What?

 What in the world does he even mean:

I read this five times and still can't figure it out.  Is he suggesting that if something, say a particular industry, is failing therefore nobody within it can be good at what they do?  For example, is he saying that if the music industry experienced a decline in sales there can be no talented musicians?  I have no clue, since I can't believe he would mean something that ridiculous.

Sam Rocha is my former editor at Patheos, and I don't remember him acting this goofy back then.  Like so many, he's beyond being a cautionary tale.  He has become a symbol for that malady we suffer under today in which an entire class of self-appointed experts with diplomas of the college decide they must be more brilliant than the hoi polloi because they have diplomas of the college.  

God save a nation when that is what constitutes being in the societal driver's seat. 

The press is expanding its role as Secret Police while going after dissenting parents

In what is the latest MSM story meant to besmirch parents questioning liberal activism in our public schools, we're told about shams and cons being used to harass schools and teachers. Really.  Read it here.

As we witnessed the leftwing reaction to the Canadian truck protests, and the January 6th riots, and contrasted it to the universal praise and support of the BLM protests, we can no longer deny the press has moved past its role of journalism.  By now, we realize the press is the propaganda ministry; it is Pravda.  Sometimes it's the not-so Secret Police.  Its purpose is to promote and protect at all costs the global liberal agendas. On the same front, its other job is to smear, attack and ruin any who hinder that same global leftwing movement. 

I expect more of these 'They rape teddy bears man!' stories about deplorable parents who dare to do what educators and child advocates have been telling parents to do for decades.  As teachers' salaries increased and teachers' benefits expanded, increasingly parents were told to take more charge of their children's education.  That is, spend hours each night helping the kids learn the basics. 

It got to the point where my sister complained to her granddaughter's school.  It seemed as if she was doing most of the teaching.  What were the teachers doing throughout the day?  The math and reading and writing was being left to students' families to tend to.  Apparently other priorities were being taken care of between the bells.   We saw the same thing with our sons, but bailing into homeschool got us out of the worst slide into the sludge we see today.  

With Covid, however, we saw an ugly side of our schools.  Viral videos showed teachers caught talking about keeping parents in the dark.  Parents who had only a passing care about their kids' curriculums saw some of what was being taught.  And they suddenly became what the schools had wanted for years -  involved. 

But the involvement included questioning the schools and what they were teaching.  It came in the form of holding schools accountable for questionable activities or even cover-ups. It came in the form of challenging various leftwing agendas being hoisted upon the students.

That's why everything boiled over.  The whole outrage caught the media off guard.  It likewise caught the school boards off guard.  That's why the initial reactions by teachers and school board members - threatening parents, belittling parents, mocking parents and trying to block parents from information - were what they were.  Which only made things worse.

Now the Left has rallied.  There will be more stories like this, meant to degrade and defame any parents who dare rock the boat. Any bad behavior by a potential dissenting parent will be used to blot out all parents who challenge the institution. That is the role of the 'media' today.  To promote the left.  To ignore stories and human suffering that in any way hinders the left.  To attack and eliminate anyone who stands in the way of the left.  And that includes those vaunted parents who only recently were so important to their children's educational formation. 

A fine Thanksgiving reflection

Courtesy of John C. Wright.  

A great failure among conservatives, traditional Americans, and orthodox Christians is missing just how terrible the intellectual and educational rot is in our schools and colleges.  What Mr. Wright lays out is the story of what happened and reflections on why it happened.  In my son's college, it's very simple: the white race is a pox upon humanity that came to the lands of the Indigenous Peoples for the sole purpose of genocide, racism and slavery.  All indigenous people being pure and sinless.  

The proof?  No proof is needed for what is obviously true.  To ask for proof that could counter the Leftist narrative, from what my sons have said, is to all but admit you're a white supremacist racist.  Everything Mr. Wright put onto his post would be viewed the way Joe McCarthy would view communist propaganda.  

What to do about this, I don't know.  When all you have is facts, truth, reality and data against a movement that has taught generations to mock and ignore the same, I'm not sure where to go next.  We  have the weight of evidence on our side.  But the other side has trained thirty years of students to be nothing but trolls, caring not a rip for right or wrong, truth or error, good or bad, except that they get to be awesome and get what they want because they're awesome. 

If anyone has a solution, I'd be happy to hear it.  We often bemoan the monopoly that the anti-Western Left has in our media, pop culture and educational institutions.  But it has had this for decades, and has trained entire generations to no longer need such propaganda organs to sway them.  Those generations are fully prepared to use the tools of unreality, untruth, amorality and arrogance to continue to fight the fight if the media and school systems were to fail tomorrow. 

