Posted on 12/14/2001 11:28:48 PM PST by SteveH
December 14, 2001
To: Mr. XXXXXXX X. XXXXXXXXX
Vice President, Group Editorial Director, Social Studies
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
Cc: Mrs. XXXXX XXXXXXXXX
Director of Educational Resources
XXXXXXX XXXXXXX School District
Principal XXX XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXX Junior High School
XXXXXXX, California
The Hon. William H. Rehnquist
Mr. XXXXXXX XXXXX
National Geographic
Atty. General John Ashcroft
XXXXXXX Board of Education
Dear Mr. XXXXXXXXX:
Thank you for responding (attached) to my two letters,
dated May 11 and May 23, to Principal XXXXXXX
and the XXXXXXX XXXXXXX School District regarding
what appears to be incorrect instruction as
evidenced at the May 2 XXXXXXX Open House that I
attended, corresponding to what appears to be inaccurate
interpretation of the Second Amendment in the McGraw-Hill
/National Geographic textbook "American Journey: Building
a Nation". However, my concerns remain.
As I have stated in my earlier letters, the teaching
and the textbook (p. 242) both explicitly refer to the Second
Amendment as a collective (states') right:
"the purpose of this amendment is to
guarantee states the right to keep a militia".
You state in your letter that in
U.S. v. Miller in 1939, "... the Supreme Court ruled
that the Second Amendment only protects the right of states
to have armed militias." However, you did not cite
the specific text from which you derive your argument
and paraphrase.
In fact, there is no language in U.S. v. Miller that
unambiguously supports the the states' right interpretation,
and clear language that supports the individual right
interpretation. In U.S. v. Miller, the Supreme Court
goes to great lengths to try to determine the original
intent of the Second Amendment, devoting about
one-third of the decision to cases and arguments
contemporary with the passage of the Amendment itself.
In this, the Supreme Court found that:
...the Militia comprised all males physically capable
of acting in concert for the common defense."
And nowhere in U.S. v. Miller did the Supreme Court
even argue either that the defendants were guilty because
they were not in a militia or the National Guard.
Thus, the Supreme Court found, in the Miller case,
that the Second Amendment protected the right of
individuals to keep and bear arms, unless it is
conceded that women have no place in the militia,
and this directly contradicts your interpretation
that Miller only supports a states' right interpretation.
If this is not enough, then please consider the
case of the 5th District Appeals Court decision
of U.S. v. Emerson (October, 2001) which definitively rejects
the Department of Justice's contention (under
the Clinton Administration) that the Second Amendment
protects only a collective right:
We conclude that Miller does not support the government's
collective rights or sophisticated collective rights approach
to the Second Amendment. Indeed, to the extent that Miller sheds
light on the matter it cuts against the government's position.
Nor does the government cite any other authority binding on this
panel which mandates acceptance of its position in this respect
I note that you did not argue against my citation
of the Supreme Court case of
United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), p. 265,
written by Chief Justice Rehnquist, which directly
contradicts the textbook interpretation:
... "the people" seems to have been a term of art employed
in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares
that the Constitution is ordained and established by "the
People of the United States." The Second Amendment protects
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the
Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and
powers are retained by and reserved to "the people." See also
U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ("Congress shall make no law ...
abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble")
(emphasis added); Art. I, § 2, cl. 1 ("The House of
Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every
second Year by the People of the several States")
(emphasis added).
You can also view other instances in which the Supreme Court
has ruled that the Second Amendment refers to an individual
right, including:
Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 417, 450-51, 15 L.Ed. 691, 705, 719 (1856)
Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 282 (1897)
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 US 78 (1908)
Powell v. Alabama, 287 US 45 (1932)
Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 US 233 (1936)
Gideon v. Wainright, 372 US 335 (1963)
Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 US 166 (1968)
Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 US 494 (1976)
You can now see that the Emerson Decision is
consistent with the Supreme Court dating from
1857 to 1990 inclusive in which the individual
right interpretation of the Second Amendment prevails.
What is your counterargument to all these cases?
Please cite the Supreme Court case and text in your response
so that the veracity of your argument may be checked.
