Is teaching patriotism bad? | Voice

There is a vital battle over education nowadays. And if we lose it, we could ultimately lose the country.

It seems that the Left views teaching children a love of country as an undesirable goal.

In The Federalist, Joy Pullman called attention recently to a critique from the Left of classics-oriented charter schools. The Washington Post wrote the review, implying that teaching patriotism is suspect.

According to The Washington Post, schools focused on personal responsibility, love of God and country, America’s founders, and the like are “designed to attract Christian nationalists with specific imagery and curriculum.”

The newspaper cites one example: “‘Back to basic schools’ use red, white and blue school colors, patriotic logos and pictures of the Founding Fathers, and use terms such as virtue, patriotism and, sometimes, outright references to religion.”

Talk positively about America’s founders, and you are sending the wrong message — especially to our youth, according to the Left.

I have studied much about the settling and the founding eras of American history and the American experiment. I have written books and produced documentaries on the subject. The sacrifices of many of those who created this great country are incredible. We should be grateful for the freedoms they bestowed on us.

They famously wrote in the preamble to the Constitution, “We the People of the United States, to form a perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

George Washington led a ragtag army of farmers and merchants who were determined, with God’s help, to defend their God-given rights. And to teach the next generation of their many sacrifices on behalf of freedom should be curtailed?

During the American War for Independence, George Washington and his army had to flee from Philadelphia. They spent the winter of 1777-1778 in Valley Forge, about 25 miles away. Many of them had no shoes or boots in the cold. Some of them left bloody footprints in the snow. George Washington led them and prayed for them. And his prayers were ultimately answered.

But to tell future children about these sacrifices of our nation’s founders is essential, according to the Washington Post, part of “a strategy by right-wing Christians to undermine secular public education”?

Why do so many elites hate America?

Because of slavery at the beginning of our country? It was indeed a great evil. But it was an evil that existed virtually everywhere in the known world. What’s truly astounding is not that America had slavery like everyone else but that it got rid of it. Even today, there are an estimated 50 million people in slavery around the world. But in America, slavery is long gone. The founders enshrined the principles of God-given rights that ultimately overthrew slavery. And it was those principles Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. appealed during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

America’s founders declared that our rights come from the Creator. 1955 President Eisenhower said, “Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first — the most basic — expression of Americanism.”

Even when America doesn’t live up to its creed that our Creator has endowed us with certain unalienable rights, it’s still a sound creed. As Dr. King said in his classic speech: “I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.’” Indeed, we have made significant advances since he uttered those words in 1963.

In a different context, the great British Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, observed: “In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

If we mock love of country, we shouldn’t be surprised to see so many young Americans hating America.

And yet, think of those who risk their lives to try and get here. Some will risk their lives to leave Cuba, going through shark-infested waters, to reach America and her freedom.

Those who would discourage teaching patriotism to future generations are ultimately sowing bad seeds, the fruit of which we see in many burned-out cities overrun by crime, homelessness, and chaos.