What bothers me most about the White hating Rutgers professor

Isn't that she's simply being human as human history goes, and that's yearning for a day when 'those people' get it in the neck.   It's that she sounds like this:

"Like, the thing I want to say to you is we got to take these motherf---kers out. But, like, we can't say that, right? We can't say, like, I don't believe in a project of violence. I truly don't," Cooper said.

I've heard discourse in middle school lockers rooms that sounded more lucid than that.  This is what America's institutions of higher education are trotting out to teach our young adults?  Rambo was more articulate than her.  And this is a professor at Rutgers.  A professor. 

Whatever you want to call it - I call it The Left - is a poison on all that is good in the world.  It leads to dumb.  It leads to the least.  It leads to the animal.  It leads to ugly.  It leads to ignorance. It leads to pride.  It leads to hate.  It leads to hypocrisy.  The amount of things associated with sin and evil that are defined by and demanded by The Left are legion, for they are many.

Nothing shows this more than the above professor, her hate filled race rants, and the clunky, pubescent level of rhetoric she employs to ramrod her bitterness and rage.  Well done American education.  Well done. 

Teaching our students to praise the Holocaust

Is what you would think is happening if you read this "news" story on NBC.  It's continuing the hysterics and panic kicked off when a school administrator in Texas told teachers they would have to present "opposing views" on the Holocaust.  I mentioned that here, and noted it was already having the desired effect.

The desired effect is to fight any restrictions on the teaching (or, depending on who you ask, not teaching) of Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, and other leftwing anti-American  initiatives in our school systems.  Why the administrator said what she said is beyond me.  Even now, I've not seen details or exactly what was meant by opposing views or the context of those views.

It was simply thrown out as a panic phrase meant to achieve what it is achieving.  Like beating a jack-ass with a whip, it's had the desired effect on parents, pundits, activists, and journalists running around with hair on fire, wailing over the assumption that our kids will have to sing praise songs to Hitler.  

This is how you do it, and why the modern news media is one of the greatest forces of evil, lies and oppression in the world today.  With few exceptions, it exists to defend the Left at all cost, and hunt down and silence or eradicate any opposition to the Left by any means possible.  I would believe the world is flat before I'd believe something the national press says today, especially if it's framed as a media firestorm of panic and fear. 

Again, why the administrator did what she did is beyond me.  Was she that ignorant?  Does she get all of her information from Twitter posts?  Does she know it's BS and she did this on purpose to gin up hysteria and opposition to limits on leftwing agendas in our schools?  

I don't know.  I just know the press has run with it and has had a field day.  And I've come to realize when I see the press run with anything and have such a field day, there's a 99% chance the story itself is as false as a Paul Bunyan sighting. 

The Five Threats to Freedom

As explained in a handout my son received in his college Political Science class (I have not copied it here because I'm not sure on any copyright or restrictions, and don't want my son to get in Dutch, just in case).  So here they are, those five big threats to freedom as outlined for my son and his classmates:

1.  The Senate.

Yep.  The Senate is a threat to democracy and freedom.  Why?  Because it skews the wishes of the many for the radicalism of a few.  Basically that's its point.  Which is odd, since the entire post-Civil Rights era mantra of liberalism was that a nation has no right to exist based on the majority.  But in this case, it lamented a disproportionate level of representation from states where radical ideas that threaten democracy can hold equal time with enlightened views, and thus block legalization that guarantees our freedoms and rights.  No particular example was given. 

2. The Electoral College

Not a shock.  Not that I'm not willing to take a second look at things.  An electoral system that gives me the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton can certainly do with some tweaking.  The odd thing is, that both in 2000 and 2016, by the eve of the elections, leftwing pundits/journalists (but I repeat myself) were setting the stage for electoral victories by the Democrats.  In the case of Al Gore, I remember specifically being told by the election night round tables that the Electoral College was the smart way, so obviously it would be how stiff as a board Gore would beat likeable but stupid hayseed Bush.  In both cases they were wrong.  In both cases, they screamed for the rules to be changed because they lost in horrible, stolen, illegal and fraudulent elections.  Apparently, they're still screaming. 

3. Misinformation

A vague word, presented vaguely in the paper.  Basically a term best defined as 'anything challenging the Left.'  There is plenty of misinformation to go around of course.  But I get where the handout is coming from.  It means things that challenge the Left's take on Climate Change, or Covid mandates, or BLM, or abortion rights, or gender, or any one of a million leftwing dogmas.  The cases of Covid were the ones mentioned, but I get the feeling you could replace those examples with any non-leftwing narrative as an example of misinformation and not miss a syllable. 

4. Judges

Judges?  Yes, judges.  Judges who succumb to ideology and radicalism to curtail our clear and obvious rights.  Also judges who have an obsession with holding to antiquated ideals and concepts from periods in our past where bigotry and prejudice were rife is also a problem.  That is, holding to the Constitution is the point I think it was trying to make.  The contemporary example was  the Texas abortion law decision by the SCOTUS (obviously a recent emergency handout).  I have a feeling, like misinformation or the Electoral college, it could be summed up by saying 'any time judges don't give liberals what they want.'

