Restoring Education Central to American Greatness http://davidanorris.posterous.com David A. Norris Blog posterous.com Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:21:44 -0700 Part I: Government http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-61143 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-61143

Conclusion (Part II)

 

Immortal Principles Central To Liberty and American Greatness

 

 

The tragic support for radical teacher privilege can be traced to changes in what many law students are being taught.  In the 1870s, Christopher C. Langdell, Dean of the Harvard Law School, discarded the foundational basis for law upon which greatness has been achieved in America: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…"

 

Langdell's fellow travelers are themselves victims of bad education.  According to them, no lasting absolutes upon which laws can be framed exist.  Instruction that fortifies the enemies of William Blackstone's Commentaries on Common Law is BAD education.  Blackstone's Commentaries were used by law students up through Abraham Lincoln's time.  It took several decades for the secularized instruction in law schools to compromise American jurisprudence.  The Commission on Excellence in Education emphasizes what is happening, "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."  The report laments, "the de-construct of the moral and spiritual strengths which knit together the very fabric of our society" (A Nation At Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 26, 1983).

 

"Human history records the ongoing effort by men to substitute man-made law for the [unrelenting] laws of God and creation's nature."  Laws contrived by men end in disaster because they reject the existence of moral absolutes.  The consequences of this are clearly apparent today in America.  Quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who documented the extermination of tens of millions of innocent victims in order to create a socialistic utopia in his homeland, "man has forgotten God" (quotes in this paragraph are from Understanding the Times, an exceptional resource, by David A. Noebel, Harvest House Publishers).

 

Enslavement by authoritarians' regulations and excessive taxation could not occur if Americans were being taught American history.  Renewed exposure to the God-honoring principles of the American Declaration of Independence is our most powerful weapon.  The light of truth fortifies the minds of men and women, boys and girls.  We believe these principles because they reflect the unrelenting power of creation's God.

 

We serve God.  The most significant change that came from the American war for independence is that the people were recognized by law to be sovereigns under God, over government.  Citizen self-rule replaced self-anointed authoritarians.  Government officials were recognized for what they are--servants of the people.

 

The Spiritual Awakening of 1740 through 1780 drove the selfless dedication that brought the American Revolution to a successful conclusion.  We have this promise, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).

 

 

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Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:56:37 -0700 Part I: Government http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-2233 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-2233

Conclusion (Part I)

 

Immortal Principles Central To Liberty and American Greatness

 

 

"Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal" (Dr. Benjamin Rush, Essay, 1786).

 

Our families and nation are at risk.  Where moral law ends, tyranny begins.  Some sixty years ago, public schools were still circulating the A Golden Treasury From The BIBLE pamphlet full of wholesome character-building Bible verses.  The God-rejecting secular worldview imposed upon education by control of just a few militant teachers, protected by union contract negotiators, has undoubtedly put our nation "conceived in liberty" to the ultimate test.

 

The tactics of a small group of tenured teachers have forcibly elevated sexual promiscuity, infanticide and other practices devastating to students and society to the status of education legitimacy.  Because of the tactics of secular militants, good teachers, students and even the taxpayers who pay the teachers' salaries, are afraid to object.  These few radicals have the power to totally disrupt the education process.  School administrators know this.  Teacher tenure laws, approved by current state laws, force administrators to leave bad teachers in control of the God-rejecting anti-Christian education climate.

 

This is not a strictly religious matter.  The consequences of rejecting the life-enhancing Laws of Nature are easily seen in daily experience.  Even though some parents do not give creation's God credit for life-enhancing standards, they take their children out of government public schools to avoid exposing them to evil suggestiveness.

 

What do we mean by LIBERTY?  We do not need new principles to solve our problems.  We need America; meaning, we need to advance again and apply the civic values of the American Judeo-Christian heritage.  The Preamble (purpose) for the Constitution reads to "… secure the BLESSINGS of LIBERTY to ourselves and our posterity…"  If we do not succeed in alerting our young people, our friends and others, to what the enemies of American liberty are accomplishing, there will no longer be the kind of liberty that inspires the "BLESSINGS of LIBERTY for our posterity [descendants]."  The purpose of the Constitution includes "… establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…" (meaning common needs that do not conflict with or hamper the development of the work ethic and citizen self-reliance).  If we do not succeed in alerting others, ill-advised politicians will, at the expense of taxpayers, justify benefits for voters from birth to grave.

 

 

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Tue, 12 Mar 2013 06:32:00 -0700 Part I: Government http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-57285 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-57285

American Principle Eleven (Part II)

 

Government and Union Monopolies Involving Education

Or Religion Are Prohibited--For Liberty's Sake


"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a 'redress of grievances.'"

First Amendment, Constitution of the United States

 

 

Education that does not teach the timeless Creator-based principles, outlined in the Declaration of Independence, empowers the enemies of America and the people's right to liberty from oppressive government employees.  "Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal" (Dr. Benjamin Rush, Essay, 1786; Dr. Rush was a highly regarded physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence).  Freedom from tyrants of the mind requires that government be prohibited from being a part of or permitting monopolies over education, religion and political unions.  It is the duty of government to encourage competition between them in America.

 

The Following Was Taken From Chapter Nine

 

Even though some judges are soft on crime, "One of every 100 adults are in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator," according to a new study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.  With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates" (David Crary, New York Associated Press, February 28, 2008).

Graph_for_principle_11_pic

These are merely symptoms of the consequences of the secularization of education in government schools.  Far greater damage is the hidden loss to the soul of America, including the loss of the people's discernment needed for choosing public officials.


First Amendment law, intended to prevent the suppression of the right of parents to choose between competing education suppliers for their children's education, is superior to all other laws--national, state and local.

