Ignorance is only a small part of the problem. The larger part is misinformation, and I think you’ll find an awful lot of that comes straight from the courts.

-the Declaration of Independence
-the U.S. Constitution
-the Constitution of whatever State you’re living in
-a list of all the major Supreme Court cases, from Maurbury v. Madison to District of Columbia v. Heller

Also, in the World History class, the Magna Carta, the UN Charter, and the NATO Charter should be required reading, too.

I also think that all college students, regardless of major, should have to take U.S. History, U.S. Government, Economics, and World History classes.

It is essential in the 21st Century that everyone understand the history of your country, its founding documents, and world history and geography. A lot of the U.S.’s and world’s problems today stem from such ignorance.

Also, being that we were in Virginia, for U.S. History we started somewhere at or before the mysterious disappearance of the Lost Colony at Roanoke Island in the 1580s. We spent a long time on the founding of our country and the establishment of its laws, leaving us little time for the 20th century. We rushed through WWII and barely made it to the Korean War, and didn’t hit Vietnam at all, despite the fact that it was practically “current events”.

I understand that in colleges they break this into two semester-long courses: U.S. History to 1877, and U.S. History 1877-Present. Seems they could make two year-long high school courses out of it.

And I’m not telling that to the plaintiff’s bar, I’m telling that to over 100 Seniors in high school.

Er, tell that to the plaintiffs’ bar. The right to jury trial in civil cases (“at law,” i.e., for money damages rather than for injunctive or other equitable relief), preserved by the 7th Amendment, distinguishes the US from almost everywhere else in the world, except in some narrow causes of action in England and a few provinces of Canada. If you think it should be changed, that’s one thing, but if you think it doesn’t have any impact or relevance in the modern world, then with all due respect, you have NO idea what you’re talking about.

Paranoid imagination? I’m just telling you what I’m seeing. You make the diagnosis, doc.

> Darren, do you live entirely in a world of your own paranoid imagination?

Oooh, another internet psychiatrist.

So how’s business doc? Plenty of delusionals out there who, due to their psychosis, see the world differently from yourself?

Cripes, I’m beginning to think that the real shortcoming of the public education system is that with all that phony emphasis on “higher-order thinking skills” there’s essentially no encouragement for higher-order thinking skills that require any more effort then that necessary to scratch an itch.

Mike represents a case in point. If you can dismiss a differing viewpoint as evidence of mental defect then you hardly have to exercise lower-order thinking skills let alone higher. Mike’s psychiatric diagnosis obviously isn’t authoritative but A) a mean, hurtful thing to write I’m sure Mike hopes and B) absolves Mike of the burdensome need to either come to terms with a viewpoint with which he disagrees or rebut its ideas.

“What disturbs the Bradley scholars is evidence that our generation is failing to educate the next one on the essentials of the American experiment.”

What disturbs me is that someone purporting to be a scholar could miss the rich irony of teaching the tenets of freedom under force of law. Fortunately, the evidence suggests that there are lots of kids who are smart enough to realize that, far from being free, freedom’s pretty damned expensive but well worth the price.

That’s fortunate because at least part of the malaise that afflicts the public education system results from an appreciation on the part of the kids of the irony of compulsory instruction in the importance of freedom.