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The Ignoramus Americus
Intellectual Conservative ^ | December 26, 2008 | Selwyn Duke

Posted on 12/29/2008 8:54:49 AM PST by IrishMike

I have often written about the ignorance that has resulted from decades of pathetic, dumbed-down parenting and schooling, and, sadly, there's no shortage of material on this subject.

There is often a profound difference between morality and legality, and, if this were a just world, a good percentage of the American Left would be tried for treason. If that seems a radical statement, I ask you: What price should be paid for sowing the seeds of your nation's destruction? What should be the punishment for creating millions of people so ignorant, so effete, so corrupted in judgment that they are unable to sustain a free republic, resist enemies foreign and domestic, and perpetuate their culture? I'll leave that to you to decide and just talk a bit about the state of the electorate.

I have often written about the ignorance that has resulted from decades of pathetic, dumbed-down parenting and schooling, and, sadly, there's no shortage of material on this subject. In fact, you could probably read three large volumes on it and not know all Americans don't know about what they should know. However, one short article recently written by economics professor and columnist Dr. Walter Williams perhaps tells us all we need to know. It is called "Ignorance reigns supreme" and relates the findings of a national survey measuring people's knowledge of civics titled "Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and Institutions." Its findings are staggering, although not at all surprising to me. For starters, 71 percent of Americans surveyed failed the test, and the average score on it was 49 percent. As for some details, Williams tells us (some of the following information he gleaned from sources other than the survey):

Only 27 percent know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States . . . 25 percent [of college seniors] did not know that Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere before the year 1500; 42 percent could not place the Civil War in the correct half-century; and 31 percent thought Reconstruction came after World War II . . . 50 percent of whites and more than 80 percent of blacks couldn't state in writing the argument made in a newspaper column; 56 percent could not calculate the right tip . . . 98 percent could identify rap artist Snoop Dogg and Beavis and Butt-Head, but only 34 percent knew George Washington was the general at the battle of Yorktown.

Williams then opines:

With limited thinking abilities and knowledge of our heritage, we Americans set ourselves up as easy prey for charlatans, hustlers and quacks [i.e., that is, at least 80 percent of our politicians]. If we don't know the constitutional limits placed on Congress and the White House, politicians can do just about anything they wish to control our lives, from deciding what kind of light bulbs we can use to whether the government can take over our health care system or bailout failing businesses. We just think Congress can do anything upon which they can get a majority vote.

Without a doubt. To put it differently, how can we protect our rights as Americans if we don't understand civics and the Constitution and thus cannot know what those rights are? And how can we preserve our culture and traditions – and know what we're relinquishing by not doing so and the consequences of this sin of omission – if we don't know what they are? Rhetorical questions both.

Most distressingly, the civics survey found that almost 25 percent of us believe that Congress shares its foreign policy powers with the United Nations. If Americans believe such nonsense, can we expect them to vigorously oppose efforts to move us closer to one-world government? If people already believe that a certain degree of our sovereignty is gone, then all the internationalists need do is make it official; they will be able to relinquish precisely that degree of sovereignty without opposition from those ignorant citizens.

Yet, despite this abject ignorance, we still have get-out-the-dopes drives. What percent of the electorate should actually vote? Well, take the 71 percent that failed the civics test and subtract it from the total, and you'll have the answer.

Of course, though, fewer and fewer Americans can make that calculation all the time.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: democrats; dumbingdown; education; election; elections; sheeple; walterwilliams
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1 posted on 12/29/2008 8:54:49 AM PST by IrishMike
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To: IrishMike

ping


2 posted on 12/29/2008 8:57:03 AM PST by unkus
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To: IrishMike
What price should be paid for sowing the seeds of your nation's destruction? What should be the punishment for creating millions of people so ignorant, so effete, so corrupted in judgment that they are unable to sustain a free republic, resist enemies foreign and domestic, and perpetuate their culture?



3 posted on 12/29/2008 8:58:59 AM PST by Vigilanteman (Are there any men left in Washington? Or, are there only cowards? Ahmad Shah Massoud)
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To: IrishMike
they will be able to relinquish precisely that degree of sovereignty without opposition from those ignorant citizens.

Which is the plan of the new fuhrer's handlers. And the sheeple will go along because they are too stupid not to.

I hate to quote Star Wars but Padma had it right: "So this is how liberty dies -- to thunderous applause."