 

 

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Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:42:00 -0800 Part I: Government http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-50006 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-50006

American Principle Eleven (Part I)

 

Government and Union Monopolies Involving Education

Or Religion Are Prohibited--For Liberty's Sake


"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a 'redress of grievances.'"

First Amendment, Constitution of the United States

 

 

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were concerned about the use of government power by what Thomas Jefferson called "Tyrants of the Mind."  Instead of government being the servant of the people, tyrants override the people's authority and gradually take control of what schools teach.  The family and the teaching of American history become early victims.  Students are dumbed down.  Secular open-minded morality and class envy divide families and communities.  Fellow travelers in the judiciary reject the historical application of First Amendment law.  In later chapters we document the inroads of harmful law.

 

Government-sanctioned teacher tenure guarantees are a violation of the First Amendment.  Privileged government teachers lead toward the same devastating consequences as the government-sanctioned church imposed on medieval Europe.  Experience with tyrants of the mind is the reason for the First Amendment.

 

Tyrants of the mind are bullies.  The creation of fear enables the few to overpower school administrators hired by the people to run schools in the public interest.  The weapons used include bad-mouthing and the ruin of the reputations of good administrators and teachers who dare to challenge leftist "politically correct" militants.

 

Editors of the book Speeches That Changed the World started with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and Christ's Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).  These editors recognized the good that believers have contributed to society and the superior quality of the Bible as literature.  Speeches That Changed the World included speeches by two Darwinian evolutionists, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.  Their leadership did influence the world.  The murder of millions of innocent people demonstrates the depths to which the open-mindedness of Darwin's God-rejecting Origin of the Species dogma can take men.

 

As always happens, those who reject the envelope of the life-enhancing "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" eventually self-destruct.  The problem now in America is the damage being done to the minds of millions of our youth who will soon be leaders.

 

"Educators have recognized the processes by which thought and behavioral patterns acquired in youth become the basis for adult motivation.  In modern times thoughtful observers have become progressively aware that moral, social, and political concepts implanted during the time of mental immaturity not only participate in the conduct of later life, but, once acquired, such concepts become dominant and often unalterable in the adult" (Grand Jury study of problems in higher education for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa, chaired by David A. Norris).

 

"The first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four [is] infected with at least one of the diseases, U.S. health officials reported Tuesday" (Lawrence K. Altman, New York Times, March 11, 2008).  One in four U.S. teenage girls have STDs.  The diseases, which are infections caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites, can produce acute symptoms… and potentially fatal pregnancy… and cervical cancer.  The two most common sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, among all the participants tested were HPB at 18 percent, and chlamydia at 4 percent, according to the analysis portion of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

 

An honest evolutionist: "Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable" (Sir Arthur Keith, citation in Wallie A. Criswell's Did Man Just Happen?, Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1973).

 

Education worthy of the name will emphasize that the president, congress and the judiciary are servants of, by and for the people who are the sovereigns under creation's God.

 

 

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Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:18:00 -0800 Part I: Government http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-13277 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-13277

American Principle Eight

 

The Overriding Concern When Writing the Constitution

Was Imposing a Check On Man's Sin-Prone Behavior

 

"He has combined with others to subject us jurisdiction [control] foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

A high priority when framing the Constitution was to expose government officials who persist in rejecting the message of their own conscience for the short-lived benefits of dishonesty and immoral conduct.

 

Upholding the responsibilities of civility is the necessary predicate for a liberty-friendly Constitution; liberty being the absence of authoritarian oppression.  This dictates the values that must be upheld by legislators, judges and administrators.  These values include sacredness of the family - one man and one woman in marriage; upholding the right to life and liberty, meaning citizen self-rule; equal treatment by law for all, leaders and non-leaders; protecting the labors of citizens' property rights, meaning to keep thieves out of the corn crib and taxes low; respect for God-honoring leaders.  And absolutely no government involvement in education and church except supporting unfettered competition among education and religion providers.  This protects the people's right as sovereigns to choose.  The people can be trusted (historic "rule of law"); government officials cannot be trusted (historic "rule of man").  The clear lesson from history is that government-established education, church authorities, and sanctioned monopoly unions empower tyrants who confuse, exploit and enslave.

 

The testimony of the Constitutional Fathers reminds us that government must be continually restored to the control of law-abiding citizens.

 

"But there is a Degree of Watchfulness over all Men possessed of Power or influence upon which the liberties of mankind much depend.  It is necessary to guard against the Infirmities of the best as well as the Wickedness of the worst of Men.  Such is the Weakness of human Nature that Tyranny has oftener sprang from than any other Source.  It is this that unravels the Mystery of Millions being enslaved by a few" (Samuel Adams, Letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1784, emphasis by Adams, Samuel Adams was a Delegate to the First Continental Congress, 1774; signed the Declaration of Independence, 1776: member of Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention, 1781).

 

"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty!  I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt" (Patrick Henry, Virginia Convention for accepting or rejecting the Federal Constitution, 1788).

 

James Madison wrote, "The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists of this: in the former state, man is governed by laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or, by his representative.  In the latter he is governed by the will of another…  If men were angels, no government would be necessary" (cited by Forrest McDonald, The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, Lawrence, Kansas, University of Kansas Press, 1985, 160 and 205 respectively).

 

 

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Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:00:00 -0800 Part I: Government http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-54471 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-i-government-54471

American Principle Six (Part I)

 

The Written Constitution Established

By Americans Is a Tool For Governing

 

Governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

Americans established government when covenanting to share a small portion of their God-given rights to use force and keep thieves out of the corncrib.  The tax revenues provided by the people, as sovereigns under God, give government its power to function.

