What would you say is the percentages of young Americans who believe that America is:
EXCEPTIONAL?
How many young Americans 18-29 think America:
STANDS ABOVE OTHER COUNTRIES?
How many of the youngest of us think that America is:
THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD
90%? 75%? 50%?
You may or may not be shocked to hear that the findings from a very recent and comprehensive poll determined that:
15%
15%! Of young people ages 18-29 think that America:
STANDS ABOVE OTHER COUNTRIES AS THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD
15%.
In other words, approximately 1 out of 7 young Americans have any real appreciation for what America has been, and what it is. 15%!
That lack of understanding and appreciation comes from, many think, what is taught in our schools and in our culture. Hear the words of what a Denver metropolitan college professor is reported to have lectured to his students:
“Americans are very racist: we’re repressive, we’re very Christian-oriented, we don’t tolerate other kinds of thinking in this country. I could go on and on, and I do, in my classes!”
For this college professor, students reported, America is “very racist.” No facts, just general allegations. And America is repressive without of course any indication of who we are repressing. And perhaps the biggest problem in America is that we are very Christian-oriented. Perhaps the good professor has forgotten American history and how deeply rooted the Christian religion is in the history of this great country and we don’t tolerate other kinds of thinking in this country, are you kidding? We tolerate so much other kinds of thinking in America that we really don’t know what to believe! Especially thinking which, like common core, would rewrite the history of this great country in a way to suit the new politically correct thinking. I sure would like to meet this college professor and let him know my thinking about him, and his views the old-fashioned way. Why are we the people forced to hire, tenure and pay men like this to skew their ugly bias in our classrooms?
It was reported that an English teacher at Chapin High School in South Carolina allegedly trampled his feet all over an American flag in class, telling his students:
“This is a symbol, but it’s only a piece of cloth. IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING!”
The statement was reported by the Young America’s Foundation. The American Flag doesn’t mean anything? To so many people, especially those who died in the service and defense of this great country:
IT MEANS EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING!
It’s not only not just a piece of cloth, it’s a fundamental and essential piece of life. That is what our stars and stripes represent. It sure does that for me. Does it for you?
Five students at Adolfo Camarillo High School wore American Flag headbands to the school’s basketball game. Politically correct administrators, so the Young America’s Foundation reported, told the students that patriotic paraphernalia could be seen as “OFFENSIVE.” The students begin cheering:
USA-USA-USA!
And were subsequently suspended by this politically correct administration. Fortunately for their lawyers, the suspension was later suspended. Small wonder only 15% of these young Americans (18-29) think that America is exceptional, special or stands above other nations, as our forefathers did.
It seems as though much of the next generation, our future, is taught not only to have distrust of this great country and its institutions, but outright contempt for them. And of course, President Barack Hussein Obama piles on. In a speech at Selma, Alabama, Obama told the young audience that the United States of America that it was slaves who built the White House. That gay Americans blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, so again reported Young America’s Foundation. Obama joins with 90% of academia, professors who are liberal to the core and often radically against all that America is and stands for. Tragically, we the people reap what we sow and we are sowing seeds of contempt and disrespect for this great country deep in the minds and hearts of our young people, our future and the day will come, perhaps far sooner than we think, when this new generation, at least 85% of them, will have little or no interest in protecting and defending the values, culture, lifestyle and freedoms of this great country.
Some 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan stated:
“Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children.”
UNAMBIVALENT APPRECIATION! No conditions. No qualifications. No ambivalence. Only the sincerest appreciation possible of this great country, that and only that is “THE RIGHT THING TO TEACH MODERN CHILDREN.” Is that what you teach your children? Is that what you believe? Do you, do all of us we the people have an unambivalent appreciation for this great country, its incredible freedoms, and the way we live? Do we?
Ronald Reagan also reminded the world of America that his generation, and my generation after were “taught, very directly, what it means to be an American.” And hear these fantastic Reagan words my fellow Americans:
“We absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.”
Political poetry at its best. We of an older generation were indeed taught right, and we did indeed understand and appreciate American and its institutions and we developed instinctively, as it were genetically, a love, A LOVE for this great country, a love till death do us part. We were one with our founding fathers who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to this great country and its institutions. For us, the older, it is shocking that the younger 18-29 Americans, 85% of them, think there is nothing exceptional about America. We know that America is exceptional and we want to keep this REPUBLIC in its every Democratic way and that starts with the classroom. Fundamental change must occur in America’s classrooms from the kindergarten to the grad school, and especially at the college and university levels. It is time for us to teach “an informed patriotism,” the truth of that, the whole truth and nothing but that truth for the sake of our Republic. Otherwise, as Ben Franklin has so wisely stated, we will surely not be able to keep this Republic and its precious freedoms.
It just seems unfair that the world of education, private and public, is either supported by America taxpayer dollars or philanthropic giving. We the people, whether required through taxation or charitably through giving pay for and support of education at every level. And we get education, teaching and an entire learning syndrome which is so often riddled with bias and even as Young American’s Foundation has well stated, spewing hatred and disrespect for America, and its values. We pay for that! We allow teachers and professors so-called ACADEMIC FREEDOM which allows individual professorial bias and prejudice to spew forth in the classroom. Freedom of speech in that classroom is so often denied. Those students who dare to think for themselves and disagree are often ridiculed or worse, punished by academia and its administrations. Speech of a different color is branded hate speech and consequently therefore wrong, simply wrong. To disagree is to be hateful. To champion conservative values is racist, bigoted. To dare to challenge abortion or the so-called female freedom of choice is to be labeled a misogynist. To challenge the gay agenda on moral of biological grounds is to spew hate and bigotry of the worst kind. Small wonder that so many students at every age are intimidated, cowered and even threatened. Conservative speech is mocked, ridiculed and the speakers often harassed and in some cases physically assaulted. To be truly conservative is to be ostracized so often in this aggressive attempt to excise free conservative speech from the public square.
Yet another example. San Diego City politicians dared to politically restrict the use of the term:
FOUNDING FATHERS
These politically correct, even radical politicians-rulers thought the term sexist no matter how deeply rooted the term was in our revolutionary and constitutional eras. We have always referred, historically, to those who gave us our incredible Constitution as FATHERS who founded this great country in terms of its principles, institutions, values and freedoms. The term is one of endearment and respect with considerable historical significance, but no matter about that to the all-wise San Diego ultra-liberal politicians. Fortunately, there was an outcry from the public, so much so that the radicals backed off and the Founding Fathers restored to their historical position of respect. Yet just another example of the rabid attempt at deconstruction of American history.
Think for a moment, my fellow Americans, about World War I and World War II. Think of those loyal and passionate, red-blooded Americans who gave their lives for this great country and for:
YOU AND ME
It is estimated that as many as 70 million people died in World War II. Probably more. Among them were millions of Americans. Surely, there were those Americans who came from your family and friends, were there not? Men and women in your heritage, your lineage, who only wanted to live a long life of freedom and blessing which this great country offered. But realizing all that mattered was a stake, and there were those the world over who wished the end of America, they gladly stepped up and offered their lives in the defense of this great country. You and your family paid a price in order to protect, preserve and defend America. You should never forget that or them. You and I have a human investment in this great country, lives given in the cause of freedom. Those soldiers from our families were heroes and our classrooms should teach that fact to this, our younger generation. They the young should know why they have the privilege of learning, of university, of opportunity and they should be taught everywhere and at every level:
AN UNAMBIVALENT APPRECIATION
Of this great country and all that it stands for. That passion should have us work together to solve our problems, internally and externally. We should maximize and perfect those freedoms. We should work together, with one common Constitutional core, to:
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
No matter the naysayers, we should champion American exceptionalism and we should recognize in so many ways that America is the greatest nation in the history of mankind. I, knowing something about history, firmly and fully believe. DO YOU?
Those freedoms of ours, those Constitutional freedoms and rights are under challenged as never before. Not only externally, with fanatics and lunatics like ISIS, but internally as well. Those rights, especially First Amendment rights are eroded and attacked internally, in classrooms, in the seats of political power, by the indifference of families where all that is right about America is seldom taught, by a rampant so-called diversity which champions differences rather than commonalities. Americans are hyphenated, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Chinese-Americans rather than AMERICANS who are Asian, Irish, Italian but all:
AMERICANS FIRST
It is time now more than ever for a renewed PATRIOTISM. There must be a new respect, even a reverence for our institutions, traditions, foundations, morals and values for they will, we will, our Republic will be lost once and for all and forever. I personally find the words of Ronald Reagan haunting. President Reagan said the following:
“Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”
Powerful, incredibly powerful words. You and I of an older generation, older than 18-29 have known freedom, have fought for it, protected and defended it, lived by it and loved it. We are determined never to lose it for we would not know how to live without it. We are like Patrick Henry of old who said:
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!
We, older Americans, can not live any other way but a free way and death is preferable indeed to life without freedom.
I grieve for an American generation 18-29 which has been taught and has come to believe that America is not exceptional. That the freedoms we enjoy are not unique. That America does not standalone in so many ways for if America is of that little value to them, that generation, those who will take over for us, will simply not give their all to protect and defend what America stands for. America lost, a Republic gone down, democracy fading and eroding, are the freedoms we the people will never know again. Don’t let that happen my fellow Americans. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN!
Reclaim the classrooms. Let us find a way to get rid of the teachers and professors who would denigrate this great country, refer to us out there as racist, far too Christian, sexist and so much else. RECLAIM THE CLASSROOMS! And even much more importantly, reclaim the hearts and minds of the younger generation, 18-29, and in fact all Americans. Let us be witnesses to:
PATRIOTISM BORN AGAIN
Let us, the older generation, inspire the revival of our freedoms, pride in our past and passion for our future. WE who love America should be the leaders, the teachers by word and by example. If we do not protect and defend America, no one will.
I for one have always had and always will have:
AN UNAMBIVALENT APPRECIATION
For America with all of my heart and soul. I do hope and pray that you have the same and feel the same way.
If you and I don’t, America 18-29 never will!