Monday, December 30, 2019


Most Americans Would Fail a Citizenship Test

When Americans don't know what it means to be American, we will lose Liberty.

Why are Millennials embracing socialism as an acceptable philosophical approach to markets? Why is the public at large not just laughing when the political Left attempts to tie the anti-Semitism and perversion of Christianity practiced by Nazis to the political Right? Why are we seeing a growing embrace of victimhood and weakness as honorable instead of achievement and deliberate pursuits of distinguished goals? Why do individuals who refuse to value citizenship but want socialism fail to see that those coming into America illegally do so either with nefarious intent or because they are fleeing big, socialist government?

Better yet, how’d we get here to this mess and how can we make an urgent, existential correction? Believing Thomas Jefferson’s statement to be true, Americans need to think through and understand the implications: “A nation has never been ignorant and free; that has never been and will never be.”

The Wall Street Journal opined last fall over the “embarrassing” number of Americans who failed the same civics test administered to those working through the naturalization process to become a U.S. Citizens. Writing about the abysmal 19% of individuals 45 years of age or younger who successfully answered enough questions about America’s history and government to pass, the editorial board blared that this “reflects the declining state of American public schools. None of this augurs well for the future of self-government.”

No, criticism of so many of America’s public schools and our government-run education is not excessively harsh.

On Feb. 15, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, housed at Princeton University, issued a damning press release publishing results of a 50-state survey asking 41,000 Americans the same 20 questions testing civic knowledge that are part of the naturalization process. The questions ranged from inquiring how many amendments are enjoined to the U.S. Constitution to identifying one of the rights enumerated in the First Amendment to which war former President Dwight D. Eisenhower served in prior to his election.

The results were truly shameful. Only one state, Vermont, saw the majority of its participants pass — and even then, 47% failed. Had 70% or higher been deemed the passing threshold, not one state would have had a majority of individuals pass. The worst-performing state was Louisiana, with 73% who failed. That percentage climbed to 82% if you include those correctly answering as few as 12 of the 20 questions.

Simply put, the facts of history have been rewritten, the roles of history have been recast, and the value of exceptionalism has been substituted with warmed-up mediocrity as the new normal to equalize the masses. Call it indoctrination, propaganda, or some other moniker attempting to capture the breadth, width, and reach of our current chaotic conundrum, but understand one thing: The great nation of America is being destroyed by Americans, not some foreign enemy. Those rewriting history and recasting the roles, good and bad, to fit today’s culture and political agendas are truly deconstructing our nation, most knowing they must create an ignorance of just how America became great through its unique constitutional republic and individualism that breeds self-reliance and exceptionalism, ingredients that do not coexist with socialism, communism, or all the other -isms that create a permanent underclass dependent upon big government.

Americans young, old, learned, and ignorant, love and herald the demand for Liberty. Yet, most live as if the prospects of freedom are made possible by obtaining some freeze-dried packet that comes with the instructions to just add water and, voila, the benefits of living in a constitutional republic abound. The expectation of free speech exists as an ever-safe constant without an understanding of the requirement to foster, protect and ensure our enumerated rights through a free and independent people.

If generation after generation of students are told and accept as truth the myth that the government has the jurisdiction and even the duty to provide a wage without work, free health insurance, free tuition, free food, price-controlled housing, and a host of other goodies for dependents living off of other people’s money, America dies — as does every aspect of freedom enjoyed by our citizens.

As the WSJ noted, “The real threat to American freedom is the failure of current citizens to learn even the most basic facts about U.S. history and government.”

Every state needs to pass its own legislation to address the lack of history taught and the horrific proficiency of critical information about America’s truly exceptional history. Equally important, every single adult who has a child, a grandchild or some other mind malleable within reach must serve as a First Teacher to ensure our children learn and grow into citizens who are capable of what James Madison spoke of as a permanently free people who serve as guardians of true Liberty.

As The Patriot Post’s motto says, “Veritas Vos Liberabit”

SOURCE





Australia: Parents outraged as Hillsong megachurch caught recruiting in Queensland public high schools

Constant Leftist preaching of sexual perversion in the schools is OK but Christian preaching is not?

Controversial megachurch Hillsong has pulled a page on its website detailing plans to recruit teenagers in state schools across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory in 2020.

The information was pulled on Wednesday, three days after a group of angry parents in Melbourne began a change.org petition calling on federal and state education ministers to ban the evangelical movement from proselytising in public high schools.

The petition has attracted more than 13,000 signatures since it was launched on Monday.

Information retrieved by 7NEWS.com.au through Google Cache shows the Hillsong Youth Schools Tour has already provided "life-giving messages about our lord" to 34,000 school students, including teenagers in at least three government schools in Queensland.

Until the site was disabled on Wednesday, it was running testimonials from the three schools' chaplains, who are funded under the federal government's National School Chaplaincy Program.

The program, which was recently expanded to $247 million over four years (2019-2022), stipulates that chaplains must not proselytise and must "respect, accept and be sensitive to other people’s views, values and beliefs".

Melbourne mother Fiona Newton, co-author of the petition to stop evangelising in public schools, said Hillsong's well-known hostility towards the LGBTI community had no place in the public education system.

The church campaigned against the same sex marriage bill and has been embroiled in the past with discredited gay conversion therapy.

"I grew up in a Pentecostal church, I know how they operate," Newton told 7NEWS.com.au.

"I'm now in a same sex relationship myself and I want my son to feel safe at his public school, that he won't be exposed to a religion that is anti-LGBTI."

"When you enrol your child in a secular public school you expect it to be free of any sort of religion.

"But Hillsong's mission is a clear and obvious mission of recruitment."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has credited Hillsong's founder, Brian Houston, as his spiritual mentor.

Morrison is not a member of Hillsong, which was founded in Sydney's north west and now has about 80 megachurches in more than 19 countries.

The prime minister attends a different Pentecostal church called Horizon in Sydney's south, which shares with Hillsong an affiliation under the Australian Christian Churches banner.

Morrison's friendship with Houston has attracted considerable criticism because the wealthy pastor was adversely named in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

That inquiry recommended Houston be investigated for failing to report to police his father Frank Houston, a self-confessed paedophile, for crimes committed while Frank Houston was an Assemblies of God minister.

NSW Police confirmed to 7NEWS.com.au on Wednesday that the Hills Police Area Command is still investigating Brian Houston.

Brisbane public relations operator Lyle Mercer, who handles media queries for Hillsong, would not say why the church pulled details of its 2020 schools tour plan from the website.

"Schools across Australia offer various optional activities to students," Mercer said in a statement provided to 7NEWS.com.au.

"Hillsong – like many other outside organisations – has for many years created programs that provide students with positive values and in many situations these don’t even mention Christianity.

"These are done in student time and are always optional.

SOURCE  


No comments: