Lefts Principles Diametrically Opposed to Our Founding Principles

By Don McLeroy SBOE Dist. 9 For a free society history is everything. Thus the greatest problem facing America today is that we have forgotten what it means to be an American.  As a result the Texas State Board of Education has added requirements to our states Social Studies & History Curriculum Standards so Texas students are guaranteed to have the benefit of studying American exceptionalism & our national mottos of in God we trust as well as e pluribus unum.   On July 4 1776 Thomas Jefferson charted the course for a new nation:

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Abraham Lincoln declared that we were a new nation conceived in Liberty and the last best hope of earth. Ronald Reagan observed: Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than any other place on earth.

The theme is freedom. These men understood America and the principles upon which she stood:

• Self-evident truths;
• Liberty with its twin corollaries of limited government and individual responsibility;
• The embrace of Judeo-Christian values; and
• A firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.

The Texas school board is currently adopting changes to the curriculum standards to ensure these principles are taught. For example we rejected changes that referred to America as imperialistic that deleted the role religion played in the foundations of representative government and that downplayed the First Amendments protection of the free exercise of religion. The proposed changes have attracted national attention because they challenge the powerful ideology of the left and highlight the great political divide of our country. The lefts principles are diametrically opposed to our founding principles. The left believes in:

• Big not limited government;
• Empowering the state not the individual; and
• Focusing on differences not unity.

This divide was clearly exposed on March 23 2010 as the left celebrated health reform that Vice President Biden said charts a fundamentally different course for the country an unmistakable rejection of Jeffersons original course. The Texas State Board of Education emulating Jefferson wants our children to understand how free societies rose to greatness ... and how they can fall. Education is the last best hope for the last best hope of earth. Don McLeroy is a member and former chairman of the Texas Board of Education.