Posted by
BLOGASSAULT on Wednesday, July 04, 2007 12:16:40 PM
I wrote this in response to this editorial in the
Rocky Mountain News. It struck me how many people might read this article and not know what he/she is talking about.
In the July 4, 2007 editorial “The nation’s birthday-Adams foresaw nature of the celebration”, you present us with a few words from the founders that portray the nation’s mind-set at the time. Now, fast forward 231 years later, and those words have become lost or forgotten on our citizens.
On Sean Hannity’s daytime radio talk show he does a “man on the street” segment where he sends an intern down to the streets of New York and asks passers-by a series of questions about our government. On Tuesday’s show he asked some basic Fourth of July questions. I used to be amazed by the lack of knowledge of the common citizen, but anymore it’s just dull-surprise.
The questions he presented were as follows:
1) What is July 4th? Answer: Independence day
2) Who did we win our Independence from? Answer: England
3) What was the name of the war we fought to win our independence? Answer: Revolutionary war
4) Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Answer: Thomas Jefferson
All pretty basic questions, right? Of course, you have to wonder if it’s all staged, and if the people were hand-picked before they get on the air.
Anyway, out of the four of five citizens quizzed, all got the first question correct, but only one person could answer the next two, and no one got the last one. So I used the same questions and asked several of my customers through out the day and was not surprised to see the same results that Hannity got.
Hannity’s last question to them was whether they vote Democrat or Republican. Of course, being in New York it’s an obvious answer. But the people I asked are all pretty much Republican. So it doesn’t really matter based on party lines who could answer the questions or not. Nobody seems to know their history any longer, which is sad.
We obviously do not make it a priority to teach American history in our schools, and by the people I talked too, it just isn’t that important. Men like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington along with the brave men and women of early America, fought and gave their lives for what we have today; FREEDOM. Do we not owe them respect for all eternity, at least one day every year, the knowledge that we know where we came from, and the sacrifices made?
So, let us not forget. Set down your iphone and your latte and read a book on what was done to create this great and wonderful country we live in. Sacrifice just a little of your time to learning what gives you the ability to live free. Outside of the problems in the world today, and the growing pains of our past, we still live in the greatest country ever constructed by the human mind. We owe it to future generations to keep our history alive.