Posted on 09/11/2002 5:06:14 PM PDT by Noumenon
Our kids are growing up with a better idea than most of the nature of the world around them - and what their role in that world could be. We are fortunate enough to have a local public school where the sins of text books employed to teach history and social science are largely those of omission. My wife ( Candace the Fierce) and I do yeoman work in the course of filling in those gaps. I'd have to say that, by and large, we're pretty successful. The kids stand up well to the nonsense peddled by their biological father and his wife - both soulless, wishy-washy Seattle liberals - on the occasions of their obligatory visits. The twins' disdain for their father's and their stepmother's intellectual poverty and moral bankruptcy is a source of quiet pride for me and their real Mom.
As the anniversary of this foul deed grew closer, it was hard to get a read on the approach that the school planned to take with respect to commemorating the Day. Most of the readers on this forum are doubtless aware of the so-called 'lesson plan' advocated and distributed by the NEA - a litany of don't-blame-the-evildoers-but-blame-America for-everything. Despite their best efforts, the NEA couldn't spin their way out of that one. While it wasn't likely that this sick, politically correct worldview of endless victimization and contempt for the very culture and principles that gave rise to real freedom would surface at their school, the reinforcement of Hanson's well-written introduction provides ample ammunition against that sort of moral and philosophical fraud.
For me, at least, the most important point that Hanson touched in his introduction was that of the existence and the nature of the irreconcilable differences and unbridgeable gap separating those of us with the wisdom, humility and courage to understand and accept the tragic view of humanity and those of us who, in the name of some sick utopian fantasy of power and control, would literally remake human nature to suit their dreams - with everything that implies, and in the face of the monstrous failures that history has so clearly shown. If history and even a modicum of understanding human nature teaches us anything at all, it is that the real struggle is as old as humanity itself; that is, the struggle between those who claim the right to dictate the terms of existence to everyone else, and those of us who recognize that no such 'right' exists. It's a freedom thing, you see.
The West's current conflict with the cruel and intolerant culture of Islam has served to highlight the ongoing struggle within our own culture. It is chilling to realize that the proximate goals of the Islamic world and the utopian, Gramscian Left are essentially the same: the destruction of Western culture along with a sizeable portion of its population, and its replacement with an authoritarian regime and the subjugation of the remaining populace. If this scenario seems, well, a little extreme to you, take a moment to consider the rise of totalitarian regimes in the last century, and the oceans of blood and mountains of corpses they left in the wake of their cruel trajectory through history. But, as Huntington has so recently reminded us, the conflict between those with the tragic view of the universe and those with utopian dreams is the struggle of this time. And the front line of that struggle is no farther from you than the nearest public school. This is where the Founders' original notion of egalitarianism - that of equal and unfettered opportunity to make of oneself what one will according to one's desires and abilities, and equality before the law - has been replaced with a an egalitarianism that seeks to equalize resources and the human condition. Where free will, government by consent of the governed and the rights of the individual were paramount in the Founders' aims, coercion, suppression of dissent, lies and the hatred of the competent are the stock and trade of today's liberal socialist egalitarian. Differences of opinion and varying interests are seen as evidence of deviance from the current orthodoxy that must be stamped out by the authorities. A culture in which individual choice is respected has no place in the Orwellian ambitions of the Left - rather, an enlightened elite will reconstruct our values and beliefs according to the current politically correct standards. These egalitarians - well-meaning or otherwise - aren't merely interested in ameliorating existing wrongs - they seek to transform human beings as we know them. What they seek is not a just a matter of economic adjustment, but also the transformation - and subjugation - of the inner self to their ideals. Having abandoned any semblance of spiritual values, these re-makers of Man worship in the church of their own perfectionist faith. Demons dance on their empty altars. Never, never forget that the prime tenet of their faith is that Western culture in general and our society in particular must be destroyed before it can be 'reformed' in their image and ideal. Elitism and arbitrary power - unaccountable and always above the law - are the natural climate and the consequences of such a worldview.
Now, if that seems extreme to you, you have only to consider the Stalinist cast of the political correctness that dominates our higher institutions of learning, or the shouting down of invited speakers whose views differ from the ruling Marxist multicultural orthodoxy in those same institutions. Turn around and take a look at the wholesale revision of history that has taken place in our children's textbooks - the Seattle public school system uses Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States as their standard text book - a litany of America's sins real and imagined coupled with a complete and utter disregard for the miracle of human freedom that the founding and history of this nation truly represents. Understand that the Koran is compulsory reading in the same schools in which any mention of Christianity is ruthlessly suppressed and punished.
Finally, the immediate lesson learned from recent events is that our enemies despise us not for anything in particular that we might have done - they hate us and seek our subjugation (and failing that, our destruction) simply because of who we are and what our civilization represents. Our children have learned the most important of the three 'Rs':
Recognize the intolerant views and lies of the Left
Reject those same values and lies
Resist those who promulgate them with every means at their disposal
Hanson's works, while of high intellectual order, are models of clarity and his straight talk is a refreshing antidote to the politicallyy correct orthodoxy that rules our academia. His ideas and his presentation are not beyond the grasp of a reasonably well-educated teenager. As the line from the song says, "Teach your children well"
No one else will.
Physical work, close acquaintance with the poor, and affinity for the innate dangers that confront millions of Americans are all a complete mystery to many of he most vocal critics of America in this current conflict; those who do not disk the south forty, hammer nails, or pump out cesspools, it seemed to me, had a greater propensity (not to mention more time) to ponder the legal ramifications of trying John Walker Lindh
I've done everything from manual labor to skilled labor to running small businesses- the last thing I did was drive a wrecker, where if you don't always watch the road, and think ahead very carefully, you can get real dead real quick.
I have the utmost regard for the people who do the "real" work of America- load & drive the trucks, harvest the fields, wait the tables. They are what holds the country together.
On the opposite side, people who mostly "sit and think" or "sit and run their mouths," while often very nice people, if you swept them off the face of the Earth-- it wouldn't make much difference to everyday life.
You can almost judge the worth of his work by the number of outraged liberals and leftists responding in the review section. The ad-hominems fly thick and fast, a sure indicator that Hanson is dead on.
Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Livy, Homer, Virgil, Augustine, are all dangerous books. No matter how much you spin and twist them, they have a way of speaking for themselves and making you think. So let's substitute a bunch of multicultural trash and lightweight novels instead.
I wasn't around after Pearl Harbor, but I can't imagine half (or more) of the populace siding with the Japanese a year later (even in the silence of their own thoughts). That's precisely what we have today, and it's not silent; it's loud and clear, and in your face. The numbers and the audacity of the anti-Americans here at home almost guarantees that more and more future attacks will occur on US soil. We've had presidents with lower favorability ratings that the jihadists, were one to believe the mainstream media and the folks in academia.
I believe most of these people won't even skip a beat when the sleepers start their stuff.
In this regard, the left and Islam are indistinguishable.
Fox is just about the only place you'l lsee an ycoverage at all. After all, a popular revolt against a corrupt Communist and Castro butt-boy like Chavez is hardly worth the lamestream media's notice is it? Can't have our darlings on the Left looking bad now, can we?
Drop by if you get a chance.
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