What’s happening to our country? The United States of Anti-America

Those Americans who have been around for a while may be wondering what is happening to their country. While there have been periods of disruption before, such as the anti-war/peace movement of the 60s, the magnitude of what is going on today surpasses previous challenges. America is under attack from within.

Merely being a member of the largest subgroup of people in the country — the primary group which founded and developed the country: white people — has each of them being regarded as a “supremacist,” a “racist,” and “privileged.” These people had no say in who their parents were or where they were born and grew up, yet they are now persona non-grata in the country their ancestors created.

This comes from a concept known as Critical Race Theory (CRT). It has the support of the woke among us, and seeks to persuade everyone that in America there are only two classes of people: oppressors and their victims. And white people are the oppressors.

CRT evolved from the Critical Theory attributed to socialist Karl Marx, author of “The Communist Manifesto.” CRT differs in that it includes racism as a fundamental factor. It focuses on cancelling the traditional American values such as family, democracy, honesty and truth. And traditional practices like hard work, learning, rational thinking and obeying time schedules are not sound practices leading to success, but racist values imposed by white supremacists.

Through the years, CRT has been sneaking into classrooms, and is now being touted by President Joe Biden’s administration to be part of the K-12 curriculum to replace what’s left of traditional civics instruction and history that taught hundreds of millions of Americans through the decades the truth about their country, its founding and how it operates. 

Instead, CRT will teach young students to focus on skin color and power, revising history to tell the story of a nation founded on white oppression. The goal of CRT is teaching white kids to hate themselves and their families, and teaching other kids to hate their country.

A tool used in this “progressive” destruction of America is “The 1619 Project.”

“The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

That is the opening of the New York Times Magazine’s (NYTM) description of “The 1619 Project.” A different organization, calling itself Project 1619, has the following statement about the NYTM’s mission: “Project 1619 Inc. was not consulted or involved in their production … [and] does not support or endorse their opinions.”

The NYTM’s 1619 Project suffers from both conceptual and data errors. First, it attempts to shift the beginning of America from its actual formal beginning in 1776 to a time when only one of the 13 colonies that formed the United States of America existed: Virginia, the English settlement established in 1607. At that time, and extending to 1619 and for many more years there was no drive to form a new nation.

Second, the first slaves were brought to the North American continent roughly 50 years before 1619 and many years before the Virginia Colony was established.

Surely, the story of the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans can be effectively told without revising history to increase the negative impact of the story, and unjustifiably dishonor the nation. 

The 1776 Commission was started by former President Donald Trump on November 2, 2020, by Executive Order 13958. Trump took this step to counter attacks on America’s founding. The EO cites “our country's valiant and successful effort to shake off the curse of slavery and to use the lessons of that struggle to guide our work toward equal rights for all citizens in the present.”

It continues: “Viewing America as an irredeemably and systemically racist country cannot account for the extraordinary role of the great heroes of the American movement against slavery and for civil rights — a great moral endeavor that, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr., was marked by religious fellowship, good will, generosity of heart, an emphasis on our shared principles, and an inclusive vision for the future.

Section 2. (a) of the EO states: “Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall establish in the Department of Education the President's Advisory 1776 Commission ("the 1776 Commission") to better enable a rising generation to understand the history and 4 principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.”

This effort to counter the vile, anti-American aims of CRT was cancelled by President Biden on his first day in office.

America was not perfect on its first day of existence 240-plus years ago, and it is not perfect today. No nation is or ever was perfect. Our country will not be made more perfect by indoctrinating generations of young people with misinformation such as this. In fact, indoctrination goes against the founding principles of America.

Only understanding, not rewriting, history will help us meet the future

Unless you have been living in a cave — or like so many these days, voluntarily isolated in a bubble — you have likely noticed the somewhat disturbing resemblances to George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” sometimes written as “1984.” Published in 1949, Orwell’s predictions were off by a few decades. But today, we see more and more how his vision was right.

Orwell’s dystopian story involves a government that controls everything people read, hear, say, eat, breathe and know. The story’s protagonist, Winston Smith, was one of many who had the job of rewriting history to fit the evolving narrative of the totalitarian government. His job was to “fix” every book, magazine or newspaper containing what used to be the truth to conform to what is the new truth.

Today’s political correctness (PC) may be the most recognizable feature from Orwell’s novel. PC mania has been around for several years, and is gaining strength these days. While PC comes from a non-government faction, rather than a totalitarian government like that of “1984,” the results from the non-governmental faction may be little different, as it converts what “used to be” into “what now is.”

An element of PC today is “white supremacy,” or “white privilege.” All of the white folks in America, who had nothing to say about who their parents are, what color their skin is, or where they were born, are the current main target. Nothing is so disliked in America as white Americans.

Have you ever been to Spain? Or to Germany, France or Mexico?

The people in those and other countries are unconcerned with people of other nationalities that visit them. They are simply and naturally the Spanish, the Germans, the French, and the Mexicans. No doubt they like the money foreigners spend in their countries, but they continue to do what Spanish, German, French, and Mexican peoples want to do. 

This is so because those countries have relatively few people there who are not natives of that country. The natives comprise the vast majority of people, and therefore are the dominant element in their culture. And the dominant element in a nation determines what is important and not important.

So, some people say “I really like Spain, except for the Spanish people. They have this supremacy thing going on.”

Is it really surprising, then, that in America, where the white, non-Hispanic people are still the majority of the total population — about 61 percent — that the long-standing American values and ways still dominate the cultural norms of the country? 

The proportion of white Americans compared to others was much larger not so long ago. Our desirable national characteristics have always invited people from other places to come here, and they did, and do. But the culture the white American majority created decades ago still is dominant.

Yet some of those in other races/ethnicities are offended by “white supremacy” and “white privilege.” Somehow, living as the great majority of people have lived for decades is no longer legitimate to these folks.

Even some white Americans have jumped on this bandwagon, feeling the guilt that the others have convinced them they should have, merely because they were born with white skin.

Today, some people say, “I would like America better if it wasn’t for those darned white people.”

It is easiest to criticize something if you know very little about it. The less you know, the easier it is to disparage it. And this is what is the basis of much or most of the cancel culture mania now hobbling the country.

That applies to hating white people, and to removing vestiges of certain people of historical note.

People who have done great things in their lives, sometimes great things for their country, have now fallen into disfavor with the cancel culture faction for something not-good they did that these folks think obliterates all the good they did.

A person that has lived for 60, 80 or more years has had a long period of time to make decisions and take actions. Some of those may not have been good ones. Should we rate their entire lifetime based upon a couple of not-so-good, or even bad things, or should we take the more reasonable route of evaluating all they have done, rather than one or a few things?

It is also common these days for the cancel culture to apply the practice of “Monday morning quarterbacking” to things and people. Without a solid knowledge of what living in past times was like, these quarterbacks feel capable of judging the past using the standards of today. 

That is profoundly imprudent. Without a deep understanding of how things were at a certain time, it is not possible to make a sensible judgement about things that happened long ago. These folks are ill-equipped. It’s like going to play 18 holes of golf with only a putter.

History, the story of our past and how it built the present, is crucial to our future success. If we erase it over some discomfort based upon superficial understanding, we will substantially cripple ourselves.

Rather than erase history because it offends us, we need to study it and learn from it.