 

George Washington, who chaired the Constitutional Convention, wrote about the dangers of government:  "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.  Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."  The original unamended Constitution provides the nuts and bolts needed to curtail the abuse of power by government employees.  The Constitution was tailored to expose and remove government employees who use the people's treasury to purchase fame for themselves and twist the liberating self-government role of the people as intended by constitutional law.  The delegates identified the self-serving principles used by dishonest men and built in many compliant checks between officials and departments whose limited powers are detailed.

 

In like manner, automobiles need nuts and bolts such as brakes, accelerator control and lights to work safely.  Tools need a second set of laws to maintain their limited use and purpose.  The predicate limiting the use of automobiles includes speed limits, stop signs and no-travel zones.  The predicate limiting the use of government power includes the Creator-based Declaration of Independence and the Bill of [unalienable God-given human] Rights law.  The emphasis of these charters is that the monopoly power of government must never be granted to church or religious leaders, education, media or other privilege-seeking unions.  Permitting government establishment of these entities ALWAYS ends up with power-seeking authoritarians leveraged by law.  They then confuse, mislead and control the people with distorted versions of truth and morality.  It is the people at the grassroots of society who are the diviners of truth and morality, not government-established bosses.  This can only occur when knowledge providers (teachers, religious leaders, media or privilege-seeking unions) are required to compete against one another for the support of citizens in the public arena of ideas.

0478-0611-1413-4904_george_washington_at_valley_forge_m

 

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Mon, 31 Dec 2012 06:18:00 -0800 Introduction VII http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-vii-78068 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-vii-78068

There are three achievements of secular progressives that have enabled leftist radicals to control behavioral instruction in public schools (see Chapters 7 and 9).  Their first big achievement came when Supreme Court majorities began to impose mandates for law that rejected the unique God-honoring basis for law advanced by the Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence.  When secular mandates by the court for future laws are allowed to stand, the historic absolutes resident in the "rule of law" and moral priorities are no longer binding.  Consequently, our Constitution becomes a mere political document.  The center of power shifted foolishly from the people and Congress subject to the Constitution, to the political preferences of judges.  Among the first of many twists away from our Constitution and the First Amendment was the Everson v. Board of Education decision.  The second achievement of leftist radicals was the takeover, beginning in the 1960s, of the then-conservative National Education Association (see Chapters 7 through 10).  Also in the 1960s, secular progressives, committed to the elimination of self-government and liberty, reached their third achievement--the unionization of government teachers.

A government-established union monopoly, like an established state church, undermines the people's right to choose between providers that must compete for a following.  Union monopolies have always been power-corrupting institutions. Whatever their agenda by subject or region, accountability to competition is removed and evil prevails.  Union monopolies are in diametrical opposition to government of, by and for the people.  It is the collective political power foolishly granted to autoworker unions that brought the American auto industry to its knees.  It is the collective political advantage of unionism that makes it possible for radicals to impose their atheistic worldview over the objections to both the vast majority of parents and the millions of excellent teachers caught in the union web.  Violation of citizen authority (government of, by and for the people) is the radical politics of fascism--authoritarian hierarchical government.

Detailed in Chapter 7, the loss of citizen control over what our nation's youth are taught in the behavioral studies hinges on two teachers' tenure contract paragraphs demanded by union bosses when negotiating with local school boards.  The first devastating paragraph provides teacher tenure guarantees that supersede the authority of school administrators to replace employees.  The second harmful paragraph makes it a crime to disclose bad teacher performance to the public or to other schools that are considering hiring the teacher until costly and lengthy legal proceedings have approved such disclosure.

 

Professionals like medical doctors, engineers, plumbers and airline pilots--vital to our society--do NOT have tenure guarantees.  Yet what is being taught to America's youth is of even greater importance.

Some repetition has been used for emphasis and to tie the chapters together.

 

Benjamin_franklin_4

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, a delegate from Pennsylvania to the second Continental Congress and signer of the Constitution of the United States, wrote about the First Principle in his Articles of Belief:  "I believe there is one supreme, most perfect Being … Also when I stretch my imagination through and beyond our system of planets, beyond the visible fixed stars themselves, into that space that is [in] every way infinite, and conceive it filled with suns like ours, each with a chorus of worlds forever moving around him; then this little ball on which we move, seems, even in my narrow imagination, to be almost nothing, and myself less than nothing, and of no sort of consequence … That I may be preserved from atheism … Help me, O Father! … For all thy innumerable benefits; for life, and reason … My good God, I thank thee!" (Benjamin Franklin, "Articles of Belief," in The American Ideal of 1776, ed. Hamilton Albert Long {Philadelphia: Heritage Books, 1963}, 5).

Is it too late for America?  Not at all.

 

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Sat, 29 Dec 2012 08:25:00 -0800 Introduction VI http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-vi http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-vi

"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants," Justice Brandeis

http://www.law.louisville.edu/library/collections/brandeis/node/196

 

Secular militants claim to be patriots because, as they say, dissent is American.   What they mean is evident from how they have gutted traditional American values in public education.  They demand freedom for themselves, but reject the American concept of academic freedom (the freedom to be honestly informed) and the freedom of others to make their own choices.  The soft underbelly of the secular left is the fact that they cannot withstand the competition of ideas.  For them, it is intolerable to allow students to be taught about the non-sectarian and impartial  God of creation upon which inalienable rights, citizen self-government and liberty depend.

 

An elaboration of “In God We Trust” is found in Proverbs 3:5,6:  “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

 

The “In God We Trust” worldview has been the foundation for public education, beginning in the original thirteen colonies and continuing for over 250 years.  The Supreme Court's ruling in the Everson v. Board of Education decision of 1947 began a dramatic shift away from “In God We Trust.”  See Chapter 6 for details about this Supreme Court ruling.  We review the civic religion adopted by immigrants from around the world in Chapters 1 through 4 and Part IV, Appendix B, Iowa's Bill of Rights, taken in part from the Declaration of Independence.  The strategy for restoring competition in education and choice by the people is outlined in Chapters 11 and 12.