5. Voter Suppression 

I've heard this bad boy since I majored in political science in college.  It almost always means anything that adds a regulation to voting procedures.  Despite being the ones who scream fraud and fake voting results the loudest when they lose, the Democrats and liberals seem otherwise to despise any attempts to shore up the system to make sure such fraud doesn't happen.  The handout references the GOP's attempts to limit voting rights and access to our Constitutionally (old bigoted document, see above) guaranteed right to take part in our democratic systems.  Not much unexpected there.

That's what he's being taught in his fine institution of higher education.  As of now there has been no counter point given out.  That's not to say they won't present the class with an alternative set of threats from, say, a more conservative or traditional perspective.  We'll see.  Nonetheless I won't hold my breath, since two and a half months is a tough amount of time to go without breathing. 

An excellent question about Critical Race Theory

During a recent gab session, one of my sons asked a question that sums things up pretty well: How is CRT not racial profiling?  

I'll be darned if I can think of how it isn't.  The entire premise is that you can look at a room full of people, judge their overall life experiences based on skin color, then act accordingly.  

Maybe racial profiling is too narrow as it typically refers to criminal activity, but I see little to suggest it doesn't apply at all. 

Why we homeschool

Because we want our sons to understand that two plus two equals four.  Not that two plus two equals four is a vile oppressive construct imposed on the oppressed by evil white skinned Westerners who were nothing but evil:

Rod Dreher has the details.

I've often said that modern education is about equipping young people with the tools needed to rationally dismiss common sense.  I'd say this story goes a long way toward showing that I'm right.

In ages to come, once the terrors being built upon today finally come to fruition, and then mercifully pass, people will look back on this time as the era of educated idiots.  An entire narcissistic generation whose purpose seemed to be to disprove the idea that education is all you need.

Why we homeschool

The motto of modern education systems

As those who've followed me over the years know, we homeschool for very practical purposes. Namely that the schools had become bureaucratic messes more concerned about checking the latest requirements for goverment funding than actual education.  The content of what they were teaching or the idea of school violence were not really high on our list of considerations.

In terms of violence, the problem is clearly one of heart and soul.  Our nation rejected the Truth of Christ, and whether our religious leaders will admit it or not, that has to mean something.  Purposefully severing yourself from the light of the Gospel must have consequences.  If a nation trying to live based on at least some tenets of the Gospel could do so many things wrong, perhaps the solution wasn't rejecting the Gospel as a whole.  Hiding the boys from the results of this would only be a temporary thing.  The boys have to face a society at war with Christ eventually.

As for the content of the teaching, since our schools could have a wide variety of teachers, the content was pretty diverse.  While there weren't many down home fundamentalist types, there was enough variety to make us happy.  I never shrank from exposing my kids to other opinions or ideals, and if the teachers did the same, I was happy.

As can be guessed, the one area where the schools were becoming more intolerant and demanding conformity under threat of retribution was the issue of sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender.  If and when America dies, it will be on the battleground below the waistline.  And it will be the gay rights movement that marked the beginning of the unraveling.  In our district's case, the schools were beginning to move toward a 'thou shalt praise the homosexual or watch yourself' mentality.  But since we were already moving to homeschool due to the stated reasons, we didn't sweat that too much.

But as I watch where education has gone, and  the off the rails train wreck that it has become, I'm thrilled we made the decision when we did. I only wish we had done it sooner.  Rod Dreher walks us through but one example of the wasteland that is Western education.  True, it's dealing with Canada and England, countries with no particular loyalty to freedom that could (and some would argue, are) turn themselves into their own versions of an Orwellian paradise.

As my nine year old plods through his Mandarin Chinese lessons, it makes me glad that he knows who Pierre is relative to War and Peace, he understands the connection between Alexander the Great and Socrates, that he understands the contributions of Medieval Scholasticism, and that he has an appreciation for old literature, the classics, and even if he's not read them yet, will do so from the point of view of a non Social Justice Warrior.  His exposure to older films has also supplemented this, and much of his exposure to the classics began with us showing him older films that helped pave the way.

Though this sort of madness Rod Dreher points out was taking off by the time my older boys were in public school, it hadn't reached this level before we pulled them out.  Therefore, as they report from college, they are ones who know who Robert Frost, Charles Dickens and even Napoleon Bonaparte* were, as opposed to a staggering number of their classmates.  When my son reported that he alone had heard of Robert Frost in his creative writing class, I thought it a fluke.  Since both have been in college, however, I've found out it's all too common.  Not that all students are like that.  Some are quite informed and broad in their knowledge of a world beyond the narrow confines of Social Media.  But considering they are all high school graduates, far too many don't know what someone my age learned merely from watching Bugs Bunny, much less from graduating high school.

