Teach your children well... Worry Warts... A footnote from the old, white guy

I stumbled across a 2002 article in Smithsonian magazine by historian Stephen Ambrose telling a story about his encounter with a University of Wisconsin history professor who had dropped Thomas Jefferson’s writings from her curriculum because he had owned slaves.  Ambrose describes Jefferson as racist and asks, “To what degree do the attitudes of Washington and Jefferson toward slavery diminish their achievements?”

Their achievements were what I learned in school. But the incident makes me wonder what schools are  teaching our children.  When it comes to U.S. History (if they’re studying it at all), they may be learning it the way you and I did, or they may have some important elements left out by design.  There is a revisionist view that teaches your children that our preeminent position in the world is the product of an immoral conquest characterized by raping, pillaging, cheating, lying and murdering.  This presentation captures factually accurate events but omits context – and, apparently, Thomas Jefferson.

You can say some things that are true and still not be telling the truth.

The approach reminds me of George Orwell’s fictional but prescient work ‘1984’ in which he writes:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

If we remove all the symbols or, as Orwell suggested, rewrite all the books, repaint all the paintings, tear down all the statues, what will replace it?  Should your children grow up thinking that they are the beneficiaries of the acts of evil dudes and should feel guilty about our prosperity?

Here’s something your children are likely not being taught: 

            

·       Private property rights, affirmed by the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Jay, are the foundation of our economic prosperity, our right to private enjoyment of our homes and protection against government overreach. 

·       Governance by the rule of law ensures that government officials – elected and otherwise – are held accountable and that contracts will be enforced even if such enforcement is to the detriment of someone more powerful than you. 

·       Economic freedom enables us to have the lowest cost of capital in the world and attracts foreign direct investment that ensures the pie we divide among us keeps getting bigger. 

·       We should not take our prosperity for granted and many politicians who advocate for government to restrict corporate activities will undermine that same prosperity without an understanding of cause and effect. 

Our children must be taught something to offset the voracious attack that’s been mounted by media and educators who find a populist audience eating up the idea that the system is rigged, CEO’s are evil, and the capitalist economic system should be shelved. 

Worry warts

Are human beings natural worriers?  It’s debatable and the folks at Psychology Today tell us worriers are made not born. Twenty-first century philosopher Noah Yuval Harari takes a different view.  In his great book Homo Deus, he points to the worries of mankind since the dawn of time.  What most often took the lives of human beings was famine, plague or war.  Not anymore, he tells us.  “For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined.”

So, with all those major worries out of the way, we worry about income inequality, politically correct speech and “fairness.”  We forget that we have the luxury of such worries because of the unprecedented prosperity of the last 70 years – prosperity created by the very system that many now decry as predatory.

Let’s not take that prosperity for granted. 

A Footnote from the Old White Guy

An abbreviated version of last month’s post “I’m Just An Old White Guy” was published in our local newspaper, The Democrat & Chronicle, whose editor added “… Who Is Angry” to the headline.  It kicked up enough dust for me to be invited to discuss it on a talk radio show on the local NPR affiliate WXXI.

My piece was not about racism but was perceived to be.  The inclusion of the word “white” in the title is apparently a trigger.  In advance of the show, I suggested to the host that I was not qualified to discuss racism. Nevertheless, most of our discussion was about race.  A caller – a self-described “old, black guy” – challenged my expertise to discuss racism.  He was right about that.  The core premise of my essay is that categorizing people leads to tribalism and the political polarization from which we suffer. 

            

There are people who specialize in being offended.  There are people who specialize in calling out racism.  I am not sure if one is a subset of the other, but I know that it doesn’t lead to constructive dialog. 

            

My wife and my gay son will not vote Republican.  They feel excluded.  Their voices are not heard.  Their argument has merit.  But the response on the left shouldn’t be to exclude me based upon my race and gender.  If you exclude me from the conversation, you shouldn’t expect my support.  

WHO WILL LEAD?