DriveThru – Get What You Need

At last! We’ve discovered the secret behind the vast conspiracy to keep facts out of schools about the Founding Fathers and their beliefs in the benefits of faith, freedom and free enterprise: We now have proof that students who lack knowledge about these basic facts are more likely to form left-wing viewpoints!    

 Just kidding. Well, sort of.

“College Makes Students More Liberal, but Not Smarter About Civics,” reports a headline in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The article cited results of a study released this Wednesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Among other things, the study explains that someone who graduates from college is more likely to “favor same-sex marriage and favor abortion on demand” than someone who shares similar background characteristics, but who doesn’t graduate from college.

However, gaining “civic knowledge—as opposed to merely graduating from college—increases a person’s beliefs in American ideas and free institutions.” Among other things, a person with greater civic knowledge is more likely to understand the benefits of “free enterprise” and the relevance of the Ten Commandments.

Interestingly—on the very same day of this report—data was also released from the Pew Research Center detailing information on the Millennial generation ( people born after 1980). “In their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life …” summarized the Pew report.  (Young adults are defined as ages 18-29).

They are also more  accepting of “bigger” government. And “less than half of adults under age 30 say that religion is very important in their lives.”  

These revelations should give us all pause—and make us consider the long-term cost of steeping an entire generation of students in the philosophy that they are nothing more than an accident of nature, that they have no higher destiny than to give into their most basic instincts and that there is nothing special about living in America, nothing costly about the freedom we enjoy.

Christian conservatives on the Texas education board have found themselves under the microscope of  The New York Times.  In its magazine edition, the Times spent no less than 10 pages trying to dissect their motivations and beliefs.

So what’s with this newfound interest in Christians?

 It all boils down to this: Conservatives on the school board have dared to challenge secularist-leaning, politically correct, America-is-the-capitalistic-oppressor portrayals in the classroom, and instead are trying to give teachers the freedom to acknowledge the country’s accomplishments and its Judeo-Christian heritage.

So why is everyone in a tizzy?

Well, as they say, just follow the money: Of all the states, Texas has the most influence over the nationwide textbook market. With a $22 billion education fund, Texas uses a portion of that money “to buy or distribute 48 million textbooks annually,” reported the Times, rightfully concluding that the state could have significant influence over what children elsewhere in the nation see in print in their classrooms.

Now the alarm bells are raised especially high because the Texas State Board of Education is about to finalize adoption of social and history standards that will be effective for at least 10 years. Add to that furor, the fact that socially conservative board members dared to win a few battles acknowledging certain basic things about our nation’s history—like that we celebrate Christmas and that “religion (and virtue) contributed to the growth of representative government…”

What’s interesting about this article, though, is that despite some of the usual bias, the reporter acknowledged some unpopular facts, such as:

• “There is, however, one slightly awkward issue for hard-core secularists who would combat what they see as a Christian whitewashing of American history: the Christian activists have a certain amount of history on their side.”
• “Christian activists argue that American-history textbooks basically ignore religion—to the point that they distort history outright—and mainline religious historians tend to agree with them on this.”
• “The public seems to agree. Polls on some specific church-state issues—government financing for faith-based organizations and voluntary prayer in public schools—consistently show majorities in favor of those positions. “

What’s so encouraging about this is that even a traditionally liberal mag like the Times must acknowledge that the majority of Americans don’t actually want their kids to be force-fed secularist doctrines. Nor do they want teachers to censor objective facts about our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

While Saturday night’s 60-39 vote to move the health care bill forward was disappointing, all is not lost. 

Americans have all this week, while their senators are home for the Thanksgiving break, to contact local offices and urge their senators to vote NO on the 60-vote hurdle coming up after the holiday.  Did we mention the bill still includes federal funding of elective abortion? Yes, it does.  And we now know that the “reform” will cost far more than the $849 billion that the Dems are touting.  

So eat a lot of turkey this Thanksgiving, and while you’re at it, make a quick phone call to your senators’ local offices and say “vote NO” on the next health care vote coming up.  Just go here, type in your zip code, and then click on your senators’ names to find the contact information for their state offices.  Quick and easy.