Such is the result of our education systems, and given the zealots and fanatics coming out of our schools, I can't help but guess isn't not a failing of our school system, but the intended mission for things to turn out as they are.

*Really.  When told to choose various historical figures for a report, one student in my oldest's history class passed on Napoleon due to never having heard of him.  The same with Dickens and, as I said, Frost.  These are just a couple examples.  I could go on, but no sense being mean.

Speaking of the new racism that is all the rage in America

An interesting piece on what looks like an interesting site.  This is the same one that noticed the obvious with Dan Rather's vacant defense for the right kind of racism that will get you invited to all the best parties.

He points out that much of the current dumb being peddled by modernity is able to be done due to a gross lack of historical knowledge:

“Failure to educate young Americans about the whole story of Atlantic slave trade threatens to divide our nation and undermine our civic unity and belief in the historical legitimacy of our democratic institutions. Education in a democracy cannot promote half-truths about history without undermining the ideal of e pluribus unum—one from many—and substituting a divisive emphasis on many from one. The history of the slave trade proves that virtually everyone participated and profited—whites and blacks; Christians, Muslims, and Jews; Europeans, Africans, Americans, and Latin Americans. Once we recognize the shared historical responsibility for the Atlantic slave trade, we can turn our attention to “transforming the future” by eradicating its corrosive legacy.”

Yep.  I would throw Native Americans into the mix as well.  One of the sad ironies of the infamous Trail of Tears is that it was aimed at one of the Indian Nations most bent on assimilating into the new American culture including, but not limited to, the owning of African Slaves.

The limp and ignorant attempts to let other civilizations and cultures and ethnicities off the hook by suggesting evil is purely based on skin color or national origin just goes to show the depths to which some will sink when their aim is to defend grave and mortal sins.  And that includes the current sins which we labor to ignore by keeping our eyes on the sins of the past.

Fact is, the slave trade is still alive and well and living in the world today.  Part of it exists to satisfy our lust for consumerism, as people in sweatshops and worse around the world barely get by on sub-livable wages so that we can all rush out and grab that latest smartphone.  The rest is mostly centered around the multi-billion dollar international sex industry.  Primarily filling the need for prostitution and the ever increasingly mainstream pornography industries, the sex slave alone puts to shame what most slavers in the 18th century ever could have dreamed of.

And that's just slavery.  Even now, with the transhumanism movement, the growth of selective abortion (aborting babies that won't be as awesome as we want), assisted suicide and of course euthanasia, it's not hard to link these to the slave trade, which is euphemistically known as human trafficking, and wonder, "Why in the hell do we think we have the moral high ground to condemn past generations?".

Part of it is a gross lack of education at our fine institutions of learning.  Another is constant indoctrination by popular culture and the press, hellbent on keeping us from knowing the past and being ignorant of the inconvenient present.  Along with that is the desire of the revolutionary movements to keep everyone at each others' throats, by encouraging a post-individual, post-human group identity movement where we hate and condemn entire demographics at a time.

BTW, another handy source of inconvenient history is the always delightful Mike Flynn.  Time and again he brings out those pesky parts of the historical record that don't jive with the latest, hippest PC/MC (that's Politically Correct, Multi-Cultural) narrative.  There is nothing wrong with this of course.  They are not advocating slavery or racism, or excusing the racism, slavery or other sins of our forebears.  They are merely pointing out that the rather selective historical narratives that are being used to advocate the new racism and bigotry are no better than the type that once insisted blond hair, blue eyed Aryans are all that and a bag of chips. And it was just as popular then as the new racism and bigotry is today.  And just as defended, even by religious types.

Support for Roe v Wade is at a new high

According an NBC/WSJ poll.  Which isn't surprising.  After all, a favorite tactic of the press is to hand over the megaphone to one side and allow that side to spout with impunity.  So when President Trump had the opportunity to move the Supreme Court to the right, the press kicked into action.  Handing that golden megaphone over to pro-abortion rights advocates, we were given a constant 24/7 deluge of warnings about the inevitable death and suffering of billions of women; the world would be destroyed; billions would die; the universe would explode; God would be killed!  And it would all happen if Roe v Wade was repealed.

Guess what?  In light of this, more people favor keeping Roe v Wade in the law books.  That's one way the press does it.  St. Goebbels, the patron saint of mass media, knew full well the power of mass propaganda.  He knew that if you held every outlet of information, you could convince 66% of any society that squares are, and always have been, round.   That's just what happened here.

