Tragic consequences of the left’s control of education
Posted by Richard on October 22, 2016
Those of us who intelligently embrace the concept of American exceptionalism don’t do so in the “Rah, rah, we’re number one” way that sports fans embrace their team; we do so because the United States is unique among nations because of the nature of its founding. America isn’t based on a shared ethnic or religious or geographic heritage, it’s not based on conquest or assimilation by royal marriages. Instead, it’s based on a set of ideas, the ideas of John Locke and the Enlightenment: the sovereignty of the individual, the natural rights of all human beings, government as the servant of the people and not their master. The Declaration of Independence outlined these ideas and the Constitution was their implementation. As Margaret Thatcher said, “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”
For as long as there has been an organized “progressive”/leftist movement in this country, it’s tried to diminish and destroy those ideas and with them American exceptionalism. It has succeeded to a large extent because the left gradually, and in the last couple of generations almost completely, took over education all the way from kindergarten through college. The result today is young people full of ignorance and indoctrination.
Some of the consequences of the left’s current monopoly of education are on display in the depressing results of a recent public opinion survey (emphasis added):
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation released its first “Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes Towards Socialism” Monday. The survey showed a distinct generation gap regarding beliefs about socialism and communism between older and younger Americans.
For example, 80 percent of baby boomers and 91 percent of elderly Americans believe that communism was and still is a problem in the world today, while just 55 percent of millennials say the same.
Just 37 percent of millennials had a “very unfavorable” view of communism, compared to 57 percent of Americans overall. Close to half (45 percent) of Americans aged 16 to 20 said they would vote for a socialist, and 21 percent would vote for a communist.
When asked their opinion of capitalism, 64 percent of Americans over the age of 65 said they viewed it favorably, compared to just 42 percent of millennials.
The survey also revealed a general lack of historical knowledge, especially among young adults. According to the report, one-third (32 percent) of millennials believed that more people were killed under George W. Bush than under Joseph Stalin.
Let that last statistic sink in for a moment.
Where do you think they got such an insane idea?
Rick Shultz said
Richard:
Holy Zhukashvili, Batman! Congratulations on one of your best posts ever! I have said for the last 30 years that the liberal control of our educational system was a disaster. They have not only taught our young a distorted view of almost everything, they have given them an attitude that is hopelessly uncorrectable without a lobotomy(on 2nd thought, having their brains stirred with the knife of one-world government liberal extremism amounts to a lobotomy). The whole generation now before us has been taught all it’s life that effort counts for more than results and that self esteem is more important than knowing what a dangling participle is, or how to extract square root without a fucking table in a math book that they probably firmly believe was given to man by the archangel Michael from heaven above. As to the last question asked in the history survey, I’d be willing to bet real money that none of the respondents actually knew who Stalin was, and if they did they could not have told the questioners his real name if their lives depended on it. I’ve said it before. God help us.