On February 12^th, we celebrate Lincoln’s birthday. In the midst of an administration marred with sorrow and controversy, Lincoln managed to drop pearls of wisdom – such as “the philosophy of the classroom in one generation becomes the philosophy of government in the next.”  He understood the impact of what is being taught in the classroom upon our culture. Today, the truth of this pearl has manifested itself in a government that was preceded by the free-love feel-good hippie culture, Communist lies, and the teachings of Evolution.

Lincoln understood that the classroom has never been a strictly academic environment. It is an environment where philosophies are presented that mold young minds and influence the culture they eventually impact. For the Jew and Christian, the responsibility for educating their children was presented in Deut.6:5 and following. In Matt. 22:37, the Old Testament directive of loving the Lord with all your heart, soul and might is expanded upon to include loving God with your mind as well. Additionally, there are many admonitions in Scripture that speak of the renewing of one’s mind as the key to “change we can believe in.” In modern times we have obfuscated the molding of the minds of our children from parents, as directed in Deuteronomy, to strangers. Is it any wonder that the philosophy of strangers is now prevalent in our government?

The Domino Effect

As we celebrate Lincoln, we must remember what he said about the classroom and the government.

Unfortunately, many have been trapped into the hedonistic educational system that celebrates secularism and by extension denigrates faith in a Supreme Being. Teaching Evolution has had as much of an impact as feel-good hedonism. It has mocked faith in God as being archaic and for the weak-minded – after all, Evolutionists would have you think that science has now challenged Scriptural truths. To make matters worse, Evolutionists have managed to censor any conversation that contradicts their theories, and they have also managed to purge faith-professing professionals in the process¹. This teaching alone has had a profound domino effect on a government that was founded on the belief that our rights come from God and that governments are instituted to protect those rights. This has changed the way our children think in dramatic ways. For instance, the moral code established in Scripture is now subjective and government fills the gap as the giver of our rights. Any student of history knows that man has a way of establishing right and wrong that is anything but right and often wrong.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, many parents do not have the financial choice to place their children in anything but the government-run education system, and often they don’t have the time or where-with-all to homeschool. Their options have decreased as the price for education and the cost of living has increased. A prime example was stated in Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum’s Alliance for Free Choice in Education program delivered during the National School Choice week, under the title of “Let My Children Go!” Rabbi Teitlebaum’s assessment follows:

…approximately 45,000 students in DC Public Schools are costing taxpayers $29,409 annually per child, with pitiful results. The graduation rate hovers at 64 percent, and too many drop outs get into crime. This is the ideal place to begin.

As the capital of the USA, D.C. comes directly under the jurisdiction of Congress. This enables us to build a gigantic battering ram, with the participation of all 435 legislative districts. One to one-thousand active patriots in each district CAN break through this wall of tyranny and rescue our nation’s children.

Every concerned man, woman and child may get behind this battering ram by calling their representatives in Congress (202-224-3121) and respectfully urge(sic) them to sponsor the D.C. Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity. This will provide every D.C. student with a school voucher valued at half current costs, and the savings allocated to reduce the national debt. Rescuing our nation’s poor and downtrodden children from substandard schools is the very least they can do to deserve reelection to Congress. Restoring liberty in our nation’s capital will blaze a trail for all America, and bring boundless blessings in its wake.

It should be noted that parental control of education is the most promising star in the universe of education. Until just 20 years ago, the United States’ system of education ranked first in the world².

Government in the classroom

What happened to facilitate our drop from number one in the world to a dismal number 20 in 2014³? There were several contributing factors, but perhaps the most lethal dynamic was the establishment of The Department of Education in 1979. To be sure, the breakdown of the traditional family and teachings that revile the existence of God are also contributing factors. However, these last two factors would not be of any significant consequence had we not surrendered the education of our children to strangers that taught them to disregard the values and morals of their parents. To be clear: our children have been brainwashed right under our very noses and our government now reflects the secular/hedonistic philosophies they have been taught over the years.

Today we have been alerted to the absurdities of Common Core Education; in the 1990s, it was Goals 2000; during the Bush administration, it was No Child Left Behind and in the interim, there were a host of spin-offs too numerous to mention comprehensively. The point: government has ruined education and in an effort to fix what it has ruined, has convinced many that more government intervention is needed. As the Department of Education has foisted upon us one unsuccessful program after another, our worldwide rankings have continued to decrease.

Rabbi Teitelbaum has one solution; Congressman Scott Garrett has another. Rep. Garrett has proposed the LEARN Act⁴ that will return the control of education to the states from the Department of Education. Both solutions are desperately needed if we are to restore sanity to an insane situation but neither will happen without being demanded by the American people. This can be done with one phone call to your representative in D.C. at 202.224.3121 and telling them you want them to support and sponsor the D.C. Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity and Congressman Garrett’s LEARN Act. Today we can start by renewing the minds of our children through school choice programs and returning power back to the states and back to the parents where it rightfully belongs.

Our Founders warned us that our system of government only works for a religious and moral people. As our school systems nationwide have undermined both religion and morality, our Founders are proven right on a daily basis. And what do we do? We sit by and shake our heads in disbelief. What we should be doing is getting on the phone and calling our representatives – strongly urging them to sponsor and/or support the D.C. Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity and to support Congressman Garrett’s LEARN Act.

As Milton Friedman said in 2005,

Most major public policy revolutions come only after a lengthy build-up of support. But when the break comes, what had been politically impossible quickly becomes politically inevitable. So it will be with the goal of a competitive free market education system compatible with our basic values.

Friedman may be gone, but his words live on because they are true and they are wise. I can assure you that neither of these pieces of legislation will be passed without a barrage of phone calls from our citizens. If you won’t do it for the kids – do it for our country. We the People can still be a force to be reckoned with but we must have the desire to do more than complain. We must be willing to pick of the phone and dial.

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