If you haven’t learned about American history by now, it’s not too late. If you don’t know about and understand our history, it’s almost impossible for you to understand us old timers who’ve been around several years ,who did learn American history while in school. The reason we had to learn it was so that we could be patriots, understanding the price of our freedom not being free.
if you’re young enough not to really understand why THE OLDER PEOPLE APPEAR to be more patriotic thAN younger PEOPLE, IT’S BECAUSE IT’S TRUE. We had to learn about how we became who we are and as a result we were proud of our heritage. Young PEOPLE who didn’t have to learn it missed a lot and therefore tend to not be as patriotic AND DO NOT NORMALLY SHOW CONCERN ABOUT our national heritage as those who are oldER.

I feel that people who are younger than 55 years old really don’t give a damn about our country and think it will be as it is now forever just because that’s all they’ve known. It got this way because of people who thought enough about our freedom AND were willing to do something about it. Why? They were taught how hard it was to get where the country is now. If you don’t know about that, how could you be expected to be as patriotic when all young people know is the good part of our freedom and know nothing about how we got it and how we’ll keep it.

It’s not your fault. It’s the fault of us old farts who have allowed our congress to legislate u. s. history into oblivion. Shame on us. Shame on our government. Shame on all who are not patriotic and understand the meaning and cost of our freedom. I believe that without patriotism, the u. s. as we know it today, will cease to exist and will be governed by our own “liberals”, who I think of as being stupid and tend to think some of the beliefs of communism, believing in communal living as being the best of all alternatives. Russia and other communist countries have tried that in the past and some are still practicing it today. It doesn’t work. By the time some of you understand that, it may be too late.

I beg you young and unlearned people of American to begin to feel that our country is worth saving and begin to take on an attitude of self survival as a country while we yet can. If we don’t, and we continue on the same cycle as we appear to be on, the u. s. will no longer represent what we represented 30 – 50 years ago, which is a good way of life but doesn’t and didn’t come cheap. Many lives have been sacrificied for you who have no damn idea of what the u. s. stands for or give a ****.

If you continue that attitude, you will one day wake up and say “where did all that good stuff go”.? Too late then. Don’t blame folks like me when that happens, and it will if you don’t wake up and smell the roses of success and freedom. You think you don’t make a difference within our legislative group sitting on capitol hill and the white house - wrong! You do, but if you don’t speak up for what is for the common good of all our citizens, and say “**** you foreigners who are taking advantage of our liberal government who seem to don’t give a **** either”, we’ll all be in the same tub of crap and can’t get out. Don’t wait too long. It will happen. Wake up and smell the roses of freedom b4 it’s too late.

Don’t blame your elders when it happens either. You’ve been told over and over by us older folks whom you may think of as
“old farts who don’t know their *** from a hole in the ground about life and society”. If you think that, you’re more stupid than you should be and should try to reassemble your thinking as being an American and not a national figure intended to satisfy the whole earth. We’re not the whole earth, we’re here on this part of the world and everybody else is trying to take it’s values and principles from us.

IM confused now,, didnt you say you live in Mexico?

I disagree to a point.

Freedom is never free, that is fact.

But freedom is also not the ideal that is passed down from some of the older folks. Religion does not equal morality and goodness for an example. Religion is just a group of people with the same ideals, not good for everyone as they believe.

Freedom does not mean that a person has to be heterosexual to marry.
Freedom does not mean that a helping hand or help in general means lazy or unworthy.
Freedom does not mean that you have to fit a certain image to be considered American.

Etc..

All of these listed and more are ideals of American freedom that are antiquated and unhealthy for this country.

So yes freedom is not free but it is also not the unfreedom of past idealists.

y es, i live in Mexico and have for over 3 years. some of these postings were written prior to my coming to Mexico. Mexicans go to the U. S. for differing reasons, but generally it's because of the income they can earn and the lack of sufficient income to live here in Mexico. It's all about money usually. Other reasons i'm sure, but that's the big one as i know it.

ok, so its classist.

Its nice , IF you have means. If not, it sucks,,,,

phtttttt
always with the gay crap

what is the inherent or practical value of 'patriotism' that should require anyone to learn a nations 'history'

is it not just as practical to teach love of others, integrity, honesty, and humility,,,,,as it is to teach 'national pride'?


I understand the sentiment, but my issue with the pov of mandatory history(which it already is,,) is that there isnt a history book that TRULY embraces the struggles of all types of people. I believe it should be mandatory to take some type of history, but which type should be elective. IF the point is to teach about the sacrifices of others, why shouldnt natives have the option to learn about the sacrifices in THEIR history, or people of color learn about the sacrifices in THEIR history. I think history, kind of like manners, is something that has to be taught first at home, with reinforcement from the community and the schools.

Pretty sure the government legislated education as a whole into oblivion. Further, I find it rather stupid to say that young people (such as myself) have no grasp on history...

I'm pretty sure American history is a prerequisite in American HSs.

It was in my day anyway.

