Many young Americans are being taught contempt for their own country. Progressive professors encourage students to believe that America is always in the wrong.
The United States was built on the idea that everyone is an individual, each in possession of their own inalienable rights. Today, tragically, young Americans are often invited to think of themselves as victims, defined by where they sit in an imagined hierarchy of victimhood.
Watch the truth: America is an exceptional success
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy led the fight to pass a law in our state to combat Critical Race theory. We are delighted that we won, but legislation is not enough.
To win a battle of ideas, bad ideas about America need to be replaced with good ideas.
To help do this, we have today launched the America Explained series, a collection of short videos that we will be posting online, intended for a young audience. The aim is to show that America is an exceptional country, founded on principles that have elevated the condition of all of humankind.
For most of human history, hierarchy and hereditary were seen as the natural order. People were defined in terms of class, birth and caste. America was instead founded on a very different idea; that everyone was created equal, in possession of their own set of rights.
To be sure, this principle has not always been perfectly applied. The United States has produced laws and leaders that often failed to live up to such noble sentiments. But using every history and civics class to undermine America’s founding principles, as some progressive professors seem to do, is simply wrong.
America’s founding principles cannot be bettered.
One hundred and fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, Calvin Coolidge said that “If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. No advance can be made beyond these [principles]."
He went on to warn that if anyone rejects the principles on which America was founded, the only direction in which they will take America is backward.
Our America Explained collection will, we hope, ensure that young Mississippians – and indeed people across the country – hear the counter arguments to the progressive propaganda that they are often exposed to.
As someone engaged in the battle of ideas, I can’t help noticing that many ‘woke’ academics seem to be curiously reluctant to engage in public debate or have their ideas subject to scrutiny. Could it be that deep down they know that their ideology won’t survive contact with the counter arguments?
Our new initiative aims to ensure that there is a free and fair competition of ideas. Let battle begin!