4 posted on 12/29/2008 9:06:20 AM PST by freedumb2003 (Der neuen Fuhrer: AKA the Murdering Messiah: Keep your powder dry, folks)
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To: IrishMike
There is a difference between intelligence and education.
You can "educate" yourself but it takes intelligence to do it.
5 posted on 12/29/2008 9:12:21 AM PST by Just another Joe (Warning: FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: IrishMike
Next week millions of conservatives will send their children back to the Marxist government indoctrination camps.

Yet...I wonder how long it will be before some Freeper posts that their Marxist indoctrination camp is different. Their school sings a Christmas carol or two. Their child's school wrote letters to our military men and women. ( Written with and exasperated eye roll)

If conservatives are to save our nation we ***MUST** do the follow:

*Establish education foundation that will sponsor conservative teachers willing to open one room school houses, mini-schools, and homeschool cooperatives. Tuition would be free.

* Work with neighbors and friends who will elect representatives who will shut down the Marxist indoctrination camps.

* Break the government school monopoly on team sports by sponsoring sporting leagues.

6 posted on 12/29/2008 9:13:37 AM PST by wintertime
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To: IrishMike

...”What percent of the electorate should actually vote?”...

Only those who have filed an IRS 1040 form showing earned income in the year of the election. Election Day can adjusted to account for IRS filing.

No skin in the game, no vote. Period.


7 posted on 12/29/2008 9:15:42 AM PST by astounded (The democrat party is a clear and present danger to America)
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To: IrishMike

America is going to fall. We are going to become another hell hole like all other socialist countries. There is going to come a time when the liberals will relinquish all personal liberties except for the grotesque “new liberty” that they have created through propaganda. We can’t fight decades of intense liberal brainwashing so all we can do is fight for the lives and inalienable human rights of as many individual people as we can.


8 posted on 12/29/2008 9:16:47 AM PST by Soothesayer (The United States of America Rest in Peace November 4 2008)
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To: IrishMike

Communism is the oppression of the ignorant majority by a conniving, power-hungry intelligent minority. We’ve chosen to be lorded over by our Marxist masters. Welcome to the USSA.


9 posted on 12/29/2008 9:20:01 AM PST by pallis
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To: IrishMike

This is a good read. I always hear news commentators and politicians make comments like “the American people aren’t stupid” or “the American people know better”, etc. The truth is... YES, they really are and it’s counted on that we remain that way. One only need watch Jay Leno’s “J Walking” to realize how terrifyingly stupid and uninformed the next generation actually is.


10 posted on 12/29/2008 9:20:56 AM PST by conservativebabe (tagline challenged)
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To: IrishMike

Another “patriot” ranting about how rotten this country is.


11 posted on 12/29/2008 9:22:45 AM PST by Bunkasaurus (I'm indecisive....or am I?)
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To: astounded

“Only those who have filed an IRS 1040 form showing earned income in the year of the election. Election Day can adjusted to account for IRS filing.”

I like it but the Rats would find a way around it.


12 posted on 12/29/2008 9:22:58 AM PST by dljordan
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To: Soothesayer

The voters who supported Obama went to the polls to pillage and plunder the largess of the US treasury.


13 posted on 12/29/2008 9:23:39 AM PST by griswold3
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To: IrishMike
TAKE THE CIVICS QUIZ I scored 81.82%, lower than I had hoped, but still higher than average thanks to FR and becoming more aware of what is going on in this country.
14 posted on 12/29/2008 9:28:28 AM PST by Sender (Never lose your ignorance; you can never regain it!)
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To: IrishMike

I am a product of the government schools (GS). I graduated from high school in 1957 and was exposed to several hundred teachers. Most were dedicated professionals. And I can STILL name the EXCEPTIONAL ones.

Edna Kleinmeyer who didn’t just teach English: She imbued us with a love of language I carry to this day. It was Ms. Kleinmeyer who told me I had a gift for writing;

Charlie Kluckholn, the tough old wrestling coach who taught chemistry and gave me some of the best advice I had received to that time;

Charles Huffman, the homeroom teacher who helped me over a very rough spot in my life;

Franklin Jefferis, a “lowly” shop teacher, whose love of a job well done was wordlessly communicated to his kids in thousands of subtle ways. Mr. Jefferis died soon after I graduated. One October night, I “visited” him – alone — at the funeral home and wept as I thanked him one last time.