 

The unionization of teachers and accompanying tenure law have enabled a small cadre of radicals to take God out of citizen-funded government schools. Newt Gingrich stated:  “Those who want absolute proof you cannot teach American history honestly and accurately without reference to God, go to the Lincoln Memorial and read where in Lincoln’s second inaugural, March 1865, he referred to God fourteen times and used two quotes from the Bible.”*

 

*http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/3597743

 

 

Lincoln_memorial_lincoln_contrasty

Lincoln Memorial Statue

 

 

 

There are millions of honest, hardworking teachers, but they have no more control over the lifeview being taught in the soft sciences than do parents.  An entirely different system for educating American youth is needed that would bypass the leftist teachers' union monopoly.  Funds for education provided by Americans must be routed through the parents, similar to the G.I. Bill following World War II.  This bill provided that education sought by veterans be paid from taxpayer revenues, and the veterans had the freedom to use the tuition grant in a public or private institution of their choice.

 

 

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Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:43:00 -0800 Introduction I http://davidanorris.posterous.com/restoring-education-central-to-american-great-25997 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/restoring-education-central-to-american-great-25997

The 2012 first edition blog of the above book picked up over 9,000 repeat users.  Directly and indirectly, we were able to answer several hundred questions.  Encouraging responses came from many.  Perhaps the most exciting was an email from Judge Robert Bork's secretary.  

 

As reported in the Ames (Iowa) Tribune, a March, 2008 legislative proposal for union contract negotiators that would make it even harder to fire harmful teachers caused "grave concerns" among school administrators.  Margaret Buckton, chief lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, said, "Attempts to remove a teacher can last years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars."  "Grave concerns" is right.  Documented in the Restoring Education Central to American Greatness book, a significantly higher percentage of public school teachers send their children to private schools than do non-teacher parents.  They see the harmful impact that secular absolutism is having upon students' minds and values.  Power-hungry ideologues are now soliciting and ruining a new generation of Americans "with words calculated to destroy the youthful faith in their heritage" (Grand Jury Presentment, 11th Judicial District in and for Story County, Iowa, December, 1968).  Undoubtedly, restoring education central to American greatness is now the greatest singular need in America.

 

The Founding Fathers knew from history that centralized power left unchecked leads to tyranny.  They instituted the Second Amendment to keep guns in the hands of the general public to discourage the use of guns by radical politicians, but this does not keep them from being habitual truth-trashers.

 

To justify taxpayer funding, American history and the Judeo-Christian influence upon the Founding Fathers must be unabashedly taught.  Only with this knowledge can new generations of Americans identify truth-trashers and prevent the deceptive advance of oppressive government.  Those demanding curriculum diversity that undermines the absolutes gleaned from history (traditional American foundations) can pay for their own schools and seek a following, just as must other separatist groups.  The demand of traditionalists is based upon the justification for any education tax being placed upon Americans in the FIRST PLACE.  No other argument is needed, but it must be firmly and uncompromisingly imposed.  "A house divided against itself cannot stand" (Abraham Lincoln, June 16, 1858).  A nation cannot survive if its citizens continue to fund revisionist morality and anti-American rhetoric masquerading as education.

 

Subjects Covered By

Restoring Education Central to American Greatness

 

Part I: Government

Chapter 1

  • Immortal Principles Central to Liberty and American Greatness

Chapter 2

  • The Sovereignty of Man under the Impartial God of Creation over Government

Chapter 3

  • Man May Prosper in Freedom If He Chooses to Honor the Will of Creation’s God

Chapter 4

  • America’s Civic Religion and the Deeper Personal Faith of Our Nation’s Founders

Chapter 5

  • Government by Written and Permanent Law

Chapter 6

  • Defilement of the Judiciary

 

Part II: Education

Chapter 7

  • Academic Freedom and Teacher Tenure History

Chapter 8 

  • Consequences of the Unionization of Government Teachers

Chapter 9

  • The Education Nightmare

Chapter 10

  • Education That Is Profoundly American

 

Part III: Liberty and Responsibility

Chapter 11

  • Appeasement Will Not Work

Chapter 12

  • Our Strategy for Victory: Political Action—Citizen Power

 

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Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:37:00 -0800 The First Amendment is the Most Important Amendment http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-first-amendment-is-the-most-important-ame http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-first-amendment-is-the-most-important-ame

The most important of all the amendments to our Constitution is the First Amendment:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

 

In the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education decision, the Supreme Court majority discarded the principle for control of government by law (government limited by laws instituted by citizen sovereigns).  They displaced it with control of government by man (top down authoritarianism).  Quoting Alexander Hamilton:  "Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions, a government of FORCE [changeable decrees by authoritarian man], and a government of LAWS [governments that derive 'their just powers' from the consent of the governed], the first is the definition of despotism--the last Liberty" (Tully Papers, 1794).  These two approaches to governing society have been at war against one another throughout human history.

 

The Everson v. Board of Education decision clearly compromised "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" The judges altered the Constitution at the core of its meaning.  Power-hungry judges and politicians, along with fellow travelers in education, the media and monopoly union bosses, are now working overtime.  They are leveraging the judge-created right that empowers liberals to impose government establishment monopoly in public education, preventing the competition of ideas by moral religions.  The power to impose false renditions of truth upon  captive government classrooms and poison youthful minds is being used to confuse, marginalize and rule new generations.

 

"For many years psychologists and educators have recognized the processes by which thought and behavioral patterns acquired in youth become the basis for adult motivation.  In modern times thoughtful observers have become progressively aware that moral, social, and political concepts implanted during the time of mental immaturity not only participate in the conduct of later life, but, once acquired, such concepts become dominant and often unalterable in the adult" (Story County Grand Jury, in and for the 11th Judicial District of Iowa, 1969).

