Everyone expects the first week of school to contain some hiccups. Even though we all know that our children are perfect angels and would never give their teachers trouble, the transition to schedules and classmates can also contain behavior problems that mom and dad will eventually hear about.
What most parents don’t expect to hear, however, is that their child got into trouble for good manners. Continue reading
I had the privilege of attending a flagging event yesterday (9/2/18) at Silent Sam’s pedestal on the UNC-CH campus with some folks from out-of-state. Most of them, I believe, were from South Carolina, and at least one was from Georgia; good folks, all of them, and I enjoyed being there. We could have used more North Carolinians, and in a way, the lack of fellow North Carolinians inspired this article. Things went smoothly for the most part. There were a few snide remarks mumbled by passers-by, but that was as out-of-hand as it got.
I did get the chance to talk to, and try to educate, a few people who stopped to ask questions. Continue reading
NOTE: From a personal standpoint I learned much of the following at a very young age while going to elementary school – in the North. Be advised – what you are about to read is the last posting I intend on devoting to Lincoln. If you choose to roll your eyes at this point – then you will never understand – and you have become a full-fledged victim of indoctrination. What you are about to read is the coup de gras on this TRAITOR to all that this nation was founded upon and once stood for. ~ JB
President Lincoln has been all but deified in America, with a god-like giant statue at a Parthenon-like memorial in Washington. Generations of school children have been indoctrinated with the story that “Honest Abe” Lincoln is a national hero who saved the Union and fought a noble war to end slavery, and that the “evil” Southern states seceded from the Union to protect slavery. This is the Yankee myth of history, written and promulgated by Northerners, and it is a complete falsity. It was produced and entrenched in the culture in large part to gloss over the terrible war crimes committed by Union soldiers in the War Between the States, as well as Lincoln’s violations of the law, his shredding of the Constitution, and other reprehensible acts. It has been very effective in keeping the average American ignorant of the real causes of the war, and the real nature, character and record of Lincoln. Let us look at some unpleasant facts. Continue reading
There is a tendency for each generation to assume its opinions are the ultimate correct opinions. But each generation’s beliefs are typically modified by succeeding generations. Unfortunately, societal structures are sometimes altered based on contemporary notions that lose credence over time. This is the case with Social Justice Warriors in this generation. They demand that whatever doesn’t suit present-day social theories must be “eliminated.”
One of the justifications for this cultural cleansing is this generation’s historical interpretation of the War Between the States (WBTS). Some assume that this current version – moral opposition to slavery caused the North to fight the South – has a long-standing consensus among historians. But this is only one of countless interpretations historians have produced over the years. Various historians, writing at different times and places, have created diverse interpretations of the WBTS. These history reinterpretations are often influenced by major events occurring in later generations. Continue reading
Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson
They tore another Confederate statue down. A mob of misinformed lawless miscreants in North Carolina, ignorant of history but allowed to alter history. Violating law and allowed to do so by gutless local authorities guarding not history or law but their positions and municipal pensions.
Where is the concern for facts or even the greater concern for a destruction of national identity conducted by the uneducable twenty-year-olds? Continue reading
Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813), a Scottish jurist and historian, provides an explanation for why great societies do not survive for more than 200 years:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship (bondage).”
Our forefathers founded the United States of America as a republic and not a democracy to avoid this existential threat. So, what happened? Continue reading
Grant defeated Lee, the Confederacy crumbled, and the idea of secession disappeared forever, or at least that’s what the conventional wisdom says. Secession is no historical irrelevance. Quite the contrary, the topic is integral to classical liberalism. Indeed, the right of secession follows at once from the basic rights defended by classical liberalism. As even Macaulay’s schoolboy knows, classical liberalism begins with the principle of self-ownership: each person is the rightful owner of his or her own body.
Together with this right, according to classical liberals from Locke to Rothbard, goes the right to appropriate unowned property. In this view, government occupies a strictly ancillary role. It exists to protect the rights that individuals possess independently — it is not the source of these rights. Continue reading
If there’s a rise in suicides and depression among young people, maybe we should be looking at the philosophy being promoted everywhere that influences kids.
Rates of teenage depression and suicide in America are rising. Attempts to explain this increase have centered around ideas that are now pervasive in academia and entertainment media: identity politics, victim-culture, the unearned “self-esteem movement,” and the dreaded post-modernism (as it applies to philosophy and the humanities, not the arts).