In addition, you may also want to note that your co-publisher,
National Geographic, disagrees with your interpretation
of the textbook that your organizations jointly produced.
In a letter dated June 8, 2001 and addressed to me (appended),
Mr. XXXXXXX XXXXX, National Geographic's Editorial Manager
of School Publishing, insists that the textbook authors
stress that the Second Amendment, being part of the
Bill of Rights, was written to protect the rights
of the individual.
Mr. XXXXX goes on to recommend that we refer to page 219
of the textbook and quotes from it in his letter:
The Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution
in 1791. These first 10 amendments protect basic liberties
and rights that you may take for granted..."
Now we have a situation in which the two editorial directors,
you and Mr. XXXXX, take diametrically opposing interpretations
of what their jointly produced textbook means! Can
you please explain how Mr. XXXXX can harbor the view
that the textbook supports the individual right interpretation
in view of your earlier denial of that interpretation?
In any case, how can teachers and children be expected to
interpret the textbook given its variance from Supreme
Court rulings and the variance in interpretation of
what the text is trying to convey by you and Mr. XXXXX,
the publishers? I am copying Mr. XXXXX and I hope you will include
him in your response since I imagine that he would
also be very interested to hear your response.
I await your timely reply with eager anticipation.
I would appreciate it if you would please also forward a copy
of this letter to the original authors (Joyce Appleby [UCLA],
Alan Brinkley [Columbia], and Bruce McPherson [Princeton])
-- just in case they care to defend their publication
in their own words.
Sincerely,
XXXXX XXXX
concerned parent of XXXXXXX XXXX, former 8th grade student
at XXXXXXX Junior High School, XXXXXXX, California
Attachment: response dated June 8, 2001 from Mr. XXXXXXX XXXXX,
National Geographic, to my letters of May 2 and May 23, 2001.
Attachment: response dated July 21, 2001 from Mr. XXXXXXX X. XXXXXXXXX,
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
I don't know whether to cry, scream, throw a tantrum, cuss, or what. For those of you that have read my posts, you know I can be opinionated, brash and quick to action, but this time I am in shock.
Wake up America.
Dunno the answer to your question but please note the "targets of opportunity" afforded by the institutions that the authors of the text belong to, as mentioned at the end of my letter: UCLA, Columbia, and Princeton. If the authors don't step up to the plate and give a timely and decent answer to my concerns, my next step will be to the publication review committees of those academic institutions. Hmm, should I work in a reference to Michael Bellesides?
Thank you for the information.
Thank you for the information.
Send letters to all the boards of education and people whose job it is to decide which books are bought as part of a class curriculum. Inform them of the error in McGraw Hill's text book. Send the letters registered mail so that they must be signed for. Perhaps sending registered letters to several people in just the federal department of public education (or whatever the appropriate agency is) will put them on the spot.
If any schools use this book in their curriculum you have documented evidence that the school boards knowingly and willingly approved telling lies to students seeking truth and honesty.
I anticipate that school boards are burdened by tweedledee-tweedledum decisions where historical revisionism is concerned. For example, consider a hypothetical though plausible (to me, anyway) example in which textbook A interprets the Second Amendment correctly as protecting an individual right, but incorrectly concludes Lee H. Oswald as the sole perpetrator of the JFK assassination. Textbook B makes the complementary photo-negative mistakes (collective right, unknown assassin(s) as determined through court trial(s)). And both A and B contain other errors (such as, ignoring certain aspects of the origin of the Civil War and the full ramifications of legal irregularities occurring during the Reconstruction).
Which book should the school board now choose? To me, clearly, the school boards are only a smaller aspect of a much larger problem, one which is more difficult to influence on an individual level. That problem is a tendency in academia to rubberstamp certain revisionist "facts" and pass them off as historical truth to each other and (through school textbooks) to successive generations. The public, in its complacency, permits this academic laziness rather than insist on a factual basis for interpretation of historical events.
As the saying goes, those who do not learn from history... in any case, I am working my way up the brain chain focusing on just this one particular issue, and we'll see how far it goes, or how far I will be allowed to exercise my right to question these policies, whatever...
