America today is facing what Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) called a tipping point: if President Obama’s socialist agenda is implemented, America will be on the path to total statist takeover. This takeover has been going on for a century though, as leftist politicians have encouraged a culture of entitlement throughout the nation.
Rep. Ryan argued at last week’s Heritage Foundation Bloggers’ Briefing that the only way to end this culture of entitlements and handouts is to talk to the youth. No one can tell the elderly that their benefits will be cut, but we can talk to the youth and make sure that they understand the issues. If young people are willing to embrace the principles our nation was founded on, America does have a chance, Rep. Ryan said.
However, one problem stands in the way of this: public schools.
“The schools are terrible on this front,” Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation said, also at the Bloggers’ Briefing. He remarked that his only consolation is that at least kids aren’t learning the fascio-communist principles their teachers are conveying in the classroom. “They’re not learning the bad stuff when they go to these schools,” Spalding said, arguing that Americans have an “instinctive” understanding of and pride in America.
“Having said that, we have to put these things into perspective,” Spalding said. “A lot of the things we’re looking at, how these ideas are taught, themselves are longer-term reactions to the political debate. A lot of the reason these schools have been lost is because liberalism intellectually with the elite has so triumphed that [constitutional] ideas aren’t taken seriously.” Spalding went on to claim that in his experience, “most high school teachers… want to teach this stuff. Most students are interested in American history. This is a public debate among the American people; if you win that debate it is going to affect [society] down into the schools.”
But not everyone is waiting for conservatives to win the public debate. Some people, like Dr. Lee Edwards, also of the Heritage Foundation, are working hard to educate youth despite the negative influences of leftist public schools. Dr. Edwards argued that there is an “imperative need for education in our schools about principles; we think there is a necessity—an urgent necessity—for education, for information, that talks about what Communism was, and is.” To this end, Dr. Edwards has recently created an online Global Museum on Communism, which can be an effective tool for teaching people of all ages the truth about America and about Marxist principles. Dr. Edwards is also creating a series of curricula that parents and teachers can use to educate their children on the truths about communism.
America’s youth have a lot of hard work before them—either hard work in making America a free republic again, or hard work funding the socialist-communist ideals of people like President Obama. Either way, something must be done about public school neglect of these ideas and principles. If America’s youth are to make a difference here, they must understand what’s going on.
Allie Winegar Duzett is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
