For those of you who follow the news or detest history classes, recent events regarding the instruction of history in elementary through high school may have caught your attention. And if you hated history classes, then you suddenly wish the news surrounding the reform of North Carolina’s history curriculum happened before you had to sit through those dry, boring lectures about the Federalists, Whigs and the Missouri Compromise.
It is the esteemed opinion of this columnist that the proposal, which would mandate education in history from 1877 on (or divide the curriculum into two classes, pre-1877 and post-1877), fits with the general atmosphere of the times. As long as kids go to school and do what they are told, who cares about teaching them about old stuff like the Constitution and the “protections” enumerated in the Bill of Rights? Anachronisms of a naive, unserious generation, I say!
The proof is in the pudding: as judges continue to pass rulings like the recent decision not to hear the appeal of Uighur detainees in Guantanomo Bay and similar decisions regarding indefinite detention, it becomes self-evident that the Bill of Rights and Constitution are merely anachronisms of a time of empiricism and liberty. Our War on Terror has become so righteous and pragmatic that the sensible, serious person MUST support the metaphorical shredding of the historic documents our nation is founded upon, which naively protect the so-called abuses of power the Constitution and Bill of Rights allegedly guard the common citizen from.
Nor do we need to concern ourselves with those bothersome 11th through 15th Amendments. The 11th and 12th Amendments merely concern silly discussions regarding the jurisdiction of the federal courts and the procedures by which we elect presidents and vice-presidents — these are boring technicalities that serious people cannot waste time with. And clearly, the remaining three amendments – 13 through 15 – warrant no attention from the serious person — they address minor issues like the abolition of slavery, the protection of due process, redefinition of citizenship and the suffrage of all men, regardless of race.
Excuse me whilst I take a nap from such a boring paragraph. The above subjects are simply things those elitist lawyers and sorts discuss. Serious, sensible people who care about educating the future generations of America care only about things that happen recently and apply the above information only when we must prove Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim Communofascist planted in Hawaii to subvert American awesomeness.
If you want to call attention to some of the conflicts and contradictions in the label I have assigned to what the silly Constitution calls our rightfully and lawfully elected president, I will put my fingers in my ears and start calling you an Islamocommunofacsist pinko tree-hugger leftist and remind you of just how serious and responsible I am. But I digress.
Yes, we have no need of history before 1877. Who cares about the fight for American independence, the fierce debates over the construction of a new government, the struggles to keep the nation together during the Civil War and the end of the institution of slavery? THOSE PEOPLE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE THE INTERNET. Clearly, these unenlightened souls lacked the guiding power of Google to lead them to the Promised Land of modern seriousness, which teaches us that we don’t need to bother with history because there is no way we’d EVER repeat past mistakes.
So I say call every Congressperson you know and tell them the entire country should just forget about history before 1877, just like the shining beacon of educational seriousness that is North Carolina. Who even reads those silly historical documents responsible for creating this great nation anyway?
