Losing our culture
October 19, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
America is in danger of losing its history, culture and traditions, according to a new report. Heritage President Ed Feulner cites a new study showing that our nation’s colleges are doing little to educate the next generation of Americans in the subjects most important to maintain a strong civil society.
According to the study from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, “at many schools, seniors know less than freshman about America’s history, government, foreign affairs and economy.” This means, Feulner explains, that “many students are actually regressing while on campus.”
Many of the most prestigious (and expensive) schools score worst. At the notoriously liberal University of California at Berkeley, ranked 49th of the 50 schools surveyed, seniors scored 5.9 percent worse than freshmen on a general knowledge test. Indeed, the report concluded “that institutional prestige and selectivity are strongly related to lower civic learning,” and that “colleges that rank high in the U.S. News and World Report 2006 ranking were ranked low in the ISI ranking.”
“All of this matters,” Feulner writes, “because the study also found that young adults who understand American history and institutions are more likely to vote, volunteer for community service and join political campaigns. Thus, if we want the young people of today to become the leaders of tomorrow, we’ll need to change our approach to civic education.”
“Those who don’t know history, it’s said, are doomed to repeat it. We need to make sure today’s young adults learn about America’s great history, so they can not only avoid its mistakes, but more importantly, continue and emulate its successes—and make the history to come even better than our past.”
Religion matters
Individuals who attend religious services on a regular basis are more likely than their secular counterparts to give to charity, volunteer, participate in elections and be otherwise involved in civil society. This is according to a new compilation of research from Heritage’s FamilyFacts.org, a website that collects research on social science issues.
According to one finding, “individuals who reported a high frequency of participation in church organizations and activities were, on average, more likely to vote in a presidential election when compared to individuals who reported not participating in church organizations and activities.”
Particularly now that election season is upon us, this information is enlightening. It demonstrates that the Founders were right to believe that religion plays a vital role in shaping human character and in forming sound government. Furthermore, this study highlights the foolishness of liberals who seek to remove religion entirely from the public square.
In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it.” Americans, he added, “hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions.”
It’s important that more Americans are familiar with this philosophy, which played so crucial a role in our nation’s Founding. That’s why I’m asking you to forward this article to as many people as you can and encourage them to sign up for MyHeritage.org e-mails.
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Bad for America, bad in the voting booth
“Spending restraint is sound policy but awful politics.” According to Heritage federal budget expert Brian Riedl, that is “the conventional wisdom among a Republican congressional majority that, haunted by memories of the 1995 government shutdown and the demonization of former Speaker Newt Gingrich, views the electorate as various special interests selling their votes to whichever party offers the largest subsidies.”
Guided by this philosophy, Riedl writes, self-described conservatives in Congress undertook “one of the largest spending sprees in American history”: a 45 percent increase in federal spending since 2001. This includes billions more spent on education, a multi-trillion dollar prescription drug entitlement, and a tremendous increase in the number of special-interest pork projects. It’s enough to make a liberal proud.
But there’s a disconnect, Riedl notes. “If runaway government spending is supposed to buy popularity, why has Congress’ approval rating sank to a 12-year low of 24 percent? Why do so many pro-spending incumbents face uphill re-election battles?” In fact, he reports that this sort of bring-home-the-bacon politics is deeply unpopular. “By a two-to-one ratio, Americans prefer spending restraint even if it means less pork and federal funds coming home.”
So not only is fiscal restraint the right thing to do, but it’s electorally sound as well. You’ve got to wonder why so many in Congress haven’t caught on.
The truth about North Korea
Blogger Glenn Reynolds noticed yesterday that a 1986 Washington Post “puff piece” on North Korea suddenly appeared on the newspaper’s website. The piece argues that the communist country is not “an absurd little fairyland trapped in some past age.” Heaping praise on “wise” dictators Kim Il Song and Kim Jong Il, the article glowingly explains that the country “has made major strides in public health, education and agriculture and has virtually wiped away social ills such as drugs and prostitution, according to visitors.”
This, to put it mildly, is balderdash.
“Life in Kim Jong Il’s iron-fisted police state is a hellish nightmare,” Heritage national security expert Peter Brookes writes . “It’s the most repressive country on earth, under absolute control of ‘Dear Leader’ Kim. Fear, intimidation and wild-eyed propaganda dominate every aspect of society.”
While more than two in five North Koreans are chronically malnourished or starving and suffer under the worst human rights abuses, Brookes continues, the despots on Pyongyang live the high life. “[T]he elite spends millions on luxuries. Kim’s cognac bill is $500,000 a year. When he has a craving, he sends his personal chef abroad to fetch his favorite nosh. And then there’s Dear Leader’s female ‘happiness teams’”
In other news
- Investors, increasingly optimistic about the state of the economy, pushed the stock market to another record close yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 12,000 during intra-day trading, a mark it has never before reached.
- Venezuela’s quest for a seat on the UN Security Council has been denied, news reports indicate. “This is a massive victory for common sense on the world stage and a huge defeat for [Venezuelan dictator Hugo] Chávez’s virulent brand of fanatic anti-Americanism,” Heritage’s Nile Gardiner told USA Today.
- Violence in Iraq has surged this October. More than 70 American servicemen have made the ultimate sacrifice as sectarian violence mounts. There’s good reason to believe that some of this violence is deliberately targeted at Americans by terrorists who seek to influence the upcoming US elections; they presume that a more liberal Congress is more likely to withdraw and give them free reign in Iraq.
- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States would defend Japan against a North Korean attack.
- In a critique of radical multiculturalism, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi have both said the wearing of veils inhibits integration of Muslims into European society. Strong evidence suggests that the societal divisions fostered by multiculturalism and political correctness allow radical Islam to thrive in Europe.
Coming up at Heritage
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- On Wednesday, October 25, 2006, Italian Senator Marcello Pera will address remedies for the cultural and moral challenges confronting Europe.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
