Soap Box

Over a half century ago America started caving in to the "enlightened" generation and, although it was not identified by that name, the new age had dawned and the era of political correctness had arrived, as a nation with a bad conscience brought on by the specter of segregation and any number of social injustices set out on a path to "right the wrongs" and make sure that no minority or segment of the American population would have to live in a society with practices or symbols that offended them.

And in the process threw the baby out with the bath water.

An atheist named Madalyn Murray O�Hair started a movement to have prayer banned in public school and on June 25, 1962 in a case brought by a man named Steven Engel, the Supreme Court gave Ms. O�Hair her way, disenfranchising the vast majority of those who went to public schools for the sake of a handful of atheists, agnostics and rabble rousers who were just along for the ride.

And the sad fact is that when prayer was banished so much more went with it, reverence and fear of God, even the mention of His name, and as is always the case, things like discipline, order and respect for authority went away too.

And the long downhill slide began.

The American public school system, since those days, has basically turned into a unionized machine, more concerned with politics than with education, protective of the incompetent and mediocre while America's SAT scores continue a decades long downward spiral.

When you consider the fact that so many of our colleges have become uber liberal indoctrination centers, with the emphasis on atheistic doctrine questioning the existence of God and the legitimacy of America's place in the world, it's no wonder that so many students are graduating convinced that America has conquered, annihilated, stolen and bullied our way into being the greatest nation the world has never known.

So little is known about the founding fathers, the true mission of the Constitution and the other federal papers, the civil rights struggle and the righteous and non-violent philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the people of all colors who stood side by side with him.

Witness the meteoric rise of Bernie Sanders amongst the young academics, who take him at his word that their future has been stolen by Wall Street and their ilk and that they should be receiving things like a college education, health care and all manner of other, pie in the sky, social services for free.

It seems that many of the professors teaching in the universities today are, at the very least, fascinated with socialism, with some being solid advocates of the system.

They don't turn the coin over and at least give their students both sides of the story, that socialism has failed or is failing miserably everywhere it has ever been tried, that it leads to bigger and bigger government and puts power into the hands of politicians who never have enough as the rights of the individual are leeched away, little by little until an all-powerful central government, the same one who provides free college and free health care, controls every aspect of your life.

America is beginning to harvest the bitter fruit of a public education system that has been viewed by politicians as a voting block to be protected and kept intact no matter how far below the rest of the world our academic standards have fallen.

And so many of our college students have embraced the old fascist method of "If you disagree with something, don't allow it a hearing. Shout it down and label it racist or sexist.�

These young people have some tough lessons to learn when they come out into a world where ambition decides who prospers, where getting along with people who take different political and social positions is part of the job and the quality of your work can't be blamed on somebody else, in the cold, mercenary environment of competition where the willing and the motivated move ahead and the rest get left along the wayside.

Bitter fruit, indeed.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

� Charlie Daniels

PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST

Feel free to comment on Charlie's soapboxes, but please refrain from profanity and "Anonymous" posts are not allowed, we need a name (it doesn't have to be your first and last name) and you MUST provide a valid email address. If you provide an email address, but leave the name as "Anonymous" we will pick a name for you based on your email address. No one other than website adminstrators will see your email address, not other posters. If you post without a valid email address, your comment (whether postive or negative) will be deleted. � TeamCDB