An Educated Citizenry Is A Vital Requisite For Our Survival As A Free People

Educated Citizenry

Writing from Monticello to Colonel Yancey, after his retirement from the Presidency in 1816, Thomas Jefferson made this significant statement: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

The most convincing proof of this statement is the complete collapse of the Congo State in July 1960, only a few days after its independence from Belgium. At that time the whole Congolese nation of 14 million had only 16 university graduates, and not a lawyer or doctor or scientist among them. The rest of the people were totally ignorant.  Democracy is incompatible with illiteracy.

The great German statesman of the last century, Chancellor Bismarck, once declared that "the nation that has the schools has the future." To prepare our voters of tomorrow well or ill for the responsibilities of citizenship and government rests almost entirely with the schools and colleges of our nation. "The great bulwark of republican government is the cultivation of education," said De Witt Clinton, first governor of New York, "for the right of suffrage cannot be exercised in a salutary manner without intelligence."

In a democracy, responsibility for the conduct of society and government rests on every member of society. Education thus becomes imperative, to enable the individual citizen, and society as a whole, to meet this responsibility of citizenship.

Today our western world is engaged in a life and death struggle with the communist world - for the minds of men. It is a war of ideologies - between democracy with freedom and justice, and communism with slavery and its brutal injustice. Only an educated citizenry can discern the fraud and consequences of communism, and understand and appreciate the great benefits and responsibilities of our democratic way of life. It is an unending struggle - vital to this and all future generations, for good and evil will battle forever for the conquest of men's minds and souls.

Senator John William Fulbright, Chairman of the important and powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that "The most serious and difficult challenge offered by the Russians is not in the military field, but in their determined and successful drive to cultivate to the utmost the intellectual powers of their people."

Frank M. Porter, President of American Petroleum Institute, has summed up this threat to America with compelling eloquence:   "They said the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Let us hope it need never be said that the battle for the Free World was lost in the high schools and colleges of America . . . that failed to train enough young people to hold our leadership in research, engineering and scientific discovery."

"The way out of the never-ending armed truce in which we live," said Samuel B. Gould, Chancellor, University of California, Santa Barbara, "lies in the disposition on our part to be just as concerned about the state of men's minds as we are about the state of their weapons. It lies in a return to education for the strengthening of the basic values of human life, values we seem to be losing sight of in preoccupation with material things. And it is the kind of education which should permeate not only the schools but also the homes and indeed the entire pattern in America."

With the constantly growing complexities of life, both for individuals and nations, the need for better and broader education is increasing with leaps and bounds with each new generation. No longer can any nation neglect education and expect to remain free.

MAKE HISTORY: Don't miss your chance to be part of history - help America right her ship and return to the values and principles that made her great. Be there on 8/28 in Washington D.C. with Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Joe Dee Messina, Marcus Luttrell and be heard! Need a ride? No problem! Get all the details on the event HERE.

Do yourself and your children a favor, if you can afford to go on vacation this year, make it worthwhile.  Plan to go to to Washington DC for the August 28th event.  Visit a Presidential Library… or several on a tour of historical and interesting site around the country, in your state or visit Arizona to show them your support.

And add family reading and positive family TV time to your summer of valuable and educational books and DVD’s… that you then discuss.  Does that mean you can’t go to Disneyland or a ball game?  Of course not!  Those activities are also part of the American experience, but a ball game every night (live or on TV) and a summer full of amusement parks and starring at the TV over dinner, without talking to each other, if you eat together at all, is only doing yourself, your children and all our futures a huge disservice.  That is part of what has gotten us to this place in time.

Glenn Beck Unites Mormons and Baptists: Opposing Obama Trumps Doctrine

(Strikes a chord for education and unity for cause)

Glenn Beck's Mormon faith had drawn some criticism from Baptists and evangelical leaders after the Fox News celebrity and Tea Party prophet was invited to deliver the commencement address last weekend at Liberty University, a flagship institution of the Christian right.

Mainstream Christians don't consider Mormons part of the faith, and conservatives in particular often refer to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- the formal name of the Mormon church -- as a "cult" because of its unusual birth in the 1830s in upstate New York, its unorthodox practices and beliefs about God, salvation and the Trinity, as well as unique Mormon scriptures.

