Civics Duty

"We have the partisan divide in Washington and St. Paul solely because people don't understand our rights and liberty as defined by our founding documents."

No, that is not a typo in the title. It is not supposed to be "Civic Duty". I intentionally wanted it to be "Civics". I can already hear some saying, "There he goes again. On a rant that our nation does not teach enough civics." To those I will only say this - Corectamongo! Yes, I am going to rant. And I am going to blame my good friend Jack for having yet another wonderful Constitutional speaker at an event I attended last night.

I even took my wife with me last night. At times she was totally overwhelmed. Why? So much GOOD information was being disseminated by the two keynote speakers, it was like drinking out of a fire hose. I loved it. It reminded me of when KrisAnne Hall was the keynote speaker a few months ago. The information Ms. Hall was teaching us was flying fast and furious. And that night, just like last night, I realized just how much I don't know - and need to learn.

But - this all starts at step one. Our schools. Or if one home schools, in the home. Or even if you have a child in a public school, augmenting (or correcting) the civic education they receive at school with what is taught at home.

Some friends of ours who no longer have kids in public education would often attend their local school board meetings. At first I thought that was odd - now, I no longer think that. Public schools are ground zero. If we are not careful about what government schools teach our kids, the districts might turn out nothing but educated idiots. 

Schools MUST first teach the rudiments of HOW our government works, and then WHY it works that way. What inspired our Founders when they crafted our founding documents and way they did it the way they did. What I usually tell people who have not studied our Constitution or Bill of Rights for years is some very good news - most of our documents are short and to the point. Our kids need to know this also. Studying civics and government in school is not like taking astrophysics. Our Founders had so much profundity and wisdom, they could pack a punch in very few words.

I have friends who are self taught (and I will use this word intentionally) experts on how our government should work. They are learned on our Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Declaration of Independence. And yes, as David Barton would say, how God Almighty influenced the thinking and writing of these very wise men who lived during the dawn of our nation.

Here is my final thought on this topic for this morning. We have the partisan divide in Washington and St. Paul solely because many people we elect don't have a clue about our rights and liberty as defined by our founding documents. If everyone read and understood how the Founders intended to craft this great country, disagreements would become a gentle whisper instead of a dull roar.

Do we want to heal this country? Then we all of us need to learn about it. The hows, the whys and the therefore. Our great partisan divide will then be relegated to the history books. There will be no more acerbic disagreements. Why? Too much agreement often leads to dull arguments.