It's OK. I am actually going more or less on autopilot now, having identified and chosen the weakness in the revisionists' defense to exploit, and then using their own defensive arguments against them. It's fairly straightforward, and the main problems as I view them are not to go overboard in terms of style, presentation, and so on. For example, I've reconsidered mentioning the recent Bellesides research fraud, since I believe most ordinary people are not following that particular debate and so would be left in the dark if I were to mention that issue at this point in time. I can always save it for a future round with the diehard academics, who will certainly be able to relate to it :-).
By the way, I noticed in a recent school flyer that they solicited parent involvement in the curriculum review committee, so (after many attempts to volunteer myself, culminating in a hand-delivered letter expressing interest to the office of curriculum studies' director herself), I managed to find out when the next meeting will be, and will insert myself into their activities from here on out. Think global, act local.
Also, I note in passing another potential target of opportunity along the same lines: an old INS Citizenship manual makes the same mistake about the intent of the Second Amendment, and I would be moderately surprised if the GWB Administration has bothered to fix it. Any takers (before I get around to it) are welcome (let me know, if possible, so I don't have to duplicate the effort).
I am not far off in age, and one of my high school yearbooks actually shows a rifle club in the Activities section (along with chess, math, Honor Society, and so on). I never knew about it while I attended, and only found out a couple of years ago when I went through the yearbook page by page carefully. Next year, the rifle club had apparently disappeared from view...
I don't remember Hopalong but I do remember a lot of others, including Roy Rogers, The Rifleman (GASP), The Rebel (GASP x 2), Bat Masterson, Paladin, and I am sure that many others will come to mind just as I hit the "post" button on this response. I and my siblings had sets of Roy-Rogers-era chrome plated pistols and we would take turns on our trusty (or rusty) trikes playing cowboys and Indians until the sun set and our mom called us in for supper...
Whatever happened to these shows? Do they even play them on the classic TV pay channels nowadays? It is as if an entire segment of American culture has been swallowed up by some kind of collective-memory-devouring monster from some substandard Star Trek episode. In any case, bringing even a toy gun to our local public schools now would probably be enough to get a kid suspended for the remainder of the year, if not expelled, courtesy of "zero tolerance" policies that violate nothing more than political correctness sensibilities among certain segments of the community.
It's scary to me that partially as a result of all this revisionism and loss of group identity, there are now a couple of generations of LEOs, public servants, and soldiers who may know how to fight and enforce, but no longer know what they are fighting for, or who the real enemies are, or care whether the laws follow the Constitution or not.
Stay vigilant, and seek to find friendly and effective ways to pass your knowledge to those who are coming after you... it would exceed my expectations that they will someday have the strength and resolve to use it if and when they need to.
The Lawman ("There was a job to be done...")
The Lone Ranger (unforgettable)
Bonanza (a relative latecomer to the scene)
The Virginian (another faint Southern theme?)
Sky King (though set in modern times, I believe they had cowboy hats)
Davy Crockett (pure gold, theme song useful for canoeing trips, etc.)
Gunsmoke (surely qualifies these days as politically incorrect)
Wyatt Earp ("brave, courageous, and bold")
Zorro
Maverick (James Garner)
Rawhide (Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates)
Wagon Train
Tombstone Territory
Death Valley Days (almost forgot this one-- RR)
Sugarfoot (ditto)
Annie Oakley (very early TV series, and a woman sharpshooter to boot!)
Laramie
Fury
The Wild Wild West (even later than Bonanza; seems a bit out of place in this list)
Howdy Doody (no guns that I can recall, but cowboy hats qualifies)
The Rebel (the ultimate politically incorrect TV show IMHO)
I am sure there are a few contemporary shows that I missed in this list, but I would recognize if I ever saw them again.
And according to my web search, get this... Johnny Yuma carried a sawed off shotgun, which I have just now learned was historically a favorite weapon of Confederate soldiers early in the war. So increase the political incorrectness quotient of this show by yet another notch...
There is also a yahoo public discussion group dedicated to TV cowboy series that I ran across if one is interested:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TVandMovieWesterns/
Excellent point.
The implicit earlier history is that the local school folks "passed the buck" up to the publisher, rather than (horror of horrors) assume responsibility for correcting the problem at the local level. The publisher is therefore responding in kind not only to me but to the local school officials in a way, reassuring them that hey, they don't have to do anything after all, and my letter in effect only objected to that without offering much in the way of constructive solution (though it should be fairly obvious).
So to be explicit, I can add something like the following: can you please either offer a better reason and a clearer interpretation of the amendment, or if you cannot defend the interpretation, concede that it is wrong in favor of the interpretation I offered, in writing so as to alert school officials to the mistake as soon as possible and permit them to take the necessary corrective actions in class to compensate for the error, and fix any future versions of the textbook to remove the problem. [Note: I've already added a plea to take the problem seriously "for the sake of the children".]
Thanks for the astute point, any more from anyone before I trundle off to Kinko's and run a dozen copies? Be quick or forever hold your fire, so to speak :-) !
Close, huh?
-----
XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX
XXXXXXX, California
December 14, 2001
To: Mr. XXXXXXX X. XXXXXXXXX
Vice President, Group Editorial Director, Social Studies
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
Cc: Mrs. XXXXX XXXXXXXXX
Director of Educational Resources
XXXXXXX XXXXXXX School District
Principal XXX XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXX Junior High School
XXXXXXX, California
The Hon. William H. Rehnquist
Mr. XXXXXXX XXXXX
National Geographic
Atty. General John Ashcroft
XXXXXXX XXXXXXX School District Board of Education
Joyce Appleby
Alan Brinkley
Bruce McPherson
Dear Mr. XXXXXXXXX:
Thank you for responding (attached) to my two letters,
dated May 11 and May 23, to Principal XXXXXXX
and the XXXXXXX XXXXXXX School District regarding
what appears to be incorrect instruction as
evidenced at the May 2 XXXXXXX Open House that I
attended, corresponding to what appears to be inaccurate
interpretation of the Second Amendment in the McGraw-Hill
/National Geographic textbook "American Journey: Building
a Nation". However, my concerns remain.
As I have stated in my earlier letters, the teaching
and the textbook (p. 242) both explicitly refer to the Second
Amendment as a collective (states') right:
"the purpose of this amendment is to
guarantee states the right to keep a militia".
You state in your letter that in
U.S. v. Miller in 1939, "... the Supreme Court ruled
that the Second Amendment only protects the right of states
to have armed militias." However, you did not cite
the specific text from which you derive your argument
and paraphrase.
In fact, there is no language in U.S. v. Miller that
unambiguously supports the the states' right interpretation,
and clear language that supports the individual right
interpretation. In U.S. v. Miller, the Supreme Court
goes to great lengths to try to determine the original
intent of the Second Amendment, devoting about
one-third of the decision to cases and arguments
contemporary with the passage of the Amendment itself.
In this, the Supreme Court found that:
...the Militia comprised all males physically capable
of acting in concert for the common defense.
Nowhere in U.S. v. Miller did the Supreme Court
even argue that the defendants were guilty either because
they were not in a militia or the National Guard.
Would this not be the logical resolution if the Court had
in actuality held, as you suggest, that the Second Amendment
is a collective right, instead of remanding it
back to the lower courts (as the Court actually decided--
check your copy) on the relatively fine point of whether or not
a short-barrelled shotgun was actually used in the military?
Thus, the Supreme Court found, in the Miller case,
that the Second Amendment protected the right of
individuals to keep and bear arms, unless it is
conceded that women have no place in the militia,
and this directly contradicts your interpretation
that Miller only supports a states' right interpretation.
If this is not enough to convince you that the Second Amendment
refers to an individual right, then please consider the
case of the 5th District Appeals Court decision of
U.S. v. Emerson (99-10331, 5th Cir. 2001; appended
for your convenience) which definitively rejects
the Department of Justice's contention, under
the Clinton Administration, that the Second Amendment
protects only a collective right:
We conclude that Miller does not support the government's
collective rights or sophisticated collective rights approach
to the Second Amendment. Indeed, to the extent that Miller sheds
light on the matter it cuts against the government's position.
