OPINION:
Why do so many liberals hate America? Perhaps their minds would be changed if they visited the regimes so many on the left praise and saw the failures of socialism firsthand.
Yeonmi Park is one of our speakers at Young America’s Foundation. She and her mother fled North Korea and eventually made their way to the United States. In her first year at Columbia University, she decided to speak out after many of her classmates kept talking about how much they hated America. Ms. Park loves our country and suggests these students travel to North Korea and other oppressive regimes to see how good we have it in the USA.
Ms. Park spoke of the promises made to her ancestors about equity. Give up your land and rights, and you will receive equity, they were told. Now, they are equally poor and oppressed, while the elite have the power and resources.
Most liberals in elected office are obsessed with gaining more power. They believe in the power of the government, while conservatives trust in the individual, family and God. Liberals want to concentrate power, while conservatives want to distribute it to hardworking taxpayers.
So many liberals seek to gain power by pitting one group against another in their plans. Years ago, Marxists tried that approach in the United States. It did not work, as we are not a class-based society. Ronald Reagan was born in an apartment without running water. His family never lived in their own home. He went to a community college. Yet he went on to win the largest electoral victory in American history. His leadership revived the American economy and brought an end to communism in Eastern Europe. President Reagan’s achievements remind us that anyone can succeed in our beloved country.
Today, liberals seek to divide Americans not by class but by race, sex and gender. They seek to demonize those who do not follow their rigid philosophy by calling opponents racist, sexist, transphobic, and other names, regardless of the topic.
The United States of America became the first country in the world founded on the idea of freedom and self-government. When the founders declared independence in 1776, they made it clear that all people are created equal, with certain unalienable rights endowed by our Creator: God, not government, bestows these rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Prior to the Declaration of Independence, the government ruled by force. This was the case for most governments in the world. The founders defined our right to self-government and equal status before God. Eventually, they spelled out many of these rights in the Constitution, including the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Many liberals assert that America was founded on slavery. It was not. America was founded on freedom. Over time, it became a more perfect union by acting to protect our freedoms fully. Although some previously criticized slavery, the American people were the first to do something about it.
The first gathering of people who formed the Republican Party was held in my home state of Wisconsin in a town called Ripon. They opposed the spread of slavery, while Southern Democrats defended it. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves in the Confederate states during the Civil War. He eventually pushed a Republican-led Congress to pass amendments to the Constitution that prohibited slavery, and gave former slaves equal justice under the law and the right to vote.
In the riots a few years ago, which resulted from protests organized by Black Lives Matter organizations, many of the radicals involved took down statues and monuments. One of them was of Hans Christian Heg. His statue stood outside the east wing of the Wisconsin State Capitol.
Heg was an immigrant from Norway. He led one of the first militias to protect freed slaves coming north from the South. He fought and died for the Union during the Civil War. Yet rioters took his statue down and threw the head into a nearby lake. Sadly, it seems to be willful ignorance.
A similar situation occurred in Philadelphia, where a statue of Matthias Baldwin was defaced. He was the owner of a railroad business who spoke out against slavery decades before the Civil War. He lost business in the South but did not back down from his beliefs. Eventually, he built and staffed a school for Black students 30 years before the Civil War. He should be revered, yet his statue was a target for the rioters.
This is what happens when Americans — particularly young people — are not taught the basics about the founding and history of our nation. Students should learn about objective history — the good, the bad and the ugly. They should learn how we compare to other countries in the world. Those who do will be much more likely to love America.
• Scott Walker is president of Young America’s Foundation and served as the 45th governor of Wisconsin.
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