Of course in 2018, every day is a new day that SatanHitlerTrump will plunge us into NuclearHolocaustGate and destroy the planet and kill humanity.   Trump is guilty of every sin ever committed, and  the inevitable suffering and death of hundreds of billions on a daily basis will always be the result of his waking up in the morning.

I know.  It's stupid.  It's like Goebbels but without the whimsy.  Nonetheless, despite the fact that we are the most educated generation in history, with more access to more information than any other historical period, people still fall for it. We call it sin in the Christian community.  Or you could just call it a sad but simple little truth we learn from our pre-multicultural history classes:

One thing our Founding Fathers had that we lack

Among many other characteristics we lack, they had the ability to come together despite their differences.  And they had differences.  From how the country should function to such hot-button issues as slavery, the Founding Fathers were all over the place.  And yet they understood the complexities, and they got the bigger picture, one that they ultimately strove for, despite their different beliefs in how to get there.

Our modern Bolshevik Bumper Stick approach, where we want it fast and simple: We are the side of the angels, and they're Hitler, is a travesty to all things good and common sense, is the antithesis of this.

As I've said, I think we spend so much time trashing the past because it helps us dodge the mess we've made of our present.  When pressed, we then turn everything wrong over on 'them'. The other side is to blame.  Not us of course.  We're awesome.  Remember?  We got trophies when we lost and were able to retake tests in school until we passed.  That proves we're always awesome!

No, the rancor and vitriol isn't so much the problem as the rank partisanship, and the growing tendency of many to abandon their principles, values and standards in order to keep up.  I'm not just thinking of Evangelicals who have suddenly made morals and character a bottom 200 issue in order to support Trump.  I'm also talking about those who seem to be swinging left, even if they won't admit it, by downplaying, ignoring or even embracing that which they once called evil.

Hint.  Steve Schmidt, liberal GOPer who worked for anti-Republican McCain (who Mark once warned could jeopardize a person's soul for voting for) and culturally liberal, quasi-Socialist Arnold Schwarzenegger, is hardly a gotcha voice to warn against the dreaded GOP.  That he advocates what once was considered sin among many Catholics seems to be no big deal.  Mark considers it his patriotic duty to attack only the GOP and ignore the sins of the Democratic Party which he now vocally cheers for and supports.

It's that level of partisanship, willing to throw anything and everything out the window, willing to turn a blind eye not just to coming persecution, but the slow evangelization of Christians away from the faith (far more American Catholics embrace the sins of the Left than Right) that is the problem.  The GOP has its problems.  Trump is certainly problematic.  But they are in now way more of a threat than the emerging socialism and anti-traditionalism of the Democrats.

The Founding Fathers were a gift to America, and the world.  We have squandered them.  We let forces hostile to the Faith, the Country, and our values creep in and begin to erode what we inherited.  If you think the GOP alone is some threat to our democracy Mr. Schmidt, or Mark Shea, then you, in fact, are the ones who are the threats to our democracy.

Would that we would be gifted by the likes of the Founding Father again.

UPDATE:  It's been brought to my attention that I missed a key problem in Mark's post.  It isn't that he's obviously just using it to gin up support for the Democratic Party, for which he is now a vocal cheerleader and advocate.  It's the fact that he contradicts himself.  He says that we should be worried about selling our soul, rather than any persecution.  But if we don't care about persecution, why care about preserving our Democracy?  What Democracy does Mark envision saving that includes persecution?  Why is it fine to fight for Democracy, but not big deal when it comes to worrying about persecution? 

Of course, again, this is Mark, one of the loudest advocates for the Democratic Party in modern Catholicism.  Since attacking religious rights openly and through the courts is the tactic of the Democrats, it stands to reason he will downplay that.  But it also shows a contradiction in those Christians trying to align with or compromise with the Left.  Let's dismiss Mark's clear and obvious ignoring of those who have already been persecuted, and his denial that there exists anywhere a radical Left.  That's stupid and shows a wanton cruelty when it comes to tolerating the suffering of our fellow believers merely because they are suffering under the Party he now supports.

Let's look at this little trend at face value. I've seen many now say this sort of thing, including Russell Moore of the SBC.  Basically, it says we shouldn't worry about being persecuted or even preserving our nation.  After all, we'll always have heaven.  Countries come and go, persecution can be a badge of honor.  But it's our spiritual destiny that is important.

So couldn't we argue the same about Global Warming?  Couldn't we argue the same about anything, like healthcare or Open Border immigration?  I mean, can't we just say none of it matters, we'll always have heaven?  They'll have heaven?  Heaven trumps all? 

Obviously it's a lame excuse, yet is popular among those trying to pound that square peg of historical Christianity into the round hole of the modern secular, Marxist inspired Left.  The lameness of it should set off bells and whistles.  Especially if it occurs in the same argument in which the advocate of not caring about anything but our souls suddenly aligns with caring about our precious Democracy that, apparently, can easily include persecution of Christians.

