Our Three-Fathers?

When speaking of the greatness of our nation and retracing its history we often recall the courage it took for our forefathers to break away from Great Britain and its tyranny.

Our Constitutional Congress was comprised of men, nothing more and nothing less.  They were in many ways flawed but in the most important way visionaries.

They conceived a nation of liberty and freedom and proposed a separation between church and state.  And although they originally left out one entire race of human beings they nevertheless allowed for the possibility of amendments to alter that and any other errors as deemed necessary in the future.

The treatises they produced are among the greatest legal testaments to decency and honor and remain to this day living breathing documents of freedom.

These facts are what they are and cannot be changed.

Unless of course you live in Texas!

The school board of the Lone Star State has decided that our forefathers, and it seems Thomas Jefferson in particular were wrong.  The removal of his name and one must assume his accomplishments from the new curriculum will thus change history for the virgin minds of the second largest state in the union.

Texas has become the State of Denial and joins a long list of anti-visionaries hell bent on censoring and altering history.

It seems odd that the land that asks us to “Remember the Alamo” wishes to forget everything else.  Perhaps they should remember the book bonfires of insanity in Nazi Germany.  And they must note the censorship of the internet in present day China.  These attempts to put forward one ideology over another are ill-advised and in the end ill-fated.

The new school books from which the eager young minds of Texas will be taught will also include new heroes such as Phyllis Schlafly a conservative activist who was notably against the Equal Rights Amendment and feminism.

Conservatives love quoting Ronald Reagan and always point to his, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall” speech as a show of our dedication to truth and freedom.  Yet the conservative camp is now busy building a new wall that shuts out those two ideals.

An intelligent rational path for a school board to follow would be to allow the teachings of historical facts.  History is not a novel to be interpreted as a parable.  It is an indelible retelling of what was; what happened; and what it caused.  And if it is taught properly it can be a roadmap showing how to avoid any mistakes made in the past.

Chainsaws may have been used in massacres of the past but the pen is definitely mightier than the sword.  And the Texas School Book Massacre will prove to be far more deadly in the future.

But since Texas has deemed it necessary to remove one of our founding fathers from history books we should no longer stand in the way of their desire to remove themselves from the union that is the United States of America.

Before Hawaii was ratified as our fiftieth state in 1959 we had a flag showing 49 stars.  We can certainly bring back those glory days of Old Glory once again. 

Just as our fore fathers have become three fathers so too can our 50 states become 49.

See ya Texas, It’s been real.