This weekend I was in New Orleans. I am on the Board of Trustees of the National World War Two Museum. This weekend was our Victory Ball. Next year, maybe you can join me and dine under the airplanes in the Boeing Pavilion. It’s June 10, 2016. Get your tickets now because it’s always a special night. Something pretty cool always happens at the Victory Ball.
Our board is made up of people of all races and political stripes. The museum tells history as it was. We don’t sugar coat it. We don’t cover up the mistakes America made leading up to, and during the war. But, we don’t embellish either or slant the coverage to cram an opinion down a person’s throat.
This year, two vets spoke for a few minutes. One was Hal Baumgarten. He was in the first wave at Omaha on D-Day and survived. He was shot 5 times, and never made it off the beach. You can see his oral history here. It’s riveting.
The reason I bring this up is I saw an editorial by Daniel Henninger. The College Board is trying to stuff revisionist history down high schoolers throats. It’s pushing an agenda, not teaching children how to critically think. History matters. How we remember and write history matters. It’s not just the College Board, fanatics from politically correct sects are trying to rewrite and reteach history in America. If you think I am incorrect, ask Hillsdale College.
America is the only country where people are truly free. We aren’t subjects. We might have disagreements. But, we have a way to work them out if we let the process work. Executive orders and bureaucracy have a way of circumventing the legislative process elegantly outlines in the founding documents.
Why does it matter? We say history repeats itself. But, really what happens is similar circumstances arise in each generation and if we learn the lessons of the past, we can avoid the mistakes of the past. In the 1930’s, what if America and other countries banded together to stop the rise of Hitler? 60 million lives might have been spared.
Today, we are seeing some similarities between the transition from the agricultural age to the industrial age as the world moves to the digital age. Transitions like this cause earthquakes in structure. In other ages, that hasn’t worked out well.
That doesn’t mean that there is only one version of history. Reasonable people can disagree. For example, at the Conference on World War Two that the National Museum puts on every November, you will here conflicting theories about events. Max Hastings says America played a role in winning the war, but really it was the Russians that won the war. Other historians say without America, Russia and the rest of the world were doomed.
What should be abundantly clear to people is that government bureaucracy in America is decidedly leftist. Many non-government organizations are vehicles for the left wing. That’s why if you are a classical liberal, or a conservative, or an independent you should be doing everything in your power to dismantle that bureaucracy and transfer power back to individuals so they can decide things for themselves.
