Something to Say Commentary
rsmith@wbal.com George Who?
Tuesday, January 29, 2002
January 28, 2002)
It’s difficult to pinpoint the beginning of our end, but all the evidence indicates that we are well down the path toward self-destruction, or cultural suicide, if you will.
The latest example in this morning’s Washington Times is an article about how the revised version of the New Jersey Department of Education history standards manages to excise reference to the nation’s founders.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin have been removed in these latest revisions, as have the Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and the word “war,” which has been dropped in favor of “conflict” in lessons about American history.
The Civil Conflict, one would suppose, was that nastiness between 1861 and 1865, and the Spanish-American Conflict was the one that gave us our first colonial possessions.
Since these standards apply to American History alone, we are not yet subjected to our children being taught about the First World Conflict and its bastard son, the Second World Conflict,
New Jersey, as much in the grip of political correctness as any state, isn’t alone in this kind of trendy educational nonsense. Although excluding the founding fathers is pretty startling, erasing mention of the Pilgrims is a real stunner, too. Other states, like Virginia and Indiana also don’t include Pilgrims in their standards.
As far as I can tell from Ellen Sorokin’s story, the problem may be that the word “Pilgrim” denotes religion, about which we must not inform our kiddies – at least not unless it is a religion other than Christianity that’s to be discussed.
This is a symptom of a far greater malady. But it’s revelatory as well. It’s beyond time that Americans wake from their stupor and understand that their way of life is under fierce attack. We whites of European heritage are the only race seemingly compelled to self-loathing. Our time is short.