 

Firstamendment

 

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Mon, 05 Nov 2012 08:58:00 -0800 Part Ten: Grand Jury Presentment of "Problems in Higher Education" http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-nine-grand-jury-presentment-of-problems http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-nine-grand-jury-presentment-of-problems

Portions of the Presentment of the Grand Jury for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa follow, with words added for clarification in brackets.  Supplemental ideas are italicized.

 

End of Presentment II

 

"The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure by the American Association of University Professors has no legal effect, but the AAUP publicly censures colleges and universities that they believe have violated [their version of] academic freedom.  However, nearly all [not all] of the colleges and universities have adopted this statement or a variation of the statement which is contained in the faculty policy manual of each college or university, and it is incorporated by reference in the employment contract between the university and each individual faculty member."*

 

The penetrating damage imposed because of tenure laws sheltering radical professors and teachers in the soft sciences must be [reversed].  The authority of taxpayer/parents to control what is taught in government institutions must be restored.  By routing education revenues directly to the parents or guardians, sanity will be restored to education.  The many thousands of honest and morally upright teachers will again have the unimpeded support of the citizen consensus.  Not only will what is taught be cleaned up, but also competition between education suppliers will reduce the cost [and increase the quality] of public education.

 

The voice in the chorus of concerned citizens is imperative.  What confronts the American family and voter electorate is a test of wills.  School administrators must be able to fire leftist teachers [without spending] years and… tens of thousands of taxpayers' dollars defending education from the [resulting] lawsuits imposed by ACLU lawyers and the imperial arm of radical judges.  To effect change, active citizen involvement in the political process must exceed the determination of those who are using political circumvention to destroy the family and liberty.

 

43056858587115878

*Dr. Ronald B. Standler, "Academic Freedom in the USA," http://www.rbs2.com/afree.htm

 

 

Image from http://www.gatewaychristianschools.com/forseniors.html

 

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Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:32:00 -0800 Part Nine: Grand Jury Presentment of "Problems in Higher Education" http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-nine-grand-jury-presentment-of-problems-54938 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-nine-grand-jury-presentment-of-problems-54938

Portions of the Presentment of the Grand Jury for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa follow, with words added for clarification in brackets.  Supplemental ideas are italicized.

 

End of Presentment I

 

The purpose of universities was freedom for competition of ideas in search of truth.  What has happened is the advocates of atheistic-secular totalitarianism applied their art and removed competition from the soft sciences.  When citizen control of universities, college, and now virtually all lower-level public schools was hijacked by faculty independence (teachers union mechanization and teacher tenure guarantees), tyranny was bound to follow.  What we now have is tyranny against the moral fiber of our youth and nation.  This is the inevitable result of [imposing] "German graduate methods [faculty independence] onto American campuses in the late nineteenth century… academic freedom became a cause celebrate."

 

At the time of the Grand Jury study, we did not realize the linkage between the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and what appears to be their prosecution arm, the leftist American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The book Freedom in Iowa, published by the Iowa State University Press, promoted the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, bringing this connection to my attention.

 

Teacher employee contracts, structured according to ACLU definitions for academic freedom and tenure, shift the decision-making authority for removing radical teachers away from the president of the university, who is hired by the public to superintend the institution.  It is now the aggressive tenured faculty, not the president, who have control over who teaches and what is taught.  Instead of being an administrator, the university president works full-time quieting campus disputes, promoting campus expansion, and raising money by lobbying alumni and legislators.  Sensing this kind of environment, the US Supreme Court held in a dispute that professors at Yeshiva University in New York City were managerial [administrators], not employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, and hence the university administrators were not required to bargain with the union that represented the professors.  The Court noted: "Budget requests prepared by the senior professor in each subject area receive the 'perfunctory' approval of the Dean '99 percent' of the time and have never been rejected by the central administration.  The faculty… effectively determine curriculum, grading systems… matriculation standards" (NLRB v. Yeshiva University, 582 F.2d 686, 1978, affd 444 US 672, 1980).

 

The ACLU/AAUP version of academic freedom and tenure that enables radicals to reject the public standards for what is taught and not taught is not a legal concept.  Without the control of the citizens who established the schools and pay the bills, what is taught is wholly dependent upon the internal culture of the faculty at the universities and the government grade schools.  This problem is systemic.

 

Liberty

 

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Sat, 06 Oct 2012 09:32:00 -0700 Original Purpose Destroyed by Union Control http://davidanorris.posterous.com/original-purpose-destroyed-by-union-control http://davidanorris.posterous.com/original-purpose-destroyed-by-union-control

 

It was my privilege to chair a Grand Jury for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa that investigated activities at Iowa State University and made several recommendations for changes in higher education. 

 

The Grand Jury members all contributed to the report.  There was a considerable amount of material to review.  A few campus administrators and members of the faculty met with us to give their perspective.  Following each meeting, I wrote a brief of what seemed relevant and presented it to the jury members at the next meeting.  The members approved most all of my draft, which later became the Presentment, unanimously approved by the jury.

 

The original purpose of universities was freedom of competition of ideas in search of truth.  What has happened is the advocates of atheistic-secular totalitarianism applied their art and removed competition from the soft sciences.  When citizen control of universities, college, and now virtually all lower-level public schools was hijacked by faculty independence (teachers union mechanization and teacher tenure guarantees), tyranny was bound to follow.

 

At the time of the Grand Jury study, we did not realize the linkage between the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and what appears to be their prosecution arm, the leftist American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  The ACLU/AAUP version of academic freedom and tenure that enables radicals to reject the public standards for what is taught and not taught is not a legal concept.  Without the control of the citizens who established the schools and pay the bills, what is taught is wholly dependent upon the internal culture of the faculty at the universities and the government grade schools.  This problem is systemic.

