According to a recent survey, 44 percent of Milennials believe that Barack Obama had a “bigger impact” on America than George Washington.
The Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness (FLAG) released a survey conducted by YouGov and commissioned by FLAG, the results of which are disturbing and demonstrate a dearth of belief in American exceptionalism and in comprehension of basic American political tenets.
Here are a few “highlights” of the results of the survey 1,078 Americans age 38 and under (known by the nicknames “Generation Z” and Millennial”):
• 84 percent of respondents could not name the rights protected by the First Amendment.
• 50 percent of respondents described America as “sexist.”
• 49 percent of respondents said America is “racist.”
• 46 percent of respondents described America as “more racist than other countries.”
• 38 percent of respondents do not agree that “America has a history that we should be proud of.”
• 19 percent of respondents consider the American flag to be “a sign of intolerance and hatred.”
• 14 percent of respondents believes “America never was a great country and never will be.”
There’s much more, but that’s more than enough to prove the point that younger Americans have been deprived of an education that would transmit to them appreciation for all that is exceptional about the history of the United States of America.
Nick Adams, the founder of FLAG, released the following statement in conjunction with the publishing of the survey’s findings:
We suspected that we would find decreasing numbers of Americans well-versed in our nation’s most important principles and young people less patriotic than the generations that came before, but we were totally unprepared for what our national survey reveals: an epidemic of anti-Americanism. That half of millennials and Gen Z believe that the country in which they live is both ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ shows that we have a major fraction of an entire generation that has been indoctrinated by teachers starting in grade school that America is what’s wrong with the world.
According to the documents released by FLAG, the survey was conducted to reach the following topical goals:
1. Are younger Americans less patriotic than older Americans? Do they harbor more negative views about America than their parents and grandparents?
2. What knowledge gaps do Americans have about basic American historical information?
3. Do Americans see college as a measure of success?
OK, I’ve got to give you some of the other results:
• 45 percent knew how many amendments are in the Bill of Rights.
• 23 percent knew the authors of the Federalist papers.
• 34 percent of the youngest respondents believe that citizens should not be allowed to own guns.
• 29 percent of the youngest respondents do not believe patriotism is a good thing.
Should we really wonder at the results revealed by this survey? We’ve allowed atheists to exile all influence of religion from our publicly-funded schools (public and charter). We’ve allowed local, state, and federal education bureaucrats to scrap the study of primary source documents detailing the miraculous story of the American founding, requiring, rather, the reading of a chapter in a textbook “teaching” students that they should be ashamed of the behavior of their ancestors.
Writing for “Conversations That Matter,” Jonathan Harris suggested a clue to our condition:
Could it be that certain groups are not interested in history, especially American and Western history, not because they do not feel included, but rather because they fundamentally have a dislike or disagreement with the country in which they reside. They simply do not wish to identify. Perhaps the common ground with one’s culture necessary for even forming an identity is not present. It is likely that the only exposure to American or Western history known by many is a negative.
“If the standard of measure for judging the past happens to be egalitarianism, there does not seem to be any way of recovering an interest in American history as an identity marker. Its main function will most likely be sacrificed on the alter of identity politics,” Harris added.
As someone who has taught hundreds of high school students for over a decade, I know from first-hand experience that we cannot expect our children to do as our Founders did unless they believe what our Founders believed. And they cannot believe what our Founders believed unless they read what our Founders read, and they cannot read what our Founders read when they are forced to read textbooks full of rubbish written by people who know nothing of the intellectual, spiritual, and philosophical roots of the American Founding.
If we are to undo the damage that has been done over the past 100 years of government meddling in the education of American children, then we must see the restoration of those principles that our Founders held so dear.
With that in mind, I offer several quotes from James Madison:
•“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”
• “What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?”
• “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
• “It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others.”
