Holidays

On the necessity of teaching the Constitution, civics in school.

JP Mac Americana, Holidays, Politics , , ,
The Constitution
Happy Constitution Day! Keep the Constitution alive by learning about it and teaching it to your kids.

A generation ago, civics classes used to be ubiquitous in public schools.  Now, as more and more schools teach for standardized tests, the study of the government and the Constitution has fallen by the wayside.  Many Millenials don’t even have a basic knowledge of the Constitution or of civics.  Often when asked, they can’t even name the three branches of government. This is a dangerous trend in this democratic republic we call the USA. For a republic to properly function, it is essential that we the people are aware of our rights and responsibilities as citizens.

If you have school-age children, do you know if their school has any sort of civics curriculum?  Celebrating Constitution Day is a great time to think about such things and take action with your local school board to recommend bringing back civics if it’s not being taught.  If it is, please take time to praise them for supporting civics and Constitutional studies.  You may find that along with music, art, and physical education, that civics could be on the chopping block due to budget cuts or greater emphasis on teaching for standardized tests.  Your speaking up could help innoculate wavering school board members from pressure to cut such valuable programs now and in the future.

If you don’t have kids, take some time to read our important founding documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  You are in charge of your own civics education.  If you have never read them before, or haven’t since you took civics in school, you might be surprised and enlightened by what’s in them.  There is also something about reading the actual, unfiltered texts that you can’t get by reading a book or hearing about them on TV. (Of course, no harm in doing both!) Arming yourself with this knowledge will help you fight for and protect your most sacred rights as an American.

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Remembering our fallen heroes on Memorial Day: Are we worthy of their sacrifice?

JP Mac Civil Liberty, Holidays, Politics , , , , , , ,
Memorial Day 2016
Pray for those who gave their lives that we may be free. Appreciate every bit of that freedom, and guard it jealously.

So many brave Americans have fought and died for our freedom.  What would they think of the country we’ve become?  Would they lament what some have done with that freedom?  Would they still think it was worth their last breath or drop of blood, or would they shed tears for the liberties we gave away without even a shot having to have been fired to take them? Would they weep at the sight of groups like Antifa rioting and destroying property seeking to deny people their freedom of speech?  Would those who died in the American Revolution shudder at how many people would forfeit their rights to keep and bear arms, to be free from unwarranted search and seizure for the illusion of safety and security?  Would all those hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers cut down in battle throw their hands up dismay at how racially divided we’ve become?  What would those who died on foreign soil in WWII think of a Europe, the continent they freed of one form of malignant socialism opt for a more palatable one?  How would those who died in the War of 1812 react to football players not honoring the Star Spangled Banner, a song written about the flag some of them literally died to defend?  Remember this Memorial Day, those heroes died for more than a piece of land, they died for an idea, an idea that freedom is worth fighting and dying for.  They died so that those they left behind could be safe from tyranny and oppression.  Let’s not surrender easily what they paid the ultimate price for, that idea of that “shining city on a hill”, of American Exceptionalism.