Winning the War Over Liberalism

Winning the War Over Liberalism - Part II

Phil Brennan, NewMax.com
Thursday, Sept. 5, 2002

Let Freedom Ring – Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism By Sean Hannity

Part Two: The Educational Establishment’s Left Wing Agenda, the Indefensible Tom Daschle

Sean Hannity may think that liberals, on the whole, are nice folks, [deep down inside where it doesn’t show, of course].

But he doesn’t believe they do nice things. Among the bad things they have done is wreck the nation’s public schools by turning them into propaganda organs for the disastrous left wing agenda.

"Too many of our public schools have become liberal indoctrination centers, cultural battlegrounds and poorly performing graduation factories,” Hannity wrote.

"Modern liberal elitists, since the 1960s, have largely taken control of our educational establishment. Motivated by an aversion to many of the traditional values and principles upon which this nation was founded [and to Western civilization in general], they de-emphasize and distort them in their revised versions of history,” Hannity charged.

"Instead of proudly acknowledging our heritage, they apologize for it. Where fair-minded students of history see America as a grand and noble experiment, they see it as racist, sexist, homophobic and unjust.”

Hannity notes that liberals seek to expunge all mentions of God, Judeo-Christian beliefs and Holy Scripture and have junked proven methods of teaching in favor of untied experimental teaching techniques.

As a result, Hannity says, "K-12 education in America is an unmitigated disaster …appalling, immoral and unjust.”

Hannity’s answer to this catastrophe is to "set parents free to choose the schools and teachers and systems that work best for their kids.”

An Act of War

Hannity quotes from the 1983 study, "A Nation at Risk” prepared by the National Commission on Excellence in Education for then-President Reagan: "The educational foundations of society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threaten our very future as a nation and a people … if an unfriendly foreign power has attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might have viewed it as an act of war.”

Liberals, Hannity wrote, blame the sorry situation in our nation’s schools on the lack of money – America simply won’t spend the amounts required to solve the problem their half-baked ideas about education have created. Hannity’s answer:

America has invested hundred of billions of dollars "reforming” our schools over the past 20 years and we are spending more today than at any time in our history.

Adjusted for inflation, we spend about 70 percent more on education today than when the Nation at Risk report was issued.

Federal spending on education has nearly doubled since the 1980s.

During the 1999-2000 school year, combined federal, state and local spending on K-12th grade education hit $389 billion – about $100 billion more than we spent on defense.

In constant dollars, average per pupil spending on K-12 education soared from $3,367 in 1970 to $6,584 in 2000. And what have we gotten for all that spending?

According to former education secretary Bill Bennett in his "A Nation Still at Risk” issued in 1998:

"More than 10 million Americans have reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level;

”More than 20 million have reached their senior year unable to do basic math;

Almost 25 million have reached 12th grade not knowing the essentials of U.S. history [and those are the young people who complete their senior years];

In the same period, more than 6 million Americans dropped out of high school altogether;

In 1996, 13 percent of all blacks aged 16 to 24 were not in school and did not hold a diploma;

Seventeen percent of first generation Hispanics had dropped out of high school, including a tragic 44 percent of Hispanic immigrants in this age group [aged 16 to 24]”

It gets worse and Hannity recites a litany of horrors that show how right he is in telling parents to set themselves free of the tyranny of the educrats and take control of our schools.

The Indefensible Tom Daschle.

"Tom Daschle masquerades as a nice guy – passing himself off as a mild-mannered moderate fighting for the average American,” Hannity wrote. "But don’t let appearances fool you. Daschle is a New Left Democrat. And he has spent his career proving it.”

Hannity recalls that Daschle reached his post as Senate Majority Leader – de facto boss of the Senate – when Vermont’s turncoat Republican Senator left the GOP, declared himself an independent and cast his lot – and his votes – with the Democrats.

Because Daschle wields enormous power Hannity suggests that readers take to trouble to learn all they can about this doctrinaire liberal. If you do, Hannity tells you what you’ll discover about Sen. Daschle:

September 19, 1979: The democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and Jimmy Carter was in the White House. The U.S embassy was just two months away from being seized by Islamic radicals, the USSR was on the verge of invading Afghanistan and the U.S. military was "run down and demoralized after Vietnam.” Congress has voted an amendment to increase defense spending by $3 billion to upgrade our nearly threadbare defense establishment. Tom Daschle, freshman Democrat Congressman voted against it, along with his colleague, liberal Dick Gephardt. Thanks to these two and their leftist Democrat cohorts the pro-defense amendment was defeated by a vote of 221 to 191.

May 4, 1983: The House passed a nuclear freeze bill that would have tied President Reagan’s hands in dealing with the Soviets, by a vote of 278 to 149. "Joining his liberal buddies Al Gore and Dick Gephardt in favor of the freeze was none other than Tom Daschle,” Hannity recalls.

August 4, 1990: Just two days after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait – a time when having a strong military was of vital importance, Senator John Kerry introduced an amendment to the defense budget that would cut ballistic missile defense R & D by $400 million. Daschle voted for the anti-military amendment.

October 15, 1990: With Saddam’s forces now overrunning Kuwait and the world’s oil supplies at risk, and the U.S was poised to go to war against Saddam, Tom Daschle voted against the Defense budget.

Daschle’s sorry record as an anti-U.S. military demagogue goes on and on, but you get the picture - in a time of peril Daschle can be depended upon to deny his support to our men in arms.

Tomorrow: The Taxman Cometh

See Part One – By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them