At the time of George Washington’s death in 1799, there were found almost 900 volumes in his book press, (Colonial-speak for built-in bookshelf), in an era when if a gentleman had 40 volumes in his book press it was considered to be a very large number.  The reason for this is that George Washington’s father died when Washington was 11 years old, and that was the end of all formal education for the young man.  From the age of 11 on, when George Washington wanted to learn something, he would secure the volumes, and teach himself.  Washington had in his library at Mt. Vernon books on just about every subject that had been written about in English in the 18th Century or before.  The only thing it appears that George Washington did not teach himself in his long and extraordinary lifetime of learning was a language other than English, an omission he always regretted.

It is indeed ironic that the two great geniuses of the founders, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, were the only ones of that illustrious group who were almost entirely self-educated.  It is perhaps fitting that these two most extraordinary of men were the ones to whom education was  foremost among their priorities for their new nation.  

George Washington, as President, for example, worked from the start to create a national university to be established in the future American capital, the Federal City (later to be Washington, D.C.), where “it could melt local prejudices and regional attachments in a nationalist solvent.”  Despite much effort on the part of Washington, and later education-minded Presidents, this was never to happen.

Benjamin Franklin, the other of the founders who emphasized universal education as vital to the success of the new republic, attempted to initiate educational practices that would apply themselves uniquely to Americans.  In the ideal Franklin curriculum, for example, every American child would be taught all subjects in English, rather than Latin which was the norm at the time.  These subjects would include: ‘writing, arithmetic, mathematics, natural philosophy, history, geography, logic, rhetoric and swimming.’

One cannot fault Dr. Franklin for making such practical applications to late 18th Century life; he felt, for example, that swimming should be part of any young American’s curriculum because it provided a quite simple alternative to drowning.  It was as near impossible to dispute the logic and reason of the one and only Dr. Franklin as it was to the great pragmatist George Washington.

Now to American education under 21st Century leader Barack Hussein Obama:

“The American Revolution Center commissioned the first national survey to assess adult knowledge of the American Revolution. The results show that an alarming 83 percent of Americans failed a basic test on knowledge of the American Revolution and the principles that have united all Americans. Results also revealed that 90 percent of Americans think that knowledge of the American Revolution and its principles is very important, and that 89 percent of Americans expected to pass a test on basic knowledge of the American Revolution, but scored an average of 44 percent. The survey questions addressed issues related to the Revolutionary documents, people, and events, and also asked attitudinal questions about the respondents’ perception of the importance of understanding the Revolutionary history and the institutions that were established to preserve our freedoms and liberties. The survey results highlight the importance of, interest in, and lack of understanding of our Founding.”

The great columnist to the world, Mark Steyn, once said that he found it to be a form of child abuse that American children were purposely not taught the glorious history of their country.  That we are the only such experiment that worked in the history of the world, that we were created by a remarkable and unique group of men who achieved what had never been achieved before, is quite possibly the best story an American can read or learn.  This is the definition of American exceptionalism, a concept to which our current President does not adhere.

What our children are being taught is not the actual history of this country, but what is known as ‘revisionist’ history, which is, in other words, let me find exactly the right word, now what would that right word be, oh, I know…a lie!  This version of history developed by social engineers almost two generations ago strives to convince our innocent offspring that everything about America is and always has been bad.  What it is, is a stultifying combination of indoctrination, multiculturalism and political correctness; what it is not, is education. This is true not only at the post high school level, it is the same at every level in the American school system; most sadly, at the elementary school level

This rigidly adhered to educational agenda on the part of the left has been, tragically, extremely successful.  Busy parents, still expecting the successful results that American schools had achieved during their lifetimes and before, assumed that schools were actually educating their children.  Gradual though it was, it was a shock for Americans to discover that their children were, in fact not being taught, but were being propagandized.  It was quite daunting for American parents to discover that they had to, in effect, debrief their young students every day.

An example: my son attended two $30,000 + a year private schools in the Washington area for 12 years and I realized early on that there would not be a day that I didn’t have to debrief him – and these schools were considered the least politically correct in the entire area!  Typical conversations with my son:  “Mommy?  What’s the ACLU?”  “Why, honey, where did you come upon that?”  “They were at school today and the teachers said we should give money to them because they are fighting for people’s rights.”  “Well, honey,…”  “Mommy, what did Ghana do to be one of the greatest civilizations of all time?”  “Well, it actually wasn’t, honey, they had no written language and they regularly ripped peoples’ hearts out; who told you that it was?”  “My history teacher told me that it was even better than America.”  “Well, honey…”   “Mommy, why are we the most racist country in the history of the world?”  “Well, honey, we weren’t and aren’t, we were actually the only nation in the world who once had slaves that voluntarily got rid of the practice.  Plus, you have an ancestor who fought and died in a war to free the slaves. Who told you that?”  “All my teachers say that, Mommy.”  “Well, honey…”