But the current GS are radically different from the system through which I passed 50 years ago. Know that my concern and hostility are NOT directed at those who still TEACH — really teach, really want the best EDUCATION for the kids, want to prepare them academically for the future.

Those feelings are reserved for SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS who have socialist/collectivist agendas or quietly acquiesce to the agendas imposed on them from above. They know that what is going on is wrong, but say nothing lest they jeopardize their careers. Author Thomas Sowell calls these folks “the anointed.” And as the title of his book on the subject, “The Vision of The Anointed,” indicates, they HAVE a vision!

That it is NOT the PARENTS’ vision is of no concern to them.

When my kids were still in the GS, my wife and I were quite active. The Principal of their elementary school chose me to represent the school in something called the LSAC (Local School Advisory Committee) program. I attended several meetings held at the County Board of Education headquarters. I came away from the VERY FIRST of those meetings with these impressions:

1. Those folks DID NOT speak English. Through tight little smirks clearly indicative of the low esteem, indeed, contempt, they had for the uninformed and ignorant gaggle of parents arrayed before them, they spoke in buzz words and technobabble code only they comprehended. At one point — to the visible relief of the other parents — I stopped one woman’s presentation and asked for a translation of what she’d said. She was NOT pleased!

2. They DID NOT want parents involved! Cookie sales and PTA? OK. Serious criticism of a course or textbook? Verboten! Your option was private or parochial school. There very little home schooling then.

3. Most of these people MAY have once been educators. They were now bureaucrats guarding their turf.

4. Many of those administrative folks were making over $50K and, though I looked for signs of it, I saw little evidence of anything resembling “work.” And this was 20 years ago when the average classroom teacher earned less than $25K.

5. There were WAY too many administrators in the GS. It is a perfect opportunity to provide make-work sinecures for “anointed” members of the educational fraternity. Four years as an Air Force instructor taught me how to spot the signs.

Here’s the “bottom line:” Simply hurling more money into the black hole of the GS WILL NOT WORK. Most of that money will NEVER get to the classroom or into the pockets of DESERVING teachers who actually TEACH. And teach what any sensible human being – REGARDLESS of race, faith or ethnicity — instinctively understands to be correct, morally defensible material.

Bush is right about one thing: We need accountability! Perhaps you recall Clinton’s asinine plan to send 100,000 PAID Americorps “volunteers” into the grade schools to TEACH KIDS TO READ. Why hadn’t their PREVIOUS teachers – OR THEIR PARENTS! — taught them to perform that rather basic skill???

Think about what you just read as YOUR local government schools continue to raise YOUR property taxes.

Another encounter with “The System”
In 1978, my wife and I came to know a young woman named Patty. She
was a devoutly religious young mother who’d become more devout when her
husband and father of her two small sons aged 2 and 6 informed her that he
was leaving. In dire economic straits, I offered to let her stay in our
former home in Chamblee — which was not rented at the time – rent-free until she got back on her feet. She had been clandestinely home schooling the 6 year
old for about 2 years using very well done Christian course materials from
an organization in Texas the name of which escapes me. The lad had recently been tested and had placed at least a year ABOVE his chronological age. As required by the government school authorities at the time, she dutifully apprised the authorities of his scores.

For reasons which would become clear in a moment, Patty had been harassed by the DeKalb County school authorities for about 6 months and, by the time she moved into the Chamblee house, had been — unbeknownst to us — ORDERED to put the 6 year old into the nearest government elementary school or suffer the consequences. Because she wanted the boys to be educated Christians, there was no way she was going to do that and she told them so.

At approximately 2 am one morning, a loud knock on the door announced the
arrival of the aforementioned “consequences.”

Dressed only in a nightgown, she was confronted by several burly police officers who thrust an arrest warrant in her face. With the now awakened 6 year old watching and the 2 year old wailing in the other room, she was handcuffed and led out the door to jail. She was tossed into a large cell with a couple of hookers and a junkie who spent much of the rest of that morning vomiting in the corner. The two young boys for whom the educational authorities professed such great concern were just left AT THE HOUSE — ALONE! Patty was later told that the bureaucrats from Children Services who were SUPPOSED to accompany the cops were late and, in their haste to get this dangerous miscreant behind bars, the cops just missed the fact that the Children Services people were, well, missing. The CS folks showed up an hour later to find two terrified kids, one of whom had just seen his mother hauled off in cuffs.

