Rediscovering Our Roots

I am old enough to remember the made-for-TV miniseries entitled Roots from 1977, based on Alex Haley's family history. Of course, I also remember Howdy Doody[1], Kukla Fran and Ollie[2], and Hopalong Cassidy (both the cowboy[3] and the OSU halfback[4]). But, I digress. It was with great anticipation that my family and I awaited each new episode of that ground breaking drama that chronicled, much in the style of James Michener’s Centennial, each new generation of descendents of one Kunta Kinte, an African slave in colonial America. I recall how we felt compassion for the human suffering and a real, if vicarious, sense of pride in the importance of knowing one’s family history (roots).

Researching and uncovering one’s family history today is considered highly important, if the meteoric growth of web services like Ancestry.com is any indicator. So why have we as individual citizens of this great nation not researched our nation’s family history? Why have we let the truth about our national “roots” be relegated to obscurity?

The average citizen today (including college grads) knows little about the story of our founding; in fact, the average citizen barely knows who the leaders of our government are, beyond the redistributor-in-chief.  “The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests public and private school students in grades 4, 8, and 12 in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history. The history test was given in 1994, 2001, and 2006. History scores were lower than any other subject, …”^[5]

Our lack of knowledge of our own history can be traced to the direct and indirect actions of the secular-socialist-progressive movement, begun both in Europe and in the U.S. in the early 20th century, that has done everything possible to obscure, hide or change the truth about our founding and founding fathers for approximately four generations of American students. A touchstone example of this group’s influence can be seen by examining the life and philosophy of the man called the “Father of Modern Education,” John Dewey (born the year of Darwin’s Origin of the Species and just 11 years after the Communist manifesto was penned by Marx) who postulated that “history could be learnt by experiencing how people lived, geography, what the climate was like, and how plants and animals grew, were important subjects.”[6]  I’ll leave up to you to prove for yourself  the lunacy of this statement. He also held that “truth” should be used in the solving of the problems of mankind, and since these problems were ever changing, that the “truth” should also change to fit the problems. This is a sample of the corrupt thinking of the “relativists” who hold that there is no absolute truth—of course that means no God. Get it?

Dewey's education philosophy helped move forward the "progressive education" movement, that was in large part based on his belief that education should evolve (Social Darwinism). Dewey was one of the original signers and drafters of the Humanist Manifesto. It is no surprise then that this is the man who the current NEA (National Education Association) holds in such high esteem that they awarded him high honors.

So, the short answer about why we don’t know our history is that it has been hidden from us by our educators, influenced by their teacher unions, and the authors of “modern” history textbooks. It flies in the face of the Left and their desire to trash our country for us to know our own history. As Engels wrote: if you could remove a people from their roots, they could be easily swayed to your point of view.  

Since the 1930s here are some myths and falsehoods taught that have negatively influenced our culture and education:

1. America is an evil empire, nothing to be proud of
2. Since our Declaration is the foundation of our Constitution, it is ignored for the most part
3. Our Constitution is considered a “secular” document
4. Our Constitution is considered a “charter of negative liberties” (Obama)
5. Our Constitution is the greatest impediment to social progress (Wilson, Obama)
6. Our founders were atheists, agnostics and deists
7. The Constitution specifies “separation of church and state”

Now here is the truth[7]:

1. Relativism denies absolutes.
2. God is absolute.
3. The word of God teaches absolutes.
4. Evolution flies in the face of God's word.
5. Relativism and positivism are destructive ideologies that shear men away from the truth a little at a time.
6. These ideas were used by John Dewey and Karl Marx and even Joseph Stalin to lead people astray.
7. This is happening in America with the destruction of our godly heritage in public school courses.
8. By omission the godly heritage is being lost to our children.
9. The schools are simply not teaching the godly heritage of this nation. Instead the schools are teaching children to become better citizens of the new world economic order.

If we want to learn our history (our roots) we need to go back to the textbooks before 1930, or to source documents. A great source of information about the truth of our past can be found at Wallbuilders.com from historian David Barton.

“There must be a meaning to history or else existence is an incomprehensible enigma.”   Charles Coffin--The Story of Liberty 19th Century textbook author

“Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned, “ Job 8:8

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIslhp9vqqw

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxSbjhBFRs

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F37VQnMhssg

[4] http://espn.go.com/ncf/features/heisman/_/year/1955/set/3

[5] http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2011/06/15/high-school-seniors-us-history-scores-remain-flat

[6] http://wilderdom.com/experiential/JohnDeweyPhilosophyEducation.html

[7] http://www.christianparents.com/jdewey.htm