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Steps 4 and 5: Corrupt History, the U.S. Founding, Natural Law, and the U.S. Constitution
12-Step Totalitarian Program: Step 1 / Step 2: Corrupt Language / Step 3: Corrupt Science and Religion
Step #4 Corrupt History and the U.S. Founding
It should have been obvious by the time Howard Zinn’s 1980 book A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present (revised 1995, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2015) was swiftly adopted as the required American history text in almost all public schools and many others in order to corrupt history, especially American history,
- or his 1995 A People’s History of the United States: The Wall Charts,
- or his 2003 A People’s History of the United States: The Civil War to the Present: Teaching edition,
- or his 2003 A People’s History of the United States: Teaching Edition Abridged,
- or his 2005 A People’s History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom,
- or his 2007 A Young People’s History of the United States, adapted from the original text by Rebecca Stefoff; illustrated and updated through 2006, with new introduction and afterword by Howard Zinn; two volumes,
- or his 2008 A People’s History of the American Empire
- or his 2009 The Twentieth Century; A People’s History,
- or his 2009 A Young People’s History of the United States: Columbus to the War on Terror (For Young People Series),
- or his 2019 Truth Has a Power of Its Own: Conversations About a People’s History,
- or his 2020 A Young People’s History of The United States: Columbus to the War on Terror (Chinese Edition)
- or his 2021 The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World,
Can we at least say that it is obvious now? His history of publications is a testament to this rapid and sustained adoption.
In chapter 4, “Tyranny Is Tyranny,” Zinn sets the stage for the American Revolution of 1776. Here are that chapter’s opening two paragraphs. No skewing of the history here:
History in our government schools and universities has been corrupted for decades just by the example of Howard Zinn and those now with Ph.D.s who have been raised only with the Zinn view.
The American founding is anathema to all that totalitarians stand for. Separation of powers, accountability to a written text, representation of all citizens, a moral and ethical foundation, and so much more.
So the American founding had to be targeted for destruction. With the corruption of education, the corruption of language, the corruption of science and religion in place, the corruption of history was easy.
And Howard Zinn was the man on top of all the other corrupters of history. He led the way. And his fellow travelers institutionalized his poison in the schools.
No need to read, discuss, and think about the actual words of the American founders. No, their crimes are obvious. What value is anything that they have to say? Why bother with The Federalist Papers? Why read Washington’s letters, or Jefferson’s, or Adams’?
And the larger corruption of history becomes easier with this initial corruption. All Western history is dominated by the same kinds of white males represented by our corrupt American founders.
It’s especially important to waste no time with those of Ancient Greece and Rome. What could they say that is relevant to us?
Never mind that studying that history reveals the same kinds of Sophists, trickster rhetoricians, that we have in our political community today. Never mind that studying Greek and Latin could open vast doors of intellectual, cultural, and artistic understandings. What possible use is that to the latest and greatest generation who ever lived?
They were all white males, and racists. Not worth your time. Especially when you have so much social media and video game action going on.
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CORRUPT HISTORY AND THE U.S FOUNDING
STATUS AS OF 2022: GOAL ACHIEVED
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Step #5: Corrupt Natural Law and the U.S. Constitution
There is no God. Only experts. There is no spiritual realm. Only material. There is no such thing as “natural” law. There is only political law.
Therefore, the basis of declaring “natural” rights as pointed to in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution is null and void.
All is political. All is a matter of interpretation.
This corruption started taking hold in the early 20th century. As the schools started replacing old-fashioned school marms with education experts, the stage was set to turn the Constitution on its head.
Question for any student: Does the U.S. Constitution grant rights to citizens? Of course not. The sole purpose of the Constitution was to define the nature of the Federal government and the limit of its powers in relation to the States and the People.
The Bill of Rights is not about the Federal government granting citizens such rights. When those were written, the Federal government did not even exist. The ten Bill of Rights declare God-given or natural rights that pre-exist before any government is founded.
And those rights cannot be abridged or amended. They pre-exist, because that is the nature of natural law, or spiritual law.
To call the Bill of Rights the first ten amendments to the Constitution is to mislead citizens into believing that they are somehow rights granted by the Constitution.
Natural law is spiritual law. It points to spiritual accountability. But this is anathema to totalitarians, so such ideas have to go.
The amendment process also must be overcome. It’s too hard to destroy American freedom through the amendment process, so something must be done. What? Easy peasy.
Establish the idea of a Living Constitution, where the definitions of the words can be “updated” without bothering with amending, all to conform to the changing culture.
Never mind that the whole point of the amendment process is to change the meanings of words only when citizens and their representatives decide to change the definitions or words formally.
The innovation of the founding to extract meanings from people in power and place those meanings in words in an external document is why so much individual freedom, prosperity, and success could take hold in these United States.
So the meanings themselves have to be attacked and eventually overthrown. Easy to do once language has been corrupted.
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CORRUPT NATURAL LAW AND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
STATUS AS OF 2022: GOAL ACHIEVED
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Coming soon: Step 6: Corrupt Journalism and the Arts, and Step 7: Corrupt Money
Published in Education
Fortunately, I attended school long before Zinn infected the textbooks. I’ve read conservatives complaining about him for many years now, but hadn’t read any of his writings. Somehow I hadn’t even seen excerpts. That opening is horrible.
In case anyone is interested, here is the book that should be taught in every high school:
https://amzn.to/3zi04D0
Thanks for the suggestion. We homeschool our daughter and she will be starting four grade. It’s good to plan for the future.
I would also suggest A Patriot’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen. It is a great companion for Dr. McClay’s and Schweikart is always a great source.
Agreed.
There are so many lessons for us today in history, such as that of Rome and Greece. The problem the Progressives have is that they believe human nature is perfectible. It hasn’t changed in thousands of years of recorded history, but they believe they can do the job. They really aren’t up to it.
That’s a great observation.
You know, for a “democratic” socialist*, Howie sure made a lot of capitalist coin hawking that guff. And he revised A People’s History five years after he died. Few authors show that level of dedication.
* A “democratic” socialist is a plain-ol’-vanilla socialist who hasn’t confiscated privately held firearms – yet.
Did anyone else notice the extra “you?”
Yes, but given Mark collects these, not makes them, it wasn’t worth mentioning mentioning.
But it’s so easy!
Good, then you can take care of them from now on.
Actually I do that when I see some with mistakes like that, but when otherwise the idea is good.
And I’ve created a few originals too.
I believe Mark has used a few of mine in the past, too.
Recommend the last Econ talk. i.e. the US should be broken up, with or without a central military, which isn’t essential given our distance. We functioned better than any diverse place on earth, not to mention giant place. I don’t think we can continue to be unified, centralized and function with freedom and dynamism. If we can win the next two elections we might fix it, but fixing it means dismembering almost all of Washington, returning to early 20th century America. If we can’t, we have to leave and take enough military so the Democrats don’t join the Chinese to undo us. Sound crazy? Yes because our left is crazy.
To break up means we will have totalitarians on our borders.
Mary Graber’s book, Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History that Turned a Generation against America, is a valuable reference. Her Hillsdale lecture is a good overview of the book:
I have it, read it cover to cover, then passed it onto my younger boy since he was force to use one of Zinn’s text books for his AP history class in High School.
This was the child who’s first encounter in college in his first liberal Arts class, an Introduction to Philosophy, he lasted all of three classes before he punched out claiming the teacher was a Commie Fascist.
Good boy.