Young people have a voice today. Unfortunately, their opinion has been radically influenced by the teachers that infuse in them their thinking. Whether you call it critical thinking or indoctrination is up to you. Role models in the formative years used to be the charter of parents. At some point, that moral obligation was transferred to “teachers” as two parent earners became responsible for breakfast and dinner but the interim time was “fully trusted to the teachers”. Trust but verify was a Reagan priority but lost in recent years.
The pandemic influenced a sharp reality check when parents were suddenly able to see what children were actually being taught. Challenges to school boards, once thought out of bounds, has become a ritual. The deep-rooted move to poisoning the minds of our next generation was well underway and it has become the evil we have been warned about for generations-our democracy is never more than one generation away and its only threat is from within.
But how do our children even get a vote, after all, by law they don’t get a vote, and our democracy is ruled by adults, not children. Unfortunately, those adults are, in many cases, geriatric and should have been relieved of their legislative powers, years ago. Once cognitive acuity has been eroded, it seems decision making capacity may be influenced much more by agendas that are not aligned with our basic Constitution. Policy implications suddenly support a “New America” that embraces many of the ideals that have been foreign to anything our Constitution or current generation has embraced.
Many have defended, and sacrificed much, for the flag that defines us. But many have not. Those have enjoyed the freedoms that were assured by the former will never be truly grateful, not in today’s environment. How quickly they forget or, how quickly they never knew because history isn’t part of our educational process anymore.
The reality of the new movement to redefine our history, redefine our Constitution and even redefine our gender, is symptomatic of the evil element that permeates our society. Loss of our religious moral compasses, fundamental to the founding father’s vision of our Democratic Republic, is slowly taking root.
So, as this seed germinates in the next generation, what do we do? The current administration is reinforcing this cancer growing among us. Policies reinforcing divisive fractures within our generation are eroding not just our society but our military culture. Military readiness is suffering from an abject rejection of the Woke scripture from both the recruiting pool and from the highly trained forces objecting from compromising dictum.
The fight is relentless. The next generation is following the age-old mantra- if you are gaslighted day after day with falsehoods, you can eventually conclude that they are true. The reality is that the truth, given a chance and the light of day, will pull the pendulum back to some sense of reality.
The fight must be on two fronts: stop the insanity in our school systems, including our Universities and Service Academies. Secondarily, stop the woke agenda policy flowdown that is driving weak recruiting, relaxation of standards and rejection of patriotic defense of our nation.
So, what next?
Education is generally a strength of the United States. It’s time to go back to the roots of education and teach the basics. From grade school through university. Stop the insanity of force feeding the Woke agenda. The nation is ripe with recent educational statistics that we should not be proud of. Consider the recent expose that truly stellar students, in some cases, are not being recognized because “it isn’t fair to the students that have not excelled”. Time to go back to a merit based, color blind system, not an equity based, feelings hurt system if we really want to get the best of our society.
More importantly, it’s time to get our military back to the premier institution needed to defend this nation. Time, resources, and our senior leadership needs to be redirected to the important ingredients of developing our next generation of warriors. Stop the insanity of treating our military like a Petrie dish of social experimentalism. That is not what our founding fathers, our Constitution or any patriots that sacrificed for the freedoms we all enjoy ever envisioned.
Are we ready for the next confrontation? Wake up America
As the 25th anniversary arrives of women being allowed to attend the oldest state military college in the country, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is drastically changing its approach as it attempts to keep pace with not only progressive academic norms but also with the woke culture that has been sweeping across Democrat-led states.
Kimberly Dark, the author of lesbian fanfic and a fat rights activist, was invited to VMI in honor of the anniversary of women being permitted to attend the institution. Meanwhile, a diversity training presentation at the Institute poses the question, “How have you benefited from adherence to your gender role?”.
Under Superintendent, Cedric Wins, VMI has seen a drastic shift toward woke culture and a focus on gender, redefining “masculinity,” and intolerance toward white people.
At VMI’s Preston Library, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) resources include “The History of White People” and “White Guys on Campus” which discuss “whiteness” along with the “habits of racism among white male undergraduates” and include other texts such as Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to be an Antiracist” and “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo.
The changes have come from Wins whose “One Corps, One VMI Unifying Action Plan” is driving away cadets who are drawn to the institution for its warrior-centric appeal rather than a DEI-centered curriculum that aims to “empower Cadets to gain strength through diversity, acceptance by inclusion.”
Enrollment for the new VMI curriculum has fallen by 25% from 522 freshmen in 2020 to only 375 in 2022. Wins has attempted to put the blame for the drop in enrollment on everything from the Covid-19 pandemic to falling birth rates.
VMI’s Inclusive Excellence plan whose focus was pushing “diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice” on cadets was based on the One Virginia Plan which claimed that, “Inequity is rooted in America’s foundation.”
Not only is the institution erasing historical components from its own legacy but the staff has apparently turned a blind eye to it with one faculty member going so far as to declare, “We really aren’t military. I have a bird on my shoulder – doesn’t mean anything – just I am a field professor, so – compare us more to the University of Maryland than a military academy.”
DEI training is being used as a cover-up for teaching critical race theory (CRT) at VMI with videos like “White Like Me: Race, Racism, and White Privilege in America” which claims that “white privilege” is “built into the very foundations of the country.” A separate video, “Disarm Hate” uses the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando to “demand LGBTQIA equal rights, fight the NRA and challenge America’s obsessions with gun violence.”
While it appears that DEI and CRT are running rampant at the institution, critics of Wins’ new woke policies are speaking out through the Spirit of VMI PAC with Glenn Youngkin’s election as governor bringing hope for a return to militaristic values and education at VMI. Meanwhile, Wins has been publically defending his VMI budget that includes extensive spending on “equity” telling a critic, “You have no understanding of DEI or what it means, or how much of the funding for DEI is represented in our request.”
Wins has gone on to also blame the drop in enrollment on “ideological differences among a divided alumni base” although the division is not among the alumni but rather between current and potential future cadets and Wins’ woke agenda and CRT curriculum.
In another failed attempt to shift the blame for alarmingly low enrollment figures Wins went on to say, “Misinformation regarding our initiative for diversity, equity and inclusion and the thought, the notion, the misinformation about the institute and what it’s doing or what it’s not doing with critical race theory is certainly having an impact, we believe.” This from the superintendent of an institution whose DEI resources have a direct link to “anti-racism resources” to be used as a “resource to white people.”
It is heartbreaking to see the institution that produced Marshall, Patton, and Byrd giving in so easily to the left’s woke agenda and critical race theory curriculum that has all but erased American history and now the legacy of the Virginia Military Institute. Where does it stop?