I contend that a lot of these ideas ultimately serve to destabilize young people’s sense of their own individuality and wreck their ability to deal with reality in ways that are most likely to leave them depressed and despondent. Continue reading
When given the opportunity to make choices about which school their child attends, parents are quite competent.
As back-to-school time approaches, parents are bracing for school-related trauma. The threat of bullying, violence, school shootings, and mental health maladies looms large as a new school year emerges. A 2018 PDK poll found that one-third of parents are concerned about their child’s safety at school, a sharp jump in recent years. And it’s not just peer harassment that worries parents. The Miami-Herald reported last month that an experienced teacher who was named “teacher of the year” this year in Florida, was caught on video calling a kindergartener a “loser.”
Some parents are fed up. They want options other than a mandatory, assigned district school. Continue reading
Here’s what I discoveredI spent the past week at a camp teaching teens about the legislative process. Among other things, the teens learned about American history, government, and worldview, while also role-playing as senators, representatives, and media. The week ended with a final debate on the house floor of the Minnesota Capitol. Here are five interesting things I noticed throughout the week.
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~ Foreward ~
Since the election of 2016, and the (s)election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, there has been a constant barrage of accusations regarding Russian involvement in the intervention of said election. That which you are about to read would more than indicate involvement by the Russians in a previous age of American history. ~ Ed
At the point of maximum war danger between Great Britain and the United States, the London satirical publication Punch published a vicious caricature of US President Abraham Lincoln and Russian Tsar Alexander II, demonizing the two friends as bloody oppressors. – From Punch, October 24, 1863.
April 2011 marked the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War, which began when Confederate forces opened fire upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The following essay by Webster Tarpley, tells about the largely untold alliance between President Abraham Lincoln and Russian Tsar Alexander II, which by many accounts was key to the North winning the U.S. Civil War, sealing the defeat of the British strategic design.~ Ed.
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Silent Sam, the statue on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was gleefully pulled from its pedestal by a mob, August 20th. Former alumni, as well as citizens across the state, were outraged at the lawless act and the justifications given for it.
Two days later, August 23rd, the North Carolina Historical Commission rejected Governor Roy Cooper’s request to relocate three Confederate monuments on state Capitol grounds. The Commission opted instead to provide contextualization signage and raise funds for constructing and erecting African-American monuments. Continue reading
Some of you may get angry at me for what I am about to say. Some of you may feel insulted. I don’t care; if I did, I wouldn’t say it. If you have either reaction and decide, because of your reaction, not to finish reading this article, understand that you will only be proving what I say to be true.
Those of you who participate in, or support, the “removal” of Confederate Monuments because you believe them to be monuments to “white supremacists” are ignorant, uneducated, indoctrinated fools. Now, you can prove me right, and remain ignorant, uneducated, indoctrinated fools, or you can finish reading this article and possibly break free of those chains. By all means, feel free to check my facts, you might learn something. Continue reading
There’s always something thrilling about the start of a new school year or semester. New clothes to wear. Fresh books to explore. New teachers to meet. It’s all become a part of what we call back-to-school and the education experience.
Of course, many of us will quickly agree that the new books and clothes aren’t really what matter. It is the ideas we learn and the schooling we get that make the real difference both in the present and in the future. Continue reading
NOTE: this is one of those posts which will please some and anger others, however to offer the good, the bad and the ugly – as we have promised to do – we post the following to demonstrate a mind-set within the education system – and more – from outside of it. We would like to witness this author teaching in a classroom. ~ Ed.
In the fall of 2014, hundreds of high school students in Jefferson County, Colorado, walked out of class to protest their newly elected conservative school board’s proposed curriculum-review committee calling for the promotion of “positive aspects” of the United States and its heritage and the avoidance of material encouraging “civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.” The proposed committee was also to be charged with ensuring that Advanced Placement (AP) US History materials “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights.” Continue reading
It was a news item that came and went with barely a ripple. And yet, it should have set off sirens and red-light alarms all across the country.
“America’s top liberal arts schools skip U.S. history,” the headline read. “Of the 29 top-ranked liberal arts colleges,” reported Fox News, “only the United States Air Force Academy, the United States Military Academy, and the United States Naval Academy require a survey course in American history.”
And why should the alarms have sounded? Continue reading
When we talk about the future of this very nation, nothing is more important that making sure that our children value education of one type or another.
This doesn’t mean that every young boy and girl is cut out for Harvard, Yale, or a Vanderbilt. In today’s reality, vocational education is more important than ever with a coming shortage of machinists, welders, and fabricators on the horizon. Continue reading