The culture war has a new target: Independence Day
The radical agenda to reimagine civic memory would reconceptualize Independence Day as an event not worth celebrating or, even “better,” a day to protest against what is wrong with America.
If this agenda wins out, the rising generation of Americans will grow up unable to describe what happened on Independence Day, much less its critical importance to the worldwide advance of human rights and liberty. They will know it only as an important occasion for criticizing and denigrating the idea of America.
Independence Day should be marked to affirm the importance of political freedoms and recognize importance of fighting to secure and protect them. This is a day to honor the virtue of battling to secure the right of the Randolph School Board to debate whatever it damn well pleases. Generations of Americans fought and died so generations of Americans could argue over how to teach civics.
But make no mistake; there is no honor in what the would-be re-interpreters of America’s holidays have in store for America. Their agenda is not about education. It is about indoctrination—indoctrination that would overturn how America is governed.
In the last few years, history has experienced a bit of a pseudo-renaissance in the United States, but rarely in a positive light.
Take the recent campaign to tear down U.S. monuments, for example. After the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, the nation blew up into a controversy over celebrating historical figures. It wasn’t just a battle about a few statues. Instead, it was essentially a battle about which history is worth remembering and which history should be erased or rewritten. Because of the riots, the whole nation suddenly began paying attention to who these men were and what they did, especially the negative things. It started with a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, but spread to monuments for men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
If you can’t celebrate George Washington or Abraham Lincoln for their positive contributions to their country, then who can you celebrate? Yes, many Founding Fathers were slave owners. Yes, slavery was a widespread and abominable practice in much of the world in the early modern era. Yes, these men were human and made mistakes. But today, their flaws are the only things getting attention!
What about their towering accomplishments? George Washington led the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War, securing the very freedoms most Americans today take for granted. After serving two terms as president, Washington voluntarily stepped down, establishing a precedent that has continued to this day. Many people in Washington’s day actually wanted to crown him king. Without Washington’s selfless leadership and foundational example, Americans might well be living under an authoritarian regime right now.
In Visions of Glory, William Manchester said that Winston Churchill was one of those authors who believe “that the past should not be judged by the standards of the present.” Manchester took that same approach in his biography on Churchill, which is one reason why it is so good.
With most modern-day historians, however, it’s becoming more and more difficult to get to the facts of the past without them being tainted by the political agenda of the present.
The whole approach to history is wrong! What a deadly combination. On the one hand, most people don’t care enough about history to even look into it. And those who do often politicize it for their radical agenda! They make it so negative!
