Missing The Lessons Of History
There is a lot of truth in the adage, “history repeats itself.” Even a pedestrian student of history understands that if we ignore the important moments of history – if we ignore the lessons of history, we both hobble ourselves to being able to capitalize on that history and doom ourselves to repeating the mistakes made in the past.
This is one reason I condemn the failure of our education system to accurately and adequately teach both US and World History. In every grade and at every level, today’s academic community actively and purposely marginalizes the accurate and complete teaching of history – especially contemporary history, in deference to ideological proselytization.
Today’s academics – and this is not to say all (my ex-wife and a few close friends who are teachers fight the good fight in cultivating critical thinking skills each and every day without indoctrinating) – have abdicated the core mission of education: cultivating in our children; in the next generation the ability to think critically and for themselves. Instead, they actively and aggressively indoctrinate their students to extreme ideologies. Outside of school these acts would very well fall inside the definition of child abuse.
But this article isn’t about the failures of our education system. It is about our failure – as a society – to educate ourselves on history, understand it, and learn from it so as to craft a better way forward.
The absolute need for all of us to rededicate ourselves to life-long learning – especially where US history and most notedly contemporary US history is concerned – returned to me in urgency after searching for some quotes on freedom. During that search I was reintroduced to one of the best political speeches ever given by someone who would one day become one of the greatest American Presidents.
The speech is 20 minutes long and is sparsely peppered with political comments more suitable to the year it was delivered, 1964, but the subjects and issues Ronald Reagan made on that day are hauntingly familiar to the troubles our nation faces today. The only difference between then and now is the magnitude of the very same problems. After listening to this speech – a video I keep in my personal library for its depth of vision, I have no doubt whatsoever you will come to the same conclusions I did:
In just 40 years we have been once again manipulated by the media and the opportunistic elected class into believing their core intent was/is to serve the people
Our nation is less free today than just 40 years ago and spiraling away from individual liberty at an alarming speed
Elitist globalism is killing our Republic
We did not learn from history
We have an election coming up in November and then a General Election in 2024 after that. We all need to be cognizant of the fact that our choices shouldn’t be between Republican and Democrat. Quite honestly, at the federal level it’s hard to tell the two parties apart but for a select few adherents to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
No, our choices this November and in 2024 – and for every election afterward from local to federal for that matter, must be litmus test votes on freedom. The people we vote for have to stand against:
Centralized government power
The continued expansion of unbridled government
Unchecked globalization
And the current penchant for believing government is the Alpha and Omega; the great equalizer; the bestower of rights
The people we vote for must stand for:
Protecting individual freedoms
Dismantling the bureaucracy (read: Deep State)
Returning the American form of government to a constitutionally balanced power as enumerated in the Constitution
Decoupling our nation from the cancerous commingling of dependent globalism
Expunging ideologically-charged social engineering from the governmental lexicon
Safeguarding our children from extremist indoctrination at the expense of cultivating in them critical thinking skills.
After listening to Reagan’s 1964 speech – and after contemplating the above criteria for your vote – can you honestly say the “D” or the “R” behind a name matters if they aren’t willing to swear to have fidelity to the nation and her people first? That’s not ideological or political. That’s a commitment to the survival of our Republic.
With China and the World Economic Forum in cahoots to elevate China’s hybrid “Capi-Communism” on the world – and all of the unaware useful idiots on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, and in other positions of manipulative power gleefully advancing their dark cause, we should be concerned about our nation’s survival.
So, let’s look beyond the “R” and the “D” and actually do our homework when we cast ballots...and do so from now on.