It is very clear that our current president, Barack Hussein Obama, signed onto the radical leftist  educational agenda (ably put in place by Obama best pal and uber educator William Ayres) hook, line and sinker.  To Obama and his like, America has a deeply flawed history, and no matter what actions we have taken since our start, remains deeply flawed.  America and its people need to be punished, and not just those of us currently living; long dead ancestors have to pay for these perceived transgressions, as well – reparations, anyone?  

That is certainly not the only payback the radical left has in store for us.  More than two generations have proved to be more than enough time for these leftist ‘educators’ to firm up many different plans to accomplish America’s destruction.  Starting with ruining our educational institutions, they then moved on to our military (still working on that one); they then tackled our religious institutions; after working assiduously on that, they then moved on to our legal institutions; then they turned their attention to our financial institutions while simultaneously attempting to ruin our political institutions. You can be sure that if they missed anything along the way of which an American citizen could remotely be proud, it will be tracked down and proper attention paid to it.

To Obama and the elites around him, the America our 18th Century forbearers created started evil, got worse, and now is such an awful and reprehensible institution that it needs to be completely transformed into something radically different.  To them, America is to be thoroughly condemned, then obliterated and subsumed into the One World Government that Obama will eventually rule.

The America of George Washington and the other founders, according to the Obama religion and its advocates, is apostasy and will be and should be replaced by the divine creed of Obama and his fellow elites.

Our children, unless we as parents, (who have been purposely made increasingly irrelevant in our school systems), tell them of our founding, they will never know the extraordinary story of what many think is the greatest point in Western history

We are not supposed to be at this place in the education of our children 220 years later.

We must do what George Washington did, and educate ourselves and our children of our founding, and of our nation’s purpose.  Since our schools will not do so, (until we have successfully changed things), we need to educate ourselves and our children of the wise, timeless and simple documents of our founding.  These documents didn’t need to be 2000 pages, they weren’t made to obfuscate; they were formed to be clear, and to be concise enough to be understood by everyone at the time who could read, and to be explained to those who couldn’t.  When we absorb the magnificence of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution we will re-awaken to the fact that we were formed as a nation to be free men to determine things for ourselves.  It will again become clear to us as Americans that it is up to us to stop the soft tyranny, (becoming less soft by the day), that exists in America today, and to re-establish this nation as it was meant to be.   We were not meant to be ruled; we as a country were formed to be a nation of free men who were responsible for our own lives and our own futures.  The will of the people was meant to be carried out through the actions of the representatives we elected – we were not created as a nation to be told what to do by our appointed betters.

It is way past the time that we should dispense with these appointed and self-appointed betters, and get back to being the United States of America

When George Washington and the others formed our Constitution, there was a specific reason that it contained primarily what the federal government could NOT do as opposed to what it could do  That reason is very simple: to protect and preserve the very precious freedom with which we had been entrusted. It was, and is, up to us to read the rules and figure out how to maintain the republic.

Thanks to the monumental efforts of the Marxists, Socialists and Communists currently in charge of America, that freedom is being incrementally taken from us.  There has never been a time as serious in the preservation of our freedom and of our nation, as we see America being ripped apart and an entirely new nation based on rule put in its place, when we need to come forward to justify the trust that George Washington and the others placed in future generations of their precious America.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall seeing the word ‘rule’ in the Constitution, nor in the Declaration of Independence.  I could be mistaken in this; oh wait, maybe I am wrong, that’s right, I am wrong, the word was used… only it was what America was fighting AGAINST!

If we are to stop the decline of our once great nation, we must begin by recapturing our schools from those who wish to rule us.  For more than two generations we have allowed our childrens’ minds to be poisoned by increasingly radical leftist lies about this great country.  It is really very simple: we replace these lies with truth.  Truth – devoid of political agenda, political correctness, multiculturalism, Orwell-speak, all of which were created to deflect from the truth.  Truth – the clear, simple truth about the United States of America, which will enable our children to understand that our country does not need to be fundamentally transformed, the nation that our founders gave us needs to be preserved.

The best of us, our self-educated first President, who started this nation, would expect nothing less from us as we recapture our country and take it back to as it was envisioned by our founders, and not that of our current ‘rulers’.  

This first action we must take is to stop this evil that has been predicated on our children.  The truth about our country, will, indeed, set us, and our children, free.