How about six minutes with a real American Thinker? Refreshing and crystalline, patriotic and commonsensical is the description of this six minutes of Richard Dreyfus with Tucker Carlson. Take a look, here is the video:

The first issue Dreyfus touches on in the video is not necessarily the most important, but a reminder to us all. He explains that to understand the federal judge’s ruling on the Sanctuary City Executive Order requires one to first read it. Upon doing so, one is reminded that Congress, not the Executive, controls the purse strings and thus the judge’s contention.

Secondly he moves to the issue of the importance of dissenting opinions on campus and the need for a “battle of ideas” on university campuses.

But Dreyfus continues to a greater issue. With a touch of John Locke and a dash of Thomas Jefferson, Dreyfus points to shortfalls in our school system regarding the teaching of civics. Dreyfus notes, a la Locke’s tabula rasa, that we are not born with an understanding of the Ten Commandments, and neither are we born with the knowledge of the Preamble to the Constitution. Both must be taught.

We have seen the Fox News Jesse Watters interviews of people who should know certain civics basics, but don’t. Dreyfus emphasizes that this is a dangerous condition.  He notes that if we do not know who we are and what we stand for, the common fabric that binds us dissolves.

“The Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be central, and that political parties must be peripheral. “

“Civics has not been taught in the American public school system since 1970.”

“The Constitution is why we have been admired … it gives us our national identity.”

“Education turns students into citizens….it teaches them to run the country before it is their turn.”

Our national promises are opportunity, rise by merit, mobility and freedom.

“The Preamble to the Constitution is the mandate of the Country.”

Wonderful points and eloquently presented by Mr. Dreyfus.  I would suggest delving even deeper into the main issue’s cause.  Why were civics ever dropped by the school systems?  Was that the watershed moment, when our school system took a hard turn to the Left?

I hold with all that Dreyfus presents, but I suggest we must first discover why national history and civics is ignored by the education system.  When we uncover the forces that perpetuate that which Mr. Dreyfus wishes to correct, we can begin the process.