 

Rev. Charles Finney is quoted as saying, "The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics…  Politics are a part of religion in a country such as this and Christians must do their duty to their country as a part of their duty to God…  God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics."*

 

Arrangements were made for a local print shop to reproduce and handle requests for copies of the Presentment.  Later, I received a call from them informing me that the university had purchased the remaining copies, so I instructed them to print five hundred more.  Portions of the Presentment will follow in the next blog post.

 

Grand_jury_report

*http://www.trumpetofheritage.org/

 

 

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Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:23:00 -0700 The Beginning of a Grand Jury Investigation http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-beginning-of-a-grand-jury-investigation http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-beginning-of-a-grand-jury-investigation

It was my privilege to chair a Grand Jury for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa that investigated activities at Iowa State University and made several recommendations for changes in higher education.  This study of higher education is even more relevant now than when adopted December 23, 1968.  With the imposition of teacher unions and tenure laws, radicals in the soft sciences now dominate lower-level public education.

 

News reports had made it clear that drugs, immorality and disrespect for constitutional authority had become an ongoing part of the academic menu in our universities.  With about six months left in our term, I suggested to the county attorney, Charles Vanderbur, that the jury investigate what was going on at Iowa State University.  He said, "Dave, I'll do anything I can to help you."  He provided us with tape recordings of campus presentations by radicals.  After hearing the first tape, the jury members gave the go-ahead to undertake the investigation.  The jury's main concern was the education environment and its impact upon the behavioral patterns and decision-making ability of students.

 

My challenge as the foreman was to obtain unanimous agreement for significant recommendations from three Republican and three Democrat jurors.  Several legislative directives for changes in the administration of Iowa's colleges and universities followed the release of the study.

 

Because of tenured radicals embedded in the system, the impact of the Presentment faded within four or five years.  The Grand Jury report received nationwide media attention, and requests for copies of the Presentment came from government officials in Iowa, California and Washington, DC.

 

"As one of the tens of thousands who admire the action of your Grand Jury, I wish to commend  Foreman Norris and his jury for their courageous and true Americanism in focusing public attention on the perverted minority… who would destroy what we have… in America and deliver us unto our enemies" (E. Allen, Burlington, North Dakota, letter to the Nevada, Iowa Journal).

 

"OUT IN IOWA… The jury's report said 'there is a need for increased emphasis at all levels of education of the American ideal.  Our soldiers have been dying for this ideal.  Education as never before should clearly teach it.'  So say we" (from the Boston Record, printed in the Ames Daily Tribune).

 

Old-oak-entrance-door-ot-grand-jury-room-in-crown-court

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Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:21:49 -0700 The Prescription For Citizen Paralysis: Knowledge and Action http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-prescription-for-citizen-paralysis-knowle http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-prescription-for-citizen-paralysis-knowle

Liberty with prosperity came to America because the Founding Fathers had it right.  They took self and all pretender gods off the throne, and they placed the King of Kings, the impartial, nonsectarian God of life and creation's nature, on the throne.

 

"Our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.  And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.  Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority. And the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country" (John Adams, Vice-President under George Washington, and second president of the United States, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1766 from The Works of John Adams, …by his grandson, Charles F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 10 volumes).

 

Parents, guardians and grandparents who can afford it should support the enrollment of their children in God-honoring private schools or, if able, homeschool them.  This is the most powerful political statement that Americans can make.  That is the vanguard for a nationwide competitive school system enabling citizen choice.

 

Promote the election of candidates for public office who unabashedly oppose government tolerance for teacher union tenure laws.  Good teachers have always had tenure by virtue of the quality of their work alone.

 

Teachers do have rights, but ultimately they answer to those who pay their salaries.  Teachers who cannot accept a contract with a school district that requires respect for the family and morality have but one alternative, which is to establish, fund, and teach in their own private schools.

 

"Because of the obvious potential for abuse even labor union advocates like AFL-CIO President George Meany and Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed unionization of the public employees as unthinkable.*

 

When tenure establishment privileges for government teachers are prohibited, good teachers can again safely support the traditional family and historic American principles without having their patriotism dirtied by secular gossips.

 

"We've been blessed with the opportunity to stand for something--for liberty and freedom and fairness.  And these are things worth fighting for, worth devoting our lives to.  And we have good reason to be hopeful and optimistic… so, let us go forth with good cheer and stout hearts--happy warriors out to seize back a country and a world to freedom."**

 

Liberty-bell1

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Thu, 23 Aug 2012 09:21:00 -0700 The Foundational Malady Diagnosed http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-foundational-malady-diagnosed http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-foundational-malady-diagnosed

When we observe secular militants without knowing their intentions, we arrive at faulty conclusions.  Their determination is rooted in the fact that morality, the traditional family, and belief in God firmly undermine the power of hierarchical authoritarians.  For them, deception in pursuit of their atheistic world is a virtue.

 

Robert Chandler writes about David Horowitz' testimony before the Kansas House of Representatives regarding "academic freedom."  Horowitz said:  "Entire academic departments and fields are no longer devoted to scholarly pursuits, but have become ideological training and recruitment centers for radical causes."  The departments most suspect are economics, health, history, English, political science, sociology, psychology and anthropology. Add to these departments women's studies, queer studies, black liberation studies, Islamic studies, third-world studies, global warming studies, and so on--you get the picture (Robert Chandler, PhD, with experience in the Department of Defense, State, and the Central Intelligence Agency, Shadow World, One Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, 2008).

 

David Horowitz writes later in his book Radical Son, "The Marxists and socialists who had been refuted by historical events are now the tenured establishment of the academic world.  Marxism had produced the bloodiest and most oppressive regimes in human history" (New York:  Free Press, 1997).  Citations are from the September 2010 Journal by Dr. David A. Noebel, published by Summit Ministries, Manitou Springs, CO.