Why we must homeschool

Because we don't want our third grader being a year older than kids being taught what sex and lesbians and transgenders and all that jazz are all about.

And if that isn't enough, it also helps them avoid being told that, because of their skin color, they don't deserve what they accomplish.  Apparently, however, if they have problems it's more than they deserve - due to their skin color.

There are several things on here, BTW, that no longer apply.  Watching the morning news shows, I can't help but notice there are only two white men among multiple women and men of various ethnic backgrounds. The same goes for books, toys and other items.  We won't mention the talk we have with our boys about why most professional athletes in the sports we like don't look like them.  Of course we have the phenomenon of not being told they are a credit to their race, but whatever my boys have is only because of their race.

But then, I've noticed facts and reality aren't high on the priority list in our modern culture, in or outside of our education system.

Yep.  The reeducation zoos are in full force, dumbing down our kids down, pushing narcissism, hedonism and the belief that the world exists to worship them as the gods they are.

Sorry President Trump, but no

Like torture, there are some things that are supposed to be done by 'them', not 'us.'  It's not surprising that we are losing this notion in our country.  Today's conservatives being yesterday's liberals, it's not hard to imagine that some of those things that set America apart will quickly disappear.

Growing up, we didn't torture.  Oh, I'm sure we did.  Somewhere in some back room some government official tortured someone.  We had Andersonville.  Wounded Knee.  Nor were we always angels in other places and times.  But the ethic, the common decency we claimed, was that we didn't torture.  It wasn't part of our policies, our way of life.  It wasn't something we made a standard operating procedure.  It was something 'they' did, the bad guys, the Nazis, Vietcong, Soviets.  Heck, the American Indians.

That's why, in WWII, Germans fled west to fall into British and American hands, rather than those of the Soviets.  It's why British historian John Keegan wrote so complementary of his experience as a young child in England first encountering American soldiers.  One thing that set the Americans apart, he recollected, was that they seemed to have everything that nobody else had, but they also seemed to love sharing it.  See an American GI walk in, and kids ran to him because there was a good chance he would hand out what he had: gum, chocolate, other trinkets and treats. Even though those treats were meant for him, the GIs became known for giving them away, especially to the children in the areas they entered.  That was not, incidentally, the reputation held by Germans, Japanese, Soviets, Vietnamese and other warriors over the last century.

What post-moderns have forgotten, and the Left is to blame for wanting them to, is that at its worst, America was no different than any other culture or nation or kingdom or empire in history.  In an era when, from Native and Central Americans, to African empires, to Ottoman sultans, to Asian kingdoms, people still went out and took what they want from others, by force if need be, the worst that can be said is that Americans did it too.

At a time when slavery was ubiquitous, and an industry far older than the oldest profession, and universal across the seas of time, Americans owned slaves, too.  What made Western Europe and America the freakish exception is that we finally decided to banish the entire practice outright.  Never in history had it been done in such a way so completely.

America is filled with people, and as such, will have bad things and do bad things.  Sometimes, like the interment of Japanese citizens, it is especially horrible only when compared to America's lofty ideals.  Compared to those who fell into the hands of the Japanese Empire or Nazi Germany or the Soviet Gulags, those who went into American internment camps came nowhere close to the terrors of which other nations were capable.

But that doesn't matter.  We are a nation of the highest ideals, and such failures cannot be overlooked, excused, or dismissed.  Whether the Trail of Tears or Jim Crow, America wears these failures and sins like a ribbon of repentance, because of the highest ideals to which we strive.  The Left's fault is that it has worked tirelessly to convince people that no other nations or societies ever did the evils that America did, while almost any other nation or civilization was, in fact, superior to ours.  At the same time, on the other hand, it insists that America alone should be held to the impossible standard of near perfection, or deserve to be condemned far more than any other nation in history.

Nonetheless, I stick to the idea that America will only survive if we keep our standards high.  If some, like those on the Left, abuse that, hopefully up and coming generations will be smart enough to see the problem.  But hold those standards we must, which is why when so much of our media culture and political culture in the 90s worked to convince Americans that we needed to move into a post-character and post-morals era, the result could only be a cancer in the soul of our country.

Maybe I'm being picky, but that is why I'm against this.  I know it isn't as if we've never had them before.  But optics and all, times being what they are.   Like torture, growing up I learned that Americans don't do military parades.  Nazis did.  The Soviets did.  North Korea and China do.  When we did, like Teddy Roosevelt's little naval tour of the world to flex American muscles, it was setting us up for bad days ahead.  So we don't do that, or at least shouldn't.  Because we have a different understanding of our nation.  We don't need to military to keep us in line. We need it to protect us from those who have military parades.  We lead by example, not by show.

