History? What History?

Certainly, it is bad enough when America's school administrators, and teachers refrain from imbuing their (our) students with a proper sense of shared history.History, like a chain, is comprised of constituent links, each as strong as the others, both succeeding, and preceeding it. The strength of the chain itself relies on the willingness of individual links to do their job efficiently. Such chains tether a country's citizens to themselves, much as a similar chain will anchor a ship at sea, or to the dock of it's port of call.

Occasionally, there are links that fail, and the chain itself is doomed. So too, are each individual links, the many components thereof, which fade into the darkness of the sea, in this particular case, the darkness of an unforgiving world's history. This is exactly what came across my mind when I watched Senator "Chuck" Schummer, of New York, while he listened to an exasperated young woman giving testimony before a Senate commitee hearing in Washington DC, on October 1st, 2003. The woman, Suzannah Gratia-Hupp, a Texas state representative, detailed the horror she experienced when her parents were shot by an obviously deranged killer. Her concluding statement was perfect. She told the assembled Senators that her 2nd ammendment right was put into place for the express purpose of protecting her, from them, the Senators of the federal Government, and all others in positions of unlimited power, and influence

.Long ago, the English philosopher, John Locke (a man who profoundly influenced Thomas Jefferson) argued that the PATRIARCHA, the brain child of Sir Robert Filmore, was intellectually, and morally wrong. In Lockes First Treatise of Government, he assailed the idea that Kings descended from Adam, and thereby possessed a Devine right to their thrones, they, being the descendants of Adam, to whom God had given the earth. This "Jure Divino", the devine right of kings all, would be the eventual downfall of all governments, Locke asserted. A prescient man this John Locke. He must have known there would be the likes of the Chuck Schummers in the world to come after his passing.

Today, it seems that our children's history begins at the moment of their birth. We can thank our educational institutions for that misguided concept. Many of us believe ourseves to be the whole chain, and of only one link, we are that link, and that chain. So too, must it be for Chuck Schummer and his Liberal brethren, that they believe themselves to be not a link in the chain of America's history, but they themselves to be THE CHAIN.

Remember the wise man who stated: Those who forget, or neglect history, are doomed to make the same mistakes over, and over again? To the list of disagreeable ingredients in this boiling stew, add arrogance and a dash of impunity. What you get is a stew alright, but beware, for the stew will poison you and your mind.

Is it any wonder many of our children think this way? There will be no future historians to write of them, for their history will be written in the very next generation by similarly unprepared generation (whatever letter you desire).With no chain of generational links, our ship will drift to sea, and face the storms that shall come---the storms of ignorance and of decay. The rotting corpse of a once great and proud peoples will wash ashore on some distant isle, and the island's people will be perplexed. But they will go on their way, for they possibly have a chain. One that stirs the pride of the people in themselves. One that safely tethers them to their future. The buzzards will circle, and one day they too, will be gone, as are the traces of a once great civilization

What history? Perhaps the answer lies in paying attention to the opinions of men like John Locke.