 

By far the greatest peril to America today is internal.  It is the secular militants' war against traditional American values. This started when taxpayer-funded universities foolishly caved in to the demand for the old European secular policy of unionization and teachers' independence (tenure guarantees).  Now contemporary liberals gleefully impose their God-rejecting approach to life upon the minds of American youth even in lower-level public schools.

 

Abraham Lincoln understood that it was the dangers from within America, not from the outside, that could destroy America.  He stated:  "What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?  It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army.  Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.  Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors."*

 

Ronald Reagan contributes more insight to this grave topic in remarks at a Dallas Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast, delivered on August 23, 1984 in Dallas, Texas:  "Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience.  Without God, we're mired in the material, the world that tells us only what the senses perceive… And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.  If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."**

 

Image_child_to_school

 

*Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collective Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3 (Boston: 1935), 91-96.  This speech is one of several Lincoln made against slavery, http://www.classicreader.com/book/3766/17/

 

**http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganecumenicalprayer.htm

 

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Thu, 26 Jul 2012 07:48:27 -0700 Monopoly Money http://davidanorris.posterous.com/monopoly-money http://davidanorris.posterous.com/monopoly-money

Much maligned by leftists, there are several studies that document the way that radicals bully their way into control of the social, political and religious atmosphere on school campuses (even several seminaries).  Three excellent books on the subject are Masters of Deceit by J. Edgar Hoover, Chronology of Education with Quotable Quotes by D.L. Cuddy, and You Can Still Trust the Communists… to Be Communists (Socialists and Progressives Too) by Fred C. Schwarz and David A. Noebel.*

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2006, the NEA and their unions spent approximately $80.5 million in the 2004-05 school year.  "The NEA gave $65 million of its members' dues to liberal groups last year."  Undoubtedly the biggest benefactors, legislative candidates who were willing to promote NEA union power, received over $40 million of those funds.  In the 2007-08 year, the NEA national headquarters took in $337.7 million in dues and agency fees.**

 

Myron Lieberman, an educational consultant who recently served as a visiting scholar at Bowling Green University, has emerged as a leading education free-market analyst.  He estimates that "the collective bargaining process itself imposes direct and indirect costs that may run into the billions of dollars."  According to his book Public Education: An Autopsy, "As long as schools remain a government monopoly, cost and quality will be as bad as cost and quality everywhere under socialism."***  Lieberman is also the author of The Teachers' Unions: How the NEA and AFT Sabotage Reform and Hold Students, Parents, Teachers, and Taxpayers Hostage to Bureaucracy.

 

The dogmatic secular brand of academic freedom and old European atheistic-secular philosophy go hand in hand.  It was the collective capacity of unions to raise and distribute money to like-minded organizations that was infamously used by the Fascists to corrupt the political process in Italy prior to World War II.

 

As the education in a nation goes, so goes the nation.

Bullies

 

*J. Edgar Hoover, author of Masters of Deceit, served as director of the FBI for forty years.  It was published by Kessinger Publishing, LLC in 1958.  D.L. Cuddy, PhD, author of Chronology of Education with Quotable Quotes, served as a senior assistant in the U. S. Department of Education (1982-88).  His book was published by the Pro-Family Forum (5th edition, 1998), available Radio Liberty, Soquel, California.  The book documents the strategy of leftists in public education by using statements from their own publications.  The following example is a quote from a cosigner of the first Humanist Manifesto, published in 1933.  He called for the "synthesizing of all religions" into "a socialized and cooperative economic order."  Fred C. Schwarz and David A. Noebel, authors of You Can Still Trust the Communists… to Be Communists (Socialists and Progressives Too) were published in 2010 by Christian Anti-Communism Crusade.

**Public Education Research and Analysis Communique' by the Education Intelligence Agency, Elk Grove, California, January 26, 2009.

***Myron Lieberman, Public Education: An Autopsy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 1993.

 

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and http://www.zieak.com/2008/08/19/print-your-own-monopoly-money/

 

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Mon, 23 Jul 2012 10:48:59 -0700 Teacher Union Contracts http://davidanorris.posterous.com/teacher-union-contracts http://davidanorris.posterous.com/teacher-union-contracts

The Supreme Court's failure to apply the First Amendment for its intended purposes destroyed the perimeters necessary to protect society from morally incompetent teachers.  Statewide laws, enabling tenure guarantees for unqualified teachers, crept silently into legislation for lower-level public schools beginning in the early 1970s.  Only seven states have rejected such laws.  The leftist NEA union advantage of control continues, however, without tenure laws in those seven states.

 

Two paragraphs for teacher contracts demanded by NEA unions are the root of the problem.  These controlling paragraphs may be found in the contract between the NEA union (or its state affiliate) and the local school board or in the state public sector collective bargaining laws.  One paragraph provides teacher tenure, which makes it virtually impossible to fire a teacher.  There is also a confidentiality paragraph, making it a crime for school administrators to disclose the reason(s) for dismissing a teacher without advanced approval--a very costly and lengthy procedure.  If the citizens are not permitted by law to be informed, their political support, so desperately needed by the superintendent in order to fire a bad teacher, is successfully silenced.

 

"Precisely because of the obvious potential for abuse, even labor union advocates like AFL-CIO President George Meany and Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed unionization of the public employees as unthinkable."*

 

In March 2008, harsh debate in the Iowa legislature brought this problem to the public's attention.  Radicals, whose elections were advanced by large sums of campaign money received from outside the state, were pushing for changes in the public sector collective bargaining law.  A section making it even harder to fire harmful teachers caused "grave concerns" among school administrators.  "Margaret Buckton, chief lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, says [arbitration] adjudicators have tended to rule in favor of the teachers."  As the teachers' bargaining rights law now stands, "Attempts to remove a teacher can last years and cost hundreds of thousand of dollars."**

 

Any force that makes it impossible for the school administrator to be in control and implement the citizen consensus for values is, by definition, fascistic and advances the consequences of fascism.  It was this ever-present threat, and its consequent tyranny of the mind, that prompted elected representatives in the individual states to require that curbs be placed upon government employees via the First Amendment and the federal Constitution.

