The Patriot Post® · Education Isn't the Problem

By Gary Bauer ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/102115-education-isnt-the-problem-2023-11-11

For the past month, I have repeatedly heard many well-meaning people say that the pro-Hamas mobs in the streets chanting genocidal slogans are just uneducated and that’s why they are siding with terrorists. Maybe that’s true for some of them. But education isn’t the big problem.

Many of the people we have seen in the streets are college students at some of our finest “institutions of higher learning.” They’re not “uneducated.”

The problem with our college students isn’t a lack of education. It’s what they’re learning. That they’re being indoctrinated with neo-Marxist, anti-Western ideology.

Sadly, many of their professors are overeducated, anti-Israel bigots. As I have noted before, there is a disturbing link between higher education and higher levels of anti-Semitism. Our colleges and universities are breeding grounds for Jew-hatred.

The progressives in this movement are not uneducated. Quite the opposite. They have been immersed in “diversity, equity and inclusion” and critical race theory.

They are intellectually committed to the idea that the world is divided between the oppressed and the oppressors. The leading oppressors of the world are the nations that make up Western Civilization, and the two pillars of Western Civilization are Israel and the United States.

The pro-Hamas mobs want America and Israel destroyed to end the oppression of the West. By the way, you can’t tell who is parroting who. Is Iran parroting the left or is the left parroting Iran?

If you say to one of these anti-Israel demonstrators, “The Jews were in the Holy Land hundreds of years before Islam even existed,” they don’t care.

If you say, “The people who founded America are responsible for spreading more liberty and opportunity than any other system,” they will tell you the opposite — that it brings oppression, slavery and poverty to people of color and must be “fundamentally transformed.”

And there’s another element to these demonstrations.

Many in the pro-Hamas mob are fundamentalist Muslims or Islamic supremacists. They take their religious book very seriously. They want to please Allah and they are willing to kill and die to do so.

You’re not going to educate them out of it, any more than we could have hugged Hitler out of it.

What’s confronting America today, and tearing the progressive movement apart, is neo-Marxism with a heavy dash of Islamofascism. The problem is not a lack of education. It’s dangerous indoctrination.

Honoring Our Heroes

Today is Veterans Day. The day originally began as Armistice Day to mark the 11:00 AM cease-fire on November 11, 1918, that ended World War I. In 1954 Congress renamed Armistice Day as Veterans Day to honor the veterans of all our wars.

Sadly, we are living in an era of increasing hostility toward America. A false narrative has taken root on our college campuses. We are teaching our children not American history, but anti-American history.

We are teaching that our nation is an evil, oppressive force, founded on slavery and genocide. No wonder growing numbers of young Americans do not describe themselves as patriotic.

Increasingly, the values that used to unite us now divide us. Monuments to our founding fathers are under attack. Even the Pledge of Allegiance is protested and denounced as “an instrument of white nationalism.”

Of course, our veterans know better. They understand that America is a force for good in the world, that it is worth defending, that it is, as Abraham Lincoln once described it, “the last best hope of Earth.”

Please find an opportunity this weekend to talk to your children and grandchildren about what happened at Concord Bridge and Gettysburg, on the beaches of Normandy and, more recently, in the deserts of Iraq and in the mountains of Afghanistan.

There is a poem you have likely seen before, but I want to share it with you again, because it summarizes well what we owe our veterans.

It is the veteran, not the preacher, who has given you freedom of religion.
It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given you freedom of the press.
It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given you freedom of speech.
It is the veteran, not the protester, who has given you freedom to assemble.
It is the veteran, not the lawyer, who has given you the right to a fair trial.
It is the veteran, not the politician, who has given you the right to vote.
It is the veteran, who salutes the Flag, who serves under the Flag, whose coffin is draped by the Flag.

To the millions who have always been there to stop the tyrant, protect the weak and preserve the peace — we have not forgotten you. A grateful nation thanks God for giving us heroes like you.

March For Israel

Please make every effort, especially if you live in the greater Washington, D.C., area, to come to our nation’s capital on Tuesday, November 14th. Christians and Jews from all over America are coming together to march for Israel.

We are marching to free the hostages and to take a stand against the ancient evil of anti-Semitism.

The March For Israel is sponsored by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Christians United For Israel and American Christian Leaders for Israel are also supporting Tuesday’s event.

Learn more at MarchForIsrael.org.

Defending Faith, Family & Freedom

In this week’s “Defending Faith, Family and Freedom” podcast for the James Dobson Family Institute, I expose the pro-Hamas demonstrations that are occurring at universities and large cities worldwide for what they are, anti-Israel hate rallies.

Good News

  • Another round of polling finds Donald Trump beating Joe Biden in key swing states.
  • The American people overwhelmingly reject cease-fire calls in Israel’s fight against Hamas.
  • A federal judge upheld Florida’s law protecting girls’ sports from boys claiming to be girls.
  • Ohio high school students walked out of class this week to protest policies that allow boys in girls’ bathrooms.
  • A leading martial arts association is requiring male athletes to compete in male-only competitions. This action came after female competitors (for their own safety) refused to participate in a tournament against men claiming to be women.
  • Isabelle Ayala, a 20 year-old de-transitioner, is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics and activist doctors for pushing radical gender ideology on her instead of treating her underlying mental health issues.
  • Anheuser-Busch sales fell 13.5% in the third quarter of this year as the fallout from the Bud Light / Dylan Mulvaney fiasco continues.