A Time For Choosing

Glenn Reynolds links to a round up of Galt-related quotes from the web. The site he links to has a rotating series of quotes in its own header. This below from Reagan's A Time For Choosing was the one displayed when I clicked in. Read it. 

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."

This idea -- that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power -- is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

I know how I and many of my friends would answer that. But I'm not one-hundred percent confident I can answer that question for a growing portion of America today, including among some of our youngest voters. Do they still teach the American Revolution straight up in public schools today? I hope so, but, again, I'm just not sure.

I wish I was sure. And I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Comments

[Steve]

Nice post! Would you like a Link Exchange with our new blog COMMON CENTS where we blog about the issues of the day?

http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com

[Stephen Gordon]

Thanks for the link and glad you like the quotes.

I'm currently reading David McCullough's "John Adams," and was struck by his opening to the first chapter:

"You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you, an inactive spectator. . . . We have too many high sounding words, but too few actions that correspond with them." -- Abigail Adams to John Adams while he was "on the road" fighting for our freedom.

Hopefully, some of your readers will carry these words home with them.

[allison]

No, they don't teach the American Revolution straight up. They make our heroes into monsters. Telling kids how Jefferson was a hypocrite slaveowner and exploiter of black women. Telling kids about our war crimes. Telling kids about how our constitution was racist from the beginning.

[TomT]

Noone has ever sucessfully explained to me how people who are too stupid and helpless to take care of themselves are smart enough to elect individuals that will take care of them. Once you understand that contradiction, you understand how tyrannies come to past around the world.

[Rick]

I understand how unsure you are. I cannot reach my son-in-law about these topics. Yet, he lives a very conserative life: family, home, job. At 30 years of age he owns, without a mortgage, his own home. We need to look very hard at our education system to understand the mind set of our young.

[Xerocky]

"Do they still teach the American Revolution straight up in public schools today?"

History in the United States has had a top down makeover by Howard "the liar" Zinn.

[syn]

"We need to look very hard at our education system to understand the mind set of our young."

Agreed. I advocate bankrupting the Universities and ending protectionist tenure; there should be no reason why failing Professors indoctrinating stupidity should be allowed to thrive.

If parents really care about their children's future they should pull their college kids out of school, bankrupt the corrupt system so it can be rebuilt with pluralism. For example, Law Professors are the protected class, they have no experience in reality, they have no competitive spirit, they make up rights where none exist, they consider their wisdom superior because they're NEVER challenged, they only know how to act before a captive audience too fearful to confront the Professor's ignorance.

To save our educational system we must end the indoctrination and revive pluralism; bankrupt the universities and end protectionist tenure.

US Universities are failures and failures cannot be bailed out.

[Peter]

Here's what they're teaching:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2504

[mary]

If you look at the businesses that are growing, every month it is the government and education. Both two great rackets.