the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion.” Strict adherence to the Constitution, Washington says, “is sacredly obligatory upon all.”

Podesta, et al, are like many students that Dissident Prof has had over the years: They have not read the assignment. Yet, these are the same students who expound in class with their “opinions.”

If she were in a generous mood, and if the progressive student were sufficiently obsequious, she would allow for a rewrite.

But most progressives don’t want to go back and actually read originals. Instead, having grown up in pampered circumstances, they insist that their opinions are all that matter. Often they drop classes where they are asked to think logically and read the assignments. They’re able to find many, many other professors who value their opinions so long as they agree with their own. They get their degrees and then find others with similar opinions in the academy and think tanks. They end up at places like the Center for American Progress, an institution that received over $5.5 million from George Soros’s Open Society Institute between 2005 and 2009, placing it at number 14 in the top recipients, according to the Soros Files. They end up working for Podesta, who served as an Independent Advisory Council member of ACORN, and who worked for Senator Patrick Leahy, an advocate of circumventing the Constitution by gaining control of the federal courts. During his long tenure in the Clinton White House, Podesta was known for his innovative “Project Podesta,” which according to Discover the Networks, “enabled the President to bypass Congress through the use of executive orders, presidential decision directives, White-House-sponsored lawsuits, vacancy appointments to high federal office, selective regulatory actions against targeted corporations, and a host of other extra-constitutional tactics.”

From such think tanks where they engage in theoretical speculations, they aim “to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.” If it means reversing course rhetorically when they see the new-found respect for the Constitution the Tea Party inspired, they will do it. As students remember from World War II history, it’s not the first time anti-American subversives have reversed course.

Mary Grabar

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Mary Grabar is a writer and college English teacher, whose parents escaped from Slovenia in 1959 and spent a year in a refugee camp in Austria. They immigrated to Rochester, New York, when she was two.

Her views have been formed by experiences as an immigrant during the racial violence in Rochester in the 1960s and then at her alma mater, Benjamin Franklin Junior-Senior High School.

She tried to be a liberal, but then quickly realized that it was an exclusive club. Her conversion to conservatism was cinched when she returned to school in the master's program in English in the 1990's.

In spite of the hostility of most of the faculty and the torture of having to wade through postmodern nonsense, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2002.

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Mary Grabar is a frequent Columnist at Town Hall.com and writes articles for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Newspaper.

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Visit Mary's Website and her other Website: The Literate Citizen

Join the Mary Grabar mailing list to receive updates on her latest writings and speaking engagements.

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Glenn Beck TV Show (Jun 16, 2011)

Somehow, progressives have managed to make our Founders and the Constitution sound irrelevant and even evil…For over a hundred years, progressives have been in the business of rewriting history. Tonight, in our last “Founders’ Friday”, we make one final attempt on FOX NEWS to set the record straight and restore the history of our country. Tonight’s guests: David Barton of Wallbuilders, Chris Stewart, author of “7 Tipping Points that Changed the World” and Joshua Charles, a college student who was the inspiration behind Glenn’s new book “The Original Argument”.

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Andrew Klavan and Bill Whittle on The Founding Fathers and the Future of America

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Founding Fathers - James Madison

The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic or LIMITED Democracy.

The Founding Fathers wanted the United States Governed by 'Rule of Law' rather than a Democracy or the 'Majority of the Minute', which always results in Oligarchy.

James Madison March 16, 1751 - June 28, 1836

James Madison was the co-author, along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton of the Federalist Papers and is viewed by many as the “Father of the Constitution”. He was the fourth President of the United States.

James Madison was born in Virginia to Colonel James Madison, Senior and Eleanor Rose Conway. His parents were tobacco plantation owners in Virginia, where James spent much of his childhood.

In 1769 James Madison ventured to Princeton University, then called the College of New Jersey, finishing his degree in two years. After taking a break to recuperate from the strain, James Madison began being mentored by Thomas Jefferson.

Working alongside Thomas Jefferson, James Madison became a prominent political figure at the state level, as well as by helping Thomas Jefferson draft several papers including their declaration of religious freedom.

The Federalist Papers authored by James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton - in addition to Madison’s own notes are perhaps the most definitive commentary on the creation of the Constitution of the United States of America.

“Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
James Madison

While in Congress, James Madison was a key figure in the creation of the Bill of Rights. His leadership lead to the creation of the Republican Party that we see today – through an opposition to bowing to the needs of “moneyed corporations” everywhere. The Republican Party was founded on the belief that the common man, and the will of the people, were the foundations of the United States.

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Founding Fathers - Thomas Jefferson

When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights as subjects of the British crown. By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue.

In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies' intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence--written largely by Jefferson--in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.

Thomas Jefferson April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826

Thomas Jefferson -- author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, third president of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia -- voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.

Writing, Signing and Reading the Declaration to the Troops

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Having attended the College of William and Mary, Jefferson practiced law and served in local government as a magistrate, county lieutenant, and member of the House of Burgesses in his early professional life.

As a member of the Continental Congress, Thomas Jefferson was chosen in 1776 to draft the Declaration of Independence, which has been regarded ever since as a charter of American and universal liberties.

The document proclaims that all men are equal in rights, regardless of birth, wealth, or status, and that the government is the servant, not the master, of the people.

In 1790 Thomas Jefferson accepted the post of secretary of state under his friend George Washington. His tenure was marked by his opposition to the pro-British policies of Alexander Hamilton. In 1796, as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Republicans, he became vice-president after losing to John Adams by three electoral votes.

Four years later, he defeated Adams and became president, the first peaceful transfer of authority from one party to another in the history of the young nation.

Perhaps the most notable achievements of his first term were the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 and his support of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

His second term, a time when he encountered more difficulties on both the domestic and foreign fronts, is most remembered for his efforts to maintain neutrality in the midst of the conflict between Britain and France; his efforts did not avert war with Britain in 1812.

Thomas Jefferson was succeeded as president in 1809 by his friend James Madison, and during the last seventeen years of his life, he remained at Monticello.

Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, just hours before his close friend John Adams, on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

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Founding Fathers - George Washington

By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho' death was levelling my companions on every side.

George Washington February 22, 1732 - December 14, 1799

George Washington is known as the Father of His Country.

He was an American general as well as the Commander in Chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolutionary War, then served as President of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and became the first President of the United States.

As the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army the services and achievements of George Washington are unique in the world's history. He was much more than the Commander in Chief. He was the one necessary person, whose calm, unswerving, determined sense of patriotic duty to country, and ability put real backbone into the Revolution and kept it from collapsing or merging into a civil conflict, under the hardships and unexpected privations encountered during the eight years of war. Without General Washington at its head it could never have succeeded. His faith in the cause and his devotion to the ideals it embodied made him the symbol of America — the spirit of the Revolution.

Address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island:

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

George Washington August 27, 1776

Excerpt from George Washington's Farewell Address:

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

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