OPINION:
The debate in America is no longer about left or right. It is fundamentally about right or wrong. Freedom of speech. Love of country. Belief in God. The bedrock principle of a nuclear family and the differences between men and women. Support for the military and defense of our borders. The idea is that we are all created equal. Not long ago, most Americans agreed on these ideas. But do we still?
Freedom of speech is a fundamental right spelled out in the Constitution. It is the envy of people all over the world, yet free speech is increasingly at risk in America. Ironically, the place where it should be most revered is where it is most at risk: college campuses.
A Knight-Gallup poll from 2022 showed 3 in 4 Democratic college students “support the creation of safe spaces on campus, close to half support the creation of speech codes that could limit offensive or biased speech, and two in five favor schools disinviting potentially controversial speakers.” In other words, they want to be heard, but they want people who disagree with them silenced. Unacceptable.
“Woke” professors, radical teachers, biased curriculum and one-sided social media accounts have led to a growing number of young people who claim to hate America. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed the number of people who believe patriotism is an important value has been on the decline since 1998 but took a massive dip over the past four years.
Leftist initiatives such as the 1619 Project and critical race theory are starting to have a real impact on students. Visitors to the homes of the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, and the primary author of the Constitution, James Madison, see little of the benefit of their work. Instead, they are told how awful they and the other founders were at the time.
In response to a new law in North Carolina that requires all students in the state college system to take a three-credit course on American history, more than 670 university professors signed a letter of opposition to the requirement. Their stated reason? Academic freedom.
The new law requires students to be taught about the founding documents and actually read them, as well as learn about the Emancipation Proclamation, Federalist Papers, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” and the Gettysburg Address. In their letter, they argue the law “substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty.”
In other words, left-wing professors are afraid of students reading the original documents and then being impressed with the timeless truths expressed by our founders. Instead, they want to build a hateful narrative about the history of our country. No wonder so many young people seem to despise America.
Yeonmi Park is one of our speakers at Young America’s Foundation. She and her mother escaped the oppression in North Korea and eventually found her way to the United States. Once here, she was accepted at Columbia University. Soon, she heard her classmates complaining about how bad America was, and she could not help but speak up and defend her new homeland.
Every year, more than a million immigrants like Ms. Park legally come to the United States. There are more foreign-born citizens in America than anywhere else in the world — by a large margin. They know what so many privileged college students do not: America is the home of freedom and opportunity for all.
Many of the people entering our country each year are fleeing religious persecution in their home countries. Freedom of religion is also protected by the Constitution, but it is not freedom from religion. The founders knew that our rights come from our Creator and not the government.
Sadly, too many people have lost a connection to God. The same Wall Street Journal poll showed the number of people who put a premium on religion has dropped dramatically over the past four years.
One of the worst things about the reaction to the global pandemic was the forced shutdowns of so many places of worship. If anything, this was the time when we needed to gather and worship more than ever before in our history. God helps people overcome their fears.
It has been said before that if America ceases to be good, we will cease to be great. We need God back in our lives to determine right from wrong.
Research by the Brookings Institution shows a nearly universal path to living a life free of poverty: graduate from school, get a job, and wait until at least 21 and married before having children. Further evidence is that making the right decision over the wrong one works.
All 50 states prohibit a minor from getting a tattoo. The same should apply to minors getting sex change surgeries. Pushing it on children is wrong.
So is allowing people born male to compete against biological females in sports. It is just as wrong as allowing a 19-year-old to compete against a 10-year-old. There are real differences.
It is time to stand up to those pushing us down the wrong path and do what is right.
• Scott Walker is president of Young America’s Foundation and served as the 45th governor of Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019.
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