by alan Caruba
September 9, 2004
Parents of high school students would be well advised to look at "We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution", a book that is the federally mandated text for what these students learn about the founding and fundamental principles of this nation.
Some fairly lonely voices like my own have been saying that, not only has our educational system been deliberately "dumbed down" to produce students ill prepared to compete in a complex society and world, but that it is being used to mislead and corrupt a proper understanding of our political system. One would hardly think, however, that the people doing this represent our own government. Wrong. They do.
I learned about this while reading "Fed Ed: The New Federal Curriculum and How It's Enforced." Written by allen Quist and published by the Maple River Education Coalition (1402 Concordia avenue, St. Paul, MN 55104), it can be purchased for $15.00 by visiting www.EdWatch.org.
Quist raises a very important question. Why, he asks, "should the federal government be involved in authorizing and subsidizing the publishing of a high school textbook?" all others are privately published and compete for use in schools, but "We the People" does not.Moreover, only one non-government organization was given the contract, the Center for Civic Education. Since Congress did not set up any review process for the book, there is no way to know how accurate it is or whether it has a particular bias. Unless, of course, you read it!
When you do, you will discover that the "self-evident truths" of the Declaration of Independence have been magically transformed into mere "ideas" from the eighteenth century. The message is that they can be cast aside or changed in our times. It gets worse, a lot worse. When this textbook looks at the Bill of Rights, those ten amendments that are the very heart of the protections extended to individual american citizens, insuring that government cannot run rampant over them, neither the Second amendment, nor the Ninth or Tenth are even mentioned!
The Second amendment, of course, protects the right of citizens to bear arms. The Ninth and Tenth are called "reserved rights" and require the government to recognize that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The United States is a republic composed of separate and sovereign republics. The ultimate government of the United States is the people!
Naturally, Quist asks, "How can a textbook teach the meaning of constitutional government without teaching the Ninth and Tenth amendments?" and he answers, "It cannot be done."
Instead, this vile and cancerous text exists to subtly subvert our Constitutional system and our loyalty to the sovereign government of the United States of america by teaching students that they are members of a "global village" and are, in fact, "world citizens." as Quist notes, "The book is really propaganda. It is social engineering, not education. It is decidedly anti-american and anti-freedom. It is designed to indoctrinate our citizens into being willing to give away our national sovereignty and freedom, and to accept the establishment of world government, instead."
"We have met the enemy and they is us," said Pogo. Well, the enemy is definitely among us and definitely in our high school classrooms. It is your child's curriculum and it is time to demand this book's removal by writing to your congressmen, your state department of education, and your local school board.
Let me make this as clear as I can. The federal government has no business in determining the curriculum of this nation's schools! It especially has no business underwriting the publication of a book that deliberately subverts key elements of the US Constitution.
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