I’m not quite sure when progressive indoctrination replaced actual civics here in the United States. I’m not sure anyone is because this transformation was gradual and stealthy. In an attempt to research that point for this article I searched for the following phrase on Google: “when did social studies replace civics.” Here is the most informative quote the anti oracles at Google provided:
Until the 1960s, it was common for American high school students to have three separate courses in civics and government. But civics offerings were slashed as the curriculum narrowed over the ensuing decades, and lost further ground to “core subjects” under the NCLB-era standardized testing regime
The response was just what I expected. The transition began in the 1960s, when the Marxists began their transformation of the United States from a Constitutional Republic into a socialist democracy. When I started grade school in the late 1970s the class was called social studies but civics was still at the core of the subject. When I ended grade school it was more social studies and less civics. That trend continued through my high school years. When I attended the University of Massachusetts real civics was difficult to find.
The NCLB mentioned in the quote is the abbreviation for No Child Left Behind, one of George W. Bush’s crowning achievements. Until Obama’s Common Core came along it was the worst thing to ever happen to American Public education.
It is extraordinarily safe to say that progressive indoctrination is now completely out of control here in the United States, at all levels. It has infected all subject. It has taken so many different forms, all of which are meant to turn every single student into an ignorant, unquestioning, and obedient slave. The political left does not want educated free citizens. The more ignorant, immoral, and unhappy we are the easier it will be for the Democrats to control us and all aspects of our lives
This quote from a Benjamin Rush Essay written in 1786 provided the inspiration for my article this week. It appeared in my Facebook news feed in the form of a meme shared by the Atlas Society.
Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.
James Madison wrote something very similar in a letter in written in 1822.
A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
My favorite founding father, Thomas Jefferson, wrote this to Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816.
if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. there is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
Unless the American people seize back control of our entire educational system real soon, we will no longer be a free country.
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