Posted on 12/06/2022 6:53:02 AM PST by Jacquerie
President Biden has a civics lesson that he is fond of and regularly repeats. It is about how the United States is unique in the world because of the founding ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
“Unlike every other nation on Earth, we were founded based on an idea,” he notes before adding that “while we’ve never fully lived up” to those principles, “we have never given up on them.”
An overwhelming majority of Americans, 89 percent, agree that a civics education about those founding principles is “very important.” And yet, a similar majority across the political spectrum, 71 percent, do not believe that their children receive “an honest picture” of American history in school.
Those are among the findings from a recent nationwide survey conducted by RealClear Opinion Research in concert with the conservative Jack Miller Center. Americans overwhelmingly express a healthy appetite for civic education, but report a general dissatisfaction with what they believe is currently offered in the K-12 classroom.
The survey of more than 1,000 parents comes at a moment of intense debate over not just U.S. history but over the durability of democracy itself. And while plenty of politicians fall back on eloquent words about abstract ideals, basic civic literacy continues to decline.
One recent poll found that only two in five Americans could name all three branches of government. Another similarly disappointing statistic: just one in three knew that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land. That isn’t a trivial failure. Parents who responded to the RealClear survey believe lagging civic literacy represents a significant failure.
A majority want curricula to focus on the fundamentals. Some 70 percent believe that the priority of any civics education ought to be on teaching students the basics of the American political system.
(Excerpt) Read more at floridadaily.com ...
The key to keeping the Republic is that it was made “for a virtuous people” and we are no longer that.
In my mind, the legitimate function of taxpayer-funded universal public education is to teach future voters the founding principles of the Republic, and how and why this country works as well as it does, based on those principles. It’s legitimate, because ignorance of these things would inevitably lead to the Republic’s collapse.
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
The Left in general, and Biden in particular, should pay specific attention to the "founding ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence" that he is apparently so fond of quoting, particularly this passage where it says:
"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..."
This is pretty obviously what Trump was recently referring to in his statement that created such a kerfuffel with the Left and with some on our side who don't get that.
“The key to keeping the Republic is that it was made “for a virtuous people” and we are no longer that.“
That really is the crux of it. As soon as this generation of rats got the power I.E. SOS offices etc they used it to build impenetrable power walls secured by vote fraud, a lap dog press and a relentless leftist media machine. If that wasn’t enough we have an entire generation of brainwashed people who are assuming all control positions in companies and organizations.
You beat me to it.
There are a few really important institutions in society that have actually been continually getting worse instead of better.
One of them is government schools which would seemingly make it a top priority for Republicans. But NO. They have failed.
Another would be election integrity. With today’s amazing technology we should be able to have accurate voter rolls and confirmed voters - but it keeps getting worse. The GOP again has failed.
There are many who say, and I agree with them, that the “ignorance of these things” that we currently see is by public education design, and not an accident.
Exactly.
We want to spend tens of billions on a corrupt, America-hating regime (except when they love us because we ‘give’ them money) but not a cent of that could go towards a nationwide voter enrollment system that would make the integrity of those voter rolls accurate.
The only conclusion we can reach is that the Left does not want those Voter Rolls clean, and the Right is just fine with that as well.
with the Left and with some on our side who don’t get that.
Stupidity and Ignorance are contagious.
Repeating something that my retired Marine brother says, “i took an Oath to support the Constitution, and so did President Trump, and an Oath is forever.”
Yes. Stupidity and ignorance are indeed contagious, and there seems to be an infiltration of both of those characteristics from the Left.
I took that oath as well.
But that oath did not encompass those who destroy and ignore the Constitution, which imperils this country.
Not so. But that is what most believe.
Yep. That is why for the last ten years I’ve been a proponent at FR of an Article V COS.
And despite your points, we’ll keep on voting and pretend it matters.
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