Potent Quotables (updated periodically)
- "If you like sausages and laws, you should never watch either one of them being made." -- Otto von Bismarck
- "God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." -- Thomas Jefferson
- "The best way to prove a stick is crooked is to lay a straight one beside it" -- FW Boreham
- "There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who walk into a room and say, 'There you are' and those who say, 'Here I am'" -- Abigail Van Buren
- "It was not political rhetoric, mass rallies or poses of moral indignation that gave the people a better life. It was capitalism." -- Thomas Sowell
Hey teacher, leave them kids alone
Excellent article. I found myself thinking of my time in college as I was reading, wondering "did I get the traditional classical education?" And I would say, no. There were no required classes on philosophy or oratory (Speech class taught by a GA isn't the same). I think my major required one history class (Western Civ through WWII, I think), which I loved.
ReplyDeleteOn VDH's larger points, I mostly agree although he left out a pretty self-evident (at least to me) point: that when history, when taught at all, is taught with a bias against America/Western Civilization/Democracy/Capitalism it's easy to see how we end up with so many people who do not understand or care about what made America great, or why it still is, or even why it matters. We get people who actively hate America and what it stands (stood) for.