In a recent poll conducted by a cable news network students at Harvard University were asked who they see as a greater threat to world peace, ISIS or the United States. The number of students asked are a bit unclear, but the idea that any of them would consider the U.S. a greater threat to world peace and stability than ISIS is repugnant.
Critical thinking is a good thing, there’s not enough of it these days. Forgetting where you live, forgetting how the freedoms you are blessed with were attained, through the sacrifices made by others, is a horse of a different color. Freedom of Speech, an inalienable right guaranteed under the Constitution is only possible because men, and women made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve it. Comparing this country to a group of radical Jihadists spits on the memory of all who gave up their lives so that you might live yours in relative peace and security. Can’t help but wonder if they’d be so bold in countries like Iran, Egypt, China or North Korea, some how I think they’d be a bit more respectful.
It kind of makes you wonder what these children are being taught inside the hallowed halls of Harvard. In his book “The Naked Communist” published in 1958, Cleon Skousen a former FBI agent lays out the Marxist-Leninist geopolitical strategy of undermining the U.S. democratic system. He presents a list of 45 goals that must be achieved in order for the strategy to work, number 17 on the list reads as follows;” Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.”
Now,this article certainly isn’t saying that the classrooms at one of the nations beacons of educational enlightenment have been infiltrated by slick talking pinko’s with designs on subverting the patriotism of little Johnny and Jeannie. It is saying perhaps some of the trillions spent on strengthening the military since the end of World War II might have been put to better use strengthening the U.S. educational system, from the ground up. Just take a look at where the U.S. ranks worldwide in education, the numbers are abysmal.
Depending on which statistics you choose to put value in the U.S. ranks well into the 20’s when it comes to the three R’s. reading, riting, and rithmatic. I use the incorrect spelling here for emphasis and irony. I was one of the lucky ones who passed through the educational system before it began it’s epic fall from grace. It’s easy to point the finger at local, city and state agencies for sure, but in the end it falls at the feet of out of touch parents. That’s another story for another time. My point is we may be capable of laying waste militarily to any other country in the world but, when it comes to out-thinking another country we are in serious trouble.
In a world gone mad,where political correctness trumps common sense, where expressing an honest opinion is regarded almost as a mental illness, I applaud the students who dared to speak their mind. The question is are they expressing their’s or are they regurgitating what they hear in the classroom. There is nothing wrong with questioning government policy, this nation was founded by radical thinkers who dared to question and challenge but, in the end the ultimate goal, freedom from a tyrannical oppression was achieved by the forgotten hero’s who laid down their lives.
Jefferson, Franklin and other’s of their ilk spent the revolution cloistered in relative safety, out of the line of fire. Their noble ideals were attained only because they convinced others the cause was just. Since those times millions of Americans have made the same sacrifice in the name of maintaining our way of life, with all it’s shortcomings and each of it’s glorious accomplishments.
Maybe, just maybe some of these misguided students should spend some time in Syria and Iraq. I can’t help but wonder what their opinion would be after getting a first hand taste of life under the sword of Islamic Jihadists. I think they’d have a much different opinion when they get back to the United States.
Who is it that these Islamic groups target for recruitment? The uneducated, the easily swayed, the ones who were taught to believe that the country they live in isn’t worth defending or believing in. It’s time to put some of the money earmarked for military expenditures into our educational system, too many young Americans are falling by the wayside.