The Left seeks to burn to ashes everything upon which America was built, everything that made us a beacon to the world.  The danger will be that in the vacuum created, we will replace it with the same egregious philosophies that have doomed so many societies before us.  Whether the Right or Left, Trump or Obama or another president, it doesn't matter.

Each time we take a step away from what set America apart, we come that much closer to being what made other countries the enemies of all we represent.   Which would be a travesty.  Because the world can't afford to lose a country whose military develops as its main reputation the handing out of  candy to war weary children, whether it realizes it or not.  If the Left, which is primarily responsible for helping us forget America's greatness, happens to think the parade is wrong.  Oh well, broken clocks and right twice a day as they say.

Alejandro Villanueva recants

A shame.  He insists he only asked to be at the front of a line of athletes who were about 20 yards behind him.  Then the anthem began playing and he stayed put.  The Steelers, feeling that coming out and standing for the anthem would be divisive (see how that works, now standing for the anthem is the divisive thing), were really not protesting at all.  And Mr. Villanueva states he's sorry that his actions have caused such backlash against his team.

First, his actions did no such thing.  By the Steelers staying in the tunnel, they caused the backlash.  And every jack media outlet reported it as being part of the protests Sunday.  That's what people were pissed about.  If it wasn't a protest then the Steelers should have schooled the press.  Those who were upset were upset at the protest, and they simply celebrated Mr. Villanueva.

But he clearly has been 'schooled.'  It makes no sense that he wasn't going out and making it clear he would stand for the anthem.  His team was a mile behind him.  And he knew it.  But again, the long arm of the Left has grown longer, and if you want to be in the upper echelons of our society, you'll toe the line.

I don't begrudge him.  He still made a great statement, while his team at best stood cowering in the tunnel, giving testimony to the slick and subtle machinations of the Left, that to come out and stand for the National Anthem would now be seen as a divisive act.  That one should be 'embarrassed' that he stood alone for the Anthem even demonstrates more the power of reeducation going on in our nation.  My seventeen year old, who just finished reading 1984, quipped upon hearing the news story, "I just read about that!"

Nonetheless, Mr. Villanueva served his time, he earned his spurs, and I understand how hard it is to kick against the liberal goads.

In other news, the Dallas Cowboys also learned the truth, and followed accordingly.  The liberal goads.  Tough to kick against and get invited to the best parties. Just like your prospects were limited in the 50s if you were a staunch supporter of Communism.

CORRECTION:  Apparently the Cowboys took a knee before the anthem, then stood for the anthem.  Take it for what it's worth. For me, it shows the power of the Left that now one must approach the issue of standing for the National Anthem consciously, as opposed to it being a natural reaction.

It isn't the silly names for the school that bother me

It's that the school system, which is supposed to be about education, is jumping on the PC call for anti-racist blacklists that does nothing so much as dumb down the national conversation about race. The fact is, Robert E. Lee's views on slavery were, in the day, more liberal than many around him. Though his writings indicate the common notion of the day that blacks were inferior and that they were better off in America than Africa, he also made it clear that slavery was not something with the moral stones to keep going where goodness and righteousness were concerned.

But enough of that.  He was white.  He fought for the Confederacy.  His views on race were not ours today (whatever they may be), thus: EVIL!  Erase his name from the obelisks and the monuments. Pull down the statues.  Do just what the Soviets used to do when they decided someone once venerated is now anathema.  We might as well, that seems to be our societal goal.

Of course we do this because we, just like Lee and anyone else at that time, believe there are some people who are inherently better than other people over there.  And we base this notion on beliefs, religion, even race.  Since we spend so much of our time focused on mercilessly and self-righteously judging and condemning the past, we tend to blind ourselves to our own foibles, whether deliberately or not.

But in doing so, we are dumbing down the national debate about almost anything:  Race.  Gender. Sex.  Human life.  Rights.  Religion.  Philosophy.  History.  Liberty.  You name it.  Most today basically speak some gibberish, declare it fact, and then proceed to insist anyone who disagrees is nothing more than someone who is hate or stupid or this or that wing, and thus no longer worthy of my rights and privileges. If those who thus protest are part of a demographic that matters, then it's the McCarthy solution with media and pop culture support all the way.

When I look at the struggles that someone like Robert E. Lee had when he reflected on the moral controversies of his time, and then look at the boorish, vapid and neanderthal approach we take to the various debates in our age, I can't help but think the ones who should be condemned is us.  At least the people back then were struggling with ending an institution that had existed since the dawn of time.  Today, we have their examples and promptly go out of our way to ignore it.