 

*Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer, "How the National Education Association Corrupts Our Public Schools," Forbes magazine, June 7, 1993.

*Dan Gearin, "Schools Concerned with Union Bargaining Bill," The Tribune (Ames, IA), March 27, 2008, B4.

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Thu, 19 Jul 2012 08:22:00 -0700 Revisionism In the Soft Sciences http://davidanorris.posterous.com/revisionism-in-the-soft-sciences http://davidanorris.posterous.com/revisionism-in-the-soft-sciences

The collective political power of teacher unions, established by legislative and judicial acceptance, has enabled them to prevent curriculum control by elected school boards and superintendents hired to administer the system.  

 

Even though tenure laws enable teachers in the hard sciences (math, engineering, chemistry, physics, and so forth) to get by with dumbed down approaches to learning, the harm done is less than in the soft sciences.  Whether or not the researcher or teacher is a Bible-believer, the conclusions drawn in the hard sciences tend to be the same because proof is determined by observing consistently repeatable and immutable laws of creation's nature.  Misrepresentations are typically exposed and rejected as a result of our free enterprise system, which thrives on competition and the consumer's right to choose from products that come from the hard sciences.

 

In contrast, conclusions drawn in the soft sciences--such as literature, news editing, education strategies, political science, life-origins biology, history, law, social studies, arts, and ecology--differ starkly between creationist and evolutionist instructors.  The differences include the acceptance or rejection of moral certainties, an honest or dishonest rendition of history, and respect or disregard for parental authority and for the Constitution itself.  When an evolutionist instructs a student year after year, the student's ability to separate truth from non-truth and to appreciate the value of moral law and the traditional family becomes seriously impaired.

 

Not surprising, an Ames, Iowa, public school board member complained:  "I know the Legislature likes to talk about local control, but what I am getting [at] is that … we really don't have local control."*

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*Teresa Kay Albertson, "School District Cuts Not as Bad as Feared," The Tribune(Ames, IA), January 18, 2009, A3.

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Mon, 16 Jul 2012 08:50:00 -0700 American Education Philosophy Corrupted http://davidanorris.posterous.com/american-education-philosophy-corrupted http://davidanorris.posterous.com/american-education-philosophy-corrupted

Those who champion the atheistic-secular concept of open-mindedness use it to justify exclusivity for imposing their God-rejecting life view upon captive classroom students.  "Not only must school teachers and principles be 'exemplars of open-mindedness and free inquiry, but severally and collectively, they must be prepared to proclaim their faith in that open-mindedness and free inquiry.'"  Here we must hearken to Dewey:  "The administrator will… realize that public education is essentially education of the public: directly, through teachers and students… in the transformation of society [into a God-rejecting, socialistic society]."*

 

Atheistic-secular demands that "school teachers and principals be exemplars of open-mindedness [in] the transformation of society" undermine the moral foundations of civil society.  The justification for a tax on the people for education, in a representative republic, requires that the curriculum promote foundational moral boundaries.  The constitutions of the Soviet Union, China and Cuba proclaimed liberty.  But in the absence of a moral predicate providing certainties for Constitutional law--such as provided in the American Declaration of Independence and Northwest Ordinance, they rule by what Solon of Athens called "incalculable and changeable decrees."**

 

Prior to the leftist takeover, the National Education Association published God-honoring, character-building booklets for students and parents as recently as 1950.  For example, A Golden Treasury from the Bible, contained twenty-four Bible verses, including Psalm 1; Proverbs 20:1; Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments); Romans 12; John 3:16, 6:23, 14:1-4 and 15:1-4; 1 Corinthians 13; and Ecclesiastes 12:1, "remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth."

 

In contrast to the old European secular philosophy, the American philosophy of education requires that all prominent views, including the atheistic-secular view, be introduced, but that they are taught in the context of the history of their outcomes.  This is seen in the resolution proposed by both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and adopted by the newly founded University of Virginia (see Chapter 10 of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness).  Their resolution identifies the great need of our day, stressing citizen responsibility and the need for a thorough knowledge of historic American foundations.

 

The education guidelines set forth for the University of Virginia emphasize that "all students shall be 'inculcated' with the basic American principles for government," and, "None should be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitution of this States, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion."  The resolution also stated that the faculty had a standard of responsibility and were required to teach affirmatively these unique American principles.  Only after they had done so were they to teach the conflicting principles as such, judging them by the soundness of the American principles that served as a basis.***  These principles are detailed in Chapter 10 of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.

 

Faithful school boards and administrators take seriously the fact that youthful trust, inexperience and vulnerability to exploitation by the enemies of the family and self-government require that the learning environment be protected.  God has given mankind a wonderful mind to use and explore the universe, with but one exception:  we are not to use our minds to absorb the details and wiles (deceptive snares) of evil (Genesis 3:13; Isaiah 5:15-16, 20; Romans 16:19; and James 1:12-17).

 

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*James Allen Johnson, "A Note on Academic Freedom: Schoolmen Must Declare Their Faith," Phi Delta Kappan, 44:185-88 (January, 1963), in Robert Hoffman, Foundations of American Education (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1970), 192.

**Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. 2, The Life of Greece (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939), 118.

***Nathaniel F. Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia as contained in the "Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph B. Cabell" (n.p.: Richmond, Virginia, 1856), 339.  Repeated in Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, Your American Heritage Books, 141-44, 147.

 

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