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Civics, but for Grown-Ups
Accuracy in Academia ^ | October 6, 2015 | Malcolm A. Kline

Posted on 10/06/2015 7:48:14 AM PDT by Academiadotorg

Some professors are more rooted in reality than others. Unfortunately, they tend to be retired.

“President Lincoln called on every mother to whisper words of liberty to every listening babe,” William B. Allen, a professor emeritus at Michigan State University said in Indianapolis last weekend. “We should do the same for grownups.”

Dr. Allen is the author of Reviving National Character in the Midst of Political Disorder. He was speaking at the regional meeting of the Philadelphia Society, a group of conservative intellectuals that was formed in the wake of the Goldwater defeat in 1964.

Dr. Allen disputes the “nation of immigrants” formulation handed down to generations of school children for decades. “There is a vague intuitive geographic U. S. identity that we are a nation of immigrants as if to imply that immigrants remain immigrants and never become Americans.”

“Our diversities do not constitute a national character.” He lamented the trend towards submersion of American identity when U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer “declared that he was ready to declare capital punishment unconstitutional because it was leaving us isolated in the world in applying the death penalty.”

Yet ultimately, he regretted one overriding change in American history: “Deference to the people has become reduced to commanding the people.”


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: immigrants; scotus
Ralph Kinney Bennett, quite an eloquent gentleman himself, said he envied this man's "serene eloquence." I would have to agree--
1 posted on 10/06/2015 7:48:14 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
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To: Academiadotorg

I saw the headline, and the first thing I thought of was a Honda Accord or maybe and Acura TLX—Civics for grownups.


2 posted on 10/06/2015 8:22:59 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics)
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To: Academiadotorg

“President Lincoln called on every mother to whisper words of liberty to every listening babe,”


I had civics school books from the early 1960 that I read to my sons along with their bible stories and children’s books. We had a lot of old school history books for children, too.

They know the spirit of our constitution and it’s culture of independence and Christian and family service, inside and out. They know why the Founders put what they did into the constitution to create a Republic free of tyranny. They are American-Americans. Thank God.

The good news is they know what America should be. The bad news is they know how screwed up America is and that we have an absolutely corrupt political and professional class.


3 posted on 10/06/2015 12:50:40 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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