02-14-2010, 12:14 AM
February 11, 2010
Exclusive: Weâre the BestTom McLaughlin
A few months ago, the Language Arts teacher in the next classroom asked the following question for a writing assignment: âIs the United States the best country in the world?â Only about 25 percent of our students thought so. We used to teach that to schoolchildren, but now they grow up hearing more about slavery and killing Indians than the ideals spelled out in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution with its Bill of Rights. Itâs those documents that make us the best. We will remain so as long as we abide by them.
I asked the 75 percent who said the United States wasnât the best, which country they thought was better. Although nobody could name one, they were certain it couldnât possibly be us. For months Iâve been wondering why. There are several possible reasons, and most originated in the 1960s. My generation of baby boomers â the one most famous for rebelling against their parents generation as all generations do â never grew up. If it had, it would have realized that utopia is only a dream â that humans are imperfect and always will be this side of the grave.
I watched a PBS fundraiser last week with Pete Seeger and his fellow leftists performing 1960s songs like âBlowing In the Windâ and âIf I Had A Hammer.â Theyâre nice tunes and I still like them, but it occurred to me that my generation really believed it was possible to eliminate war forever.
Bob Dylan wrote and sang nice lyrics like:
âYes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?â
and
âYes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?â
Pete Seeger wrote and sang nice lyrics like:
âIt's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this landâ
Yahoo Answers asked about the meaning of âIf I Had A Hammerâ and picked the following as the best explanation:
âIt was recorded during the early '60s as a song of enlightenment. It tells about the injustice of our society at that time, which really hasn't changed much in 40-plus years. It speaks of the effort by the then baby boomer generation, to set the world straight about freedom and justice for all people regardless of race. We're still waiting!â
Indeed. The baby boomers are still waiting. Many still believe itâs possible to ban war and death and create justice and peace everywhere, and theyâre running our universities. They control the mainstream media. A year ago, they took over the federal government. Now their savior, President Obama, goes around the world bowing to foreign leaders, apologizing for our country, and trying to redistribute our wealth.
At 91, Pete Seeger is still a communist. President Obamaâs good friend Bill Ayers claims he is a âsmall câ communist. He trains our public school teachers and writes textbooks about what they should teach. According to an article by Stanley Kurtz:
â[Ayers] believes teacher education programs should serve as âsites of resistanceâ to an oppressive system. The point, says Mr. Ayers in his âTeaching Toward Freedom,â is to âteach against oppression,â against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.â
Ayers and the University of Illinois are typical of professors and universities who train our teachers all over the country. Their âsites of resistanceâ are our public-school classrooms. Itâs almost exclusively âAmerican oppressionâ their teachers âteach againstâ rather than the communist variety, or the more recent Radical Muslim variety because thatâs what was drilled into them. Far more students are taught about Japanese internment camps in the U.S., for example, than about the Americans who died in the Bataan Death March at the hands of the Japanese in the Philippines.
Although it goes against the multicultural shibboleths purporting that all cultures are equal, I would point to strong evidence that the United States is not only the best country in the world, itâs the best country in all of recorded history â a shining city on a hill, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan called us.. The finest example would be our role in World War II. The war had been raging for years but we were reluctant to enter until attacked by the Japanese. Then we mobilized, fought on two fronts, and won against terrific odds. At warâs end, we possessed a huge military, were the only country with nuclear weapons, and the only country not damaged in battle. What did we do with that hegemony? Unique in all of history, the United States did not establish an American empire. Instead, we assisted other countries to rebuild â even our enemies â and did everything we could to preserve the autonomy in every country on earth large and small.
In the face of all that, petulant, leftist baby boomers still wring their hands and call the United States âimperialist.â I shouldnât be surprised by the way my students see their country, but I canât help being saddened and dismayed. Whenever I have the opportunity, I shall emphasize more strongly what is unique and wonderful about the United States. We remain, Abraham Lincoln described us: âThe last, best hope on earth.â
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Tom McLaughlin Tom is a history teacher and a regular weekly columnist for newspapers in Maine and New Hampshire. He writes about political and social issues, history, family, education and Radical Islam. E-mail him at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net">tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net</a><!-- e -->.