Patty was ultimately brought to trial under the Georgia Truancy Statutes. Her pro-bono attorney tore the school authorities to shreds and hers has been called THE case that opened the floodgates to home schooling in Georgia. Once they had all the facts, the jury didn’t take long to acquit her. I’m proud to have played a small part in that.

At Patty’s trial, a previously overlooked aspect of the government schools was put into sharp focus for those paying attention: The Director of Instruction for DeKalb County testified that the then current 7 hour school day consisted of an average of approximately 3 hours or less of instruction. At that time, Patty was devoting 4 to 5 hours a day to direct instruction.

He also as much as admitted that the REAL reason they wanted ALL these kids in school was the $3,000.00 per kid per year (I’m sure that number is higher in 2001!) they then got from the state and federal government. Empty seats = lost funds. As in most things, follow the money.

Patty home schooled these two boys through high school.

And how did the boys turn out?

One is now a physician and the other a budding journalist.

But that now seems to be the norm for the growing legions of home schooled kids – which most likely explains why the NEA and the government school folks feel so threatened. For what it’s worth, a home schooled kid won the last National Spelling Bee.

Thomas Jefferson believed an EDUCATED PUBLIC to be the cornerstone of the system he and the other Founders TRIED to leave behind. He would NOT, I feel certain, be a big fan of the current government education system. If he returned today, he’d home school just as he did before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lR1KQq2-U


15 posted on 12/29/2008 9:32:01 AM PST by Dick Bachert
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To: IrishMike

Reminds me of a discussion I had with some conservative friends about Gonzales v. Raich.

In Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court confirmed and extended the power of the Federal government beyond the already absurd reaches of Wickard v. Filburn.

Wickard v. Filburn, you may recall, determined that the Commerce Clause enabled Congress to forbid the a farmer’s cultivation of wheat even if he did not sell wheat. The farmer used the grain for fodder for his own livestock. The SCOTUS reasoned that, though his crop did not directly enter interstate commerce, his wheat displaced other wheat which could have entered interstate commerce. The SCOTUS ruled that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause thus empowers Congress to regulate the cultivation of crops on private property.

Gonzales v. Raich rules that the Commerce Clause covers the cultivation of a plant that cannot even be traded in interstate commerce. Thus, the displacement like that imagined in Wickard v. Filburn is no longer even necessary.

In other words, the Commerce Clause now enables Congress to regulate anything ... even if there is no commerce involved. Combined with the SCOTUS rulings on the General Welfare Clause, there remain only a few constraints on Congress. (I suppose that the SCOTUS would object if Congress were to establish Catholicism as the national religion or, perhaps, if it ordered civilians to provide quarters to Soldiers.)

Of course, my conservative friends agreed with the SCOTUS regading Gonzales v. Raich because it confirms the constitutionality of Federal drug laws. The case involved cultivation of medical marijuana for personal consumption, which is not illegal under California law.

It’s time for people to take off the rose-colored glasses and recognize that the Constitution is a dead letter when it comes to limitations on the scope of the powers of the Federal government. Not just the 10th Amendment, the entire Constitution.


16 posted on 12/29/2008 9:40:58 AM PST by RBroadfoot
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To: Bunkasaurus
Another “patriot” ranting about how rotten this country is.

True American patriots are those who believe in the principles upon which this country was founded. The degree of deviation from those principles, and the degree of deviation by the government from its Constitutional limits, demands outrage from any patriot. Only someone who doesn't give a damn about the American way of life would be able to sit back comfortably and watch this country rot from the inside out. The more socialist and amoral this country becomes, the more that true patriots should be deciding how to focus their outrage.
17 posted on 12/29/2008 9:41:35 AM PST by fr_freak
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To: Sender

I had a 100%. 81% is very low for FReepers.


18 posted on 12/29/2008 9:42:43 AM PST by reg45
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To: wintertime

If more all-knowing big-talkers would simply become teachers, they could help the handful of us who already did fight the system from within.


19 posted on 12/29/2008 9:58:16 AM PST by A_perfect_lady (History repeats itself because human nature is static.)
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To: fr_freak

Half the posts of late have been of “the country is doomed, Americans are stupid” variety.
Well, the country is not doomed. Americans are not stupid.

Repubs lost a presidential election.
It is not the end of civilization as we know it.


20 posted on 12/29/2008 10:00:27 AM PST by Bunkasaurus (I'm indecisive....or am I?)
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