Nor does the government cite any other authority binding on this
panel which mandates acceptance of its position in this respect
I note that you did not argue against my citation
of the Supreme Court case of
United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), p. 265,
written by Chief Justice Rehnquist, which directly
contradicts the textbook interpretation:
... "the people" seems to have been a term of art employed
in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares
that the Constitution is ordained and established by "the
People of the United States." The Second Amendment protects
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the
Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and
powers are retained by and reserved to "the people." See also
U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ("Congress shall make no law ...
abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble")
(emphasis added); Art. I, § 2, cl. 1 ("The House of
Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every
second Year by the People of the several States")
(emphasis added).
You can also view other instances in which the Supreme Court
has ruled that the Second Amendment refers to an individual
right, including:
Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 US 494 (1976)
Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 US 166 (1968)
Gideon v. Wainright, 372 US 335 (1963)
Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 US 233 (1936)
Powell v. Alabama, 287 US 45 (1932)
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 US 78 (1908)
Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 282 (1897)
Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856)
You can now see that the Emerson Decision is
consistent with the Supreme Court dating from
1856 to 1990 inclusive in which the individual
right interpretation of the Second Amendment prevails.
What is your counterargument to all these cases?
Please cite the Supreme Court case(s) and quote
specific text(s) in your response to permit
verification of your argument(s). Or else,
please include in your response why the authors' standing
in the matter carries more authority than the 5th Circuit
Court of Appeals, and why the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals,
restricted to follow Supreme Court rulings in all matters,
can apparently feel free to interpret the Second Amendment
as an individual right if it is true as you argue
that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that it
is only a collective right.
In addition, you may also want to note that your co-publisher,
National Geographic, disagrees with your interpretation
of the textbook that your organizations jointly produced.
In a letter dated June 8, 2001 and addressed to me (appended),
Mr. XXXXXXX XXXXX, National Geographic's Editorial Manager
of School Publishing, insists that the textbook authors
stress that the Second Amendment, being part of the
Bill of Rights, was written to protect the rights
of the individual.
Mr. XXXXX goes on to recommend that we refer to page 219
of the textbook and quotes from it in his letter:
The Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution
in 1791. These first 10 amendments protect basic liberties
and rights that you may take for granted..."
Now we have a situation in which the two editorial directors,
you and Mr. XXXXX, take diametrically opposing interpretations
of what their jointly produced textbook means! Can
you please explain how Mr. XXXXX can harbor the view
that the textbook supports the individual right interpretation
in view of your earlier denial of that interpretation?
In any case, how can teachers and children be expected to
interpret the textbook given its variance from Supreme
Court rulings and the variance in interpretation of
what the text is trying to convey by you and Mr. XXXXX,
the publishers? I am copying Mr. XXXXX and I hope you will
include him in your response since I imagine that he would
also be very interested to hear your response.
In conclusion, can you please either respond to my concerns
for the veracity of the statements defending the textbook
in your initial response, or else can you please
either offer a better reason and a clearer interpretation
of the amendment, or if you cannot defend the interpretation,
concede that it is wrong in favor of the interpretation I offered,
in writing so as to alert school officials to the mistake as soon
as possible and permit them to take the necessary corrective
actions in class to compensate for the error, and commit to fix
any future versions of the textbook to remove the problem?
I trust that you do not mind my persistence in this matter, since
if it is true that the American Journey is wrong, I presume we can
all agree that it is ultimately the children who read textbooks
who are victimized by revisionism and lack of academic integrity.
I await your timely reply with eager anticipation.
I would also appreciate it if you would please also forward copies
of this correspondence to the original authors (Joyce Appleby,
Alan Brinkley, and Bruce McPherson), in case they care to defend
their publication in their own words. Thank you once again
for your attention to this concern.
Sincerely,
XXXXX XXXX
concerned parent of XXXXXX XXXX, former 8th grade student
at XXXXXXX Junior High School, XXXXXXX, California
Attachment: response dated June 8, 2001 from Mr. XXXXXXX XXXXX,
National Geographic, to my letters of May 2 and May 23, 2001.
Attachment: response dated July 21, 2001 from Mr. XXXXXXX X. XXXXXXXXX, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
Attachment: U.S. v. Emerson (99-10331, 5th Cir. 2001)
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