Exclusive: Weâre the BestTom McLaughlin
A few months ago, the Language Arts teacher in the next classroom asked the following question for a writing assignment: âIs the United States the best country in the world?â Only about 25 percent of our students thought so. We used to teach that to schoolchildren, but now they grow up hearing more about slavery and killing Indians than the ideals spelled out in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution with its Bill of Rights. Itâs those documents that make us the best. We will remain so as long as we abide by them.
I asked the 75 percent who said the United States wasnât the best, which country they thought was better. Although nobody could name one, they were certain it couldnât possibly be us. For months Iâve been wondering why. There are several possible reasons, and most originated in the 1960s. My generation of baby boomers â the one most famous for rebelling against their parents generation as all generations do â never grew up. If it had, it would have realized that utopia is only a dream â that humans are imperfect and always will be this side of the grave.
I watched a PBS fundraiser last week with Pete Seeger and his fellow leftists performing 1960s songs like âBlowing In the Windâ and âIf I Had A Hammer.â Theyâre nice tunes and I still like them, but it occurred to me that my generation really believed it was possible to eliminate war forever.
Bob Dylan wrote and sang nice lyrics like:
âYes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?â
and
âYes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?â
Pete Seeger wrote and sang nice lyrics like:
âIt's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this landâ
Yahoo Answers asked about the meaning of âIf I Had A Hammerâ and picked the following as the best explanation:
âIt was recorded during the early '60s as a song of enlightenment. It tells about the injustice of our society at that time, which really hasn't changed much in 40-plus years. It speaks of the effort by the then baby boomer generation, to set the world straight about freedom and justice for all people regardless of race. We're still waiting!â
Indeed. The baby boomers are still waiting. Many still believe itâs possible to ban war and death and create justice and peace everywhere, and theyâre running our universities. They control the mainstream media. A year ago, they took over the federal government. Now their savior, President Obama, goes around the world bowing to foreign leaders, apologizing for our country, and trying to redistribute our wealth.
At 91, Pete Seeger is still a communist. President Obamaâs good friend Bill Ayers claims he is a âsmall câ communist. He trains our public school teachers and writes textbooks about what they should teach. According to an article by Stanley Kurtz:
â[Ayers] believes teacher education programs should serve as âsites of resistanceâ to an oppressive system. The point, says Mr. Ayers in his âTeaching Toward Freedom,â is to âteach against oppression,â against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.â
Ayers and the University of Illinois are typical of professors and universities who train our teachers all over the country. Their âsites of resistanceâ are our public-school classrooms. Itâs almost exclusively âAmerican oppressionâ their teachers âteach againstâ rather than the communist variety, or the more recent Radical Muslim variety because thatâs what was drilled into them. Far more students are taught about Japanese internment camps in the U.S., for example, than about the Americans who died in the Bataan Death March at the hands of the Japanese in the Philippines.
Although it goes against the multicultural shibboleths purporting that all cultures are equal, I would point to strong evidence that the United States is not only the best country in the world, itâs the best country in all of recorded history â a shining city on a hill, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan called us.. The finest example would be our role in World War II. The war had been raging for years but we were reluctant to enter until attacked by the Japanese. Then we mobilized, fought on two fronts, and won against terrific odds. At warâs end, we possessed a huge military, were the only country with nuclear weapons, and the only country not damaged in battle. What did we do with that hegemony? Unique in all of history, the United States did not establish an American empire. Instead, we assisted other countries to rebuild â even our enemies â and did everything we could to preserve the autonomy in every country on earth large and small.
In the face of all that, petulant, leftist baby boomers still wring their hands and call the United States âimperialist.â I shouldnât be surprised by the way my students see their country, but I canât help being saddened and dismayed. Whenever I have the opportunity, I shall emphasize more strongly what is unique and wonderful about the United States. We remain, Abraham Lincoln described us: âThe last, best hope on earth.â
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Tom McLaughlin Tom is a history teacher and a regular weekly columnist for newspapers in Maine and New Hampshire. He writes about political and social issues, history, family, education and Radical Islam. E-mail him at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net">tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net</a><!-- e -->.