But it's amazing what Barack Obama -- not to mention Glenn Beck's blustery right-wing rhetoric -- has done for the once hopeless cause of religious unity.
In his address at the jam-packed stadium on the Lynchburg, Va., campus, Beck did several things right off the bat that won the crowd over -- if indeed they needed much wooing.

First, he cried. A lot. That, of course, is not unusual. Glenn Beck weeps all the time, at least on air or in front of large crowds, and he has a very poignant and affecting personal story to tell, which he does quite often. This day he recounted how he spent just a single semester at Yale, leaving because he could not afford it and, he said, because he didn't like professor telling him what and what not to read. "I am humbled and honored," Beck managed to croak after university head Jerry Falwell Jr. introduced him. He then had to stop to collect himself, but quickly recovered when a guy in the audience yelled, "We love you, Glenn!"

"I love you, too!" Beck shot back, adding impishly: "If I were only single and you were a woman, we'd be set." Laughter all around, ice broken.

Second, Beck immediately addressed the issue of his Mormon beliefs:

"I want you to know that the invitation to speak today is not meant as an endorsement of my faith," he said, absolving Falwell -- son of the late Jerry Falwell Sr., icon of the religious right and founder of Liberty, which he envisioned as a Baptist Notre Dame. "But I also want you to understand that my agreeing to speak here today is an endorsement of your faith."

Big applause, understandably, and then a good follow-up, as Beck told his listeners that this was no time for division on the right over things like doctrine and dogma. "We may have differences, but we need to find those things that unite us."

Third, and most important, Beck forcefully told the crowd what in fact did unite this group -- opposition to Obama.

"We live at a time where it seems truth is on the run," Beck said, and he cited President Barack Obama's commencement address a few days earlier at the University of Michigan as Exhibit A in this moral retreat:

"He said that there is now too much information available, that it is sometimes too confusing," Beck said, purporting to summarize the president's remarks. "This is a course that has been charted before in the past. It always ends with those who are willing to burn books."

That of course is a silly statement, simply because there soon won't be any books to burn, and torching an iPad or Tablet is not so easy.

Moreover, the president didn't quite say those things, or anything like them. In fact, in his commencement speech at Michigan, Obama was arguing the very opposite of what Beck charged him with saying, as per this passage from the president about promoting civil dialogue by reading and discussing more, not less:

"Whereas most Americans used to get their news from the same three networks over dinner, or a few influential papers on Sunday morning, we now have the option to get our information from any number of blogs or websites or cable news shows. And this can have both a good and bad development for democracy. For if we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line with our own, studies suggest that we become more polarized, more set in our ways. That will only reinforce and even deepen the political divides in this country..."
"That's why we need a vibrant and thriving news business that is separate from opinion makers and talking heads. That's why we need an educated citizenry that values hard evidence and not just assertion. . . . Still, if you're somebody who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while. If you're a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website."

(Oops. Red flag before bull.)

"It may make your blood boil," Obama continued. "Your mind may not be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship."

At Liberty University’s graduation, Glenn Beck certainly wasn't about to offer a viewpoint that would challenge his listeners, and that appeared to suit them just fine. Yet in the next breath he also told the graduates that it was their "God-given right" and their "God-given responsibility" to use their brains, to think for themselves.

At times, in fact, the pundit almost sounded like the president, even if he broke down in tears every couple of minutes and tended to indulge in the kind of trademark Beckian bathos that is the antithesis of the characteristic Obama cool.

It's likely that Beck -- and the Liberty graduates -- didn't realize the parallel between the two men, or intend such a thing to come to pass. Glenn Beck as Barack Obama? Mormons and Baptists united? Maybe there is hope after all.

DAVID GIBSON

Religion Reporter

 

Glenn attacked for 8/28

Glenn Beck is under attack (gee, real shocker) again for the upcoming 'Restoring Honor' rally on August 28th in Washington D.C. that will, among other things, honor our men and women in uniform. Apparently trying to get Americans to reconnect with the values of the Founding Fathers and the men and women of our armed forces is 'controversial' and offensive to some. People like Bill Press lashed out at Glenn - and he plays the hate spewing from the left on radio today. ( Transcript, Insider Audio, FREE Insider Extreme Clip)