National Chairman's Letter
By Educational Means
October 2002
Dear Members and Friends of the Independent American Party,
Our IAP National Mission statement concludes with three ways of obtaining our
mission goals, including "... by ... educational means." Our
IAP National Platform, Education section, states in part: "We favor the
advancement of patriotism, vigilance, allegiance, and an awareness of the
duties, rights and privileges of citizenship, along with the rights and
limitations of government. We favor promoting awareness and understanding of
current political threats to our Constitution, national sovereignty and
independence, and to our personal rights and freedoms."
Our forefathers were educated and concerned citizens. They revered -- and
schools promoted -- those values that made our nation great. Our early schools
taught Christian heritage and good citizenship, as well as academic knowledge.
Our early textbooks included: The Bible. The New England Primer with a
rhyming alphabet for Biblical verses. Webster’s Blueback Speller, an
elementary book with spelling words like "loquacious,"
"equinoctial," "rapacious," and "pestilential."
And Isaac Watts Hymnal with its Biblical principles.
The Federalist Papers were written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and
John Jay for the average farmer of their day. (Yet graduate students of our day
find them difficult to read.)
Christianity was the foundation of our educational system. And Christian
education was made the center of America. It produced a caliber of men such as
our founding fathers.
To his own rhetorical question "What is the best corrective for
constitutional abuse?" Thomas Jefferson replied: "I know no safe
depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a
wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform
their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of
constitutional power."
That principle should apply to all that we hold dear in our nation. An
informed electorate -- armed with truth and traditional values -- can and surely
will act to take America back!
And our enemies know it. Why else do they undermine America in her political,
social, educational, and other institutions?
On the political and social fronts, liberals try to convince us that abortion
is a Constitutional right; homosexuality is genetic; it makes no difference
whether there is a father in the home; all cultures are equal; you cannot
legislate morality; "political correctness" is necessary and good; and
on and on.
The liberal establishment has a powerful influence in government, the media
and our schools. Their tactics include: Assert things as true when there is no
evidence. Assert as principles that which they desperately want to be true.
Attack anyone who questions or requires evidence of their so-called
"truths." And act as if principle has been proved, and expect everyone
else to act accordingly. (The Tranformation by Dr. Phil Stringer.)
There is a "dumbing down" in our schools, fostered by Progressive
Education. Outcome Based Education (OBE) curriculums focus on behavioral goals
rather than academic ones. Schools focus on vocational rather than scholastic
training. In 1902, the US literacy rate was 98%. In 1997 America’s high
schools graduated 700,000 students who couldn’t read their own diplomas.
Humanism, rather than traditional values, are taught in public schools.
Personality tests are designed to shape rather than measure student attitudes.
John Dewey, the father of modern education, opposed teaching any absolutes of
morals, government or ethics. His primary goal for education was to destroy
children’s individualistic traits. Because, said he, "You can’t make
socialists out of individualists."
School sex education booklets inform teens of their "right to have
sex." The message "everybody is doing it" is powerful when coming
from teachers and administrators. Sex-ed classes (apparently designed to destroy
American moral values) promote pornography, "free love," homosexuality
and abortion.
There is a distorting of American history and a downgrading of American
heroes. School kids read that our forefathers were atheists, agnostics or
deists; and land-owners with selfish interests. The subjects of government,
history, geography and economics have been compressed into a single course of
Social Studies.
A modern trademark of totalitarian government is the control of education, so
that the nation's children can be taught what is "politically correct"
rather than to think for themselves. This was true in Nazi Germany and Fascist
Italy, and is true in all Communist countries where an educational establishment
serves as the "thought police" for the nation. The National Education
Association (NEA) serves as a forerunner of that role in America. For in Psalms
11:3: "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
Well, we are not willing to give up. The Independent American Party pledges
its efforts to counter the mis-education fostered upon us by the liberal
establishment and those who would destroy our treasured institutions and our way
of life. We aim to do this through grass roots efforts, committees of
correspondence, the internet, public forums, political campaigns, and such. And
we endeavor to return our schools back into institutions of academics and
values, and back to parental and local control.
Yours for Freedom!
Bruce Bangerter
IAP National Chairman