And it isn't as if we don't have slavery today.   Note that human trafficking, largely in service of the international, multi-billion dollar sex industries, went largely unnoticed until recently.  Sure it was there.  Sure nobody would say it was good.  But where was the outcry?  Why did it take almost dragging the media and the institutions of international leadership to finally step out and call it what it is?  I've been of the opinion that since liberalism uses Sex as the ultimate carrot, it didn't want to admit that the Sextopia the Left has always promised could have a dark side.  So those who promote the sacrament of our libidos preferred sweeping it under the carpet.

Perhaps I'm wrong.  But something kept the blight of modern slavery that has existed for decades off the radar of our elites and our leading institutions.  It's not like we didn't know it was there.  But only recently has it become an issue.  Why?  You've seen my guess.  But before we start our next wave of self-righteous PC inquisitions against everyone yesterday and before, it might be worth it to eat a piece of humble pie when we think of all the similarly horrible moral affronts we ignore, pardon or even condone when we ought to know better (next up: continuing to promote our sex and drugs culture in the wake of 30 million dead from AIDS).  Or maybe it's because we've been educated by schools like the above case, that prefer bumper-sticker witch hunts over actual education.  Given the generations that have been educated by them, maybe I should give our current age a pass.

Who says our education system is broken

It actually works like a charm.  John C. Wright linked to this wonderful post by Patrick Deneen at Notre Dame.  I won't comment, as my comments would get in the way.  I will say I was able to answer, or answer yes, to all but a couple of his questions.  In fairness to Mr. Wright, it was Federalist 10 that did me in. 

Because education is all about learning

Or at least censorship and brainwashing.  I have no problem letting any number of people come to a campus to speak.  I probably wouldn't agree with anyone on everything.  There would be some people I disagree with entirely.  And some might make me so mad I have to hold my breath to avoid screaming out at them.  And yet, I want them to be there.  To challenge me.  To make me think.  To force me to reexamine what I believe and think I know and see if I am right, or if I have missed something.

That's because I was educated in the 1980s by liberal and secular public institutions.  It didn't even dawn on us that a person would be banned or we would be banned from hearing them because of the content of what they believed.  That was fascism 101.  That's what the dictatorships of the 20th Century did.  That's what liberals were fighting against.  Not just being open for any subjects traditionally debated, but being completely open to any and all expressions and ideas.  No matter how offensive. 

But today, we are seeing a soft censorship.  We aren't having Big Brother crash into our living rooms and offices and schools, we are demanding he enter.  We want him.  We want ideas that bother us to be banned. And we want protected from anything that might challenge our notion that we are awesome, we are right, the universe spins around us, and the only facts that matter are the ones that affirm our awesome rightness.  And our institutions of higher learning - and I use that description lightly - are feeding into it with gusto.  Why?  Because I think our education system has moved to the same level as our media: no longer education, but propaganda.

What do we expect?

I'm the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos.  And yet, why should I be surprised at the results?  One commenter mentions a Huffington Post story about respondents at a university not knowing that George Washington was the general at Yorktown.  Why would they?  My boys' history texts in high school didn't mention it.  Unless the teacher pointed it out, it wasn't there.

Likewise, my boys' American History textbook in sixth grade barely mentioned the Declaration of Independence.  It had two pages devoted to the Declaration.  The first couple of paragraphs of the first page mentioned the Founders wanting a justification for revolution and a couple tidbits about the writing of it and a couple quotes.  But that was it.  60% of the rest was spent focusing on the fact that we shafted the Native Americans, we owned slaves and women couldn't vote (I found it interesting that it didn't mention that white men couldn't vote either, unless certain conditions were met).  The second of the two pages was a giant Civil Rights History poster featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. 

So if you asked them things about the Declaration of Independence or who was at Yorktown, exactly why would you expect them to know anything?  We're not teaching these things. We're teaching liberal indoctrination 101.  That's what our schools teach.  That's what our textbooks teach (BTW, I worked for a few months, and my wife worked for several years, in a textbook publishing company), and it's what our institutions of higher learning teach.  Perhaps some teachers and professors buck the system, but they are the exceptions. 

These questions all ask things that would have been known from schoolbooks and classrooms about 20 or 30 years ago.  Not today. Kids growing up today know little about our country, our history, or much of anything in the humanities.  Most lessons focus on the bad of our history, with the sidebars being the main points of celebration.   Supplemental materials are almost exclusively focused on a liberal perspective, such as America as a genocidal nation of slave owners, America as an Imperial power, religious intolerance and secular enlightenment in Europe (all of these are handouts my boys received). 

So let's not assume these man on the street interviews are not without some level of editing for impact.  But let's not be shocked that people under about 40 years old wouldn't know questions that would have been known decades ago.  Unless they went looking for themselves, they probably never heard of such things.

A primer in Immigration education

Someone - and I don't know who - seems to have forgotten a little about what we should think of when we think of Immigration and what it means to come to America.  But before continuing, please view the following for a refresher about America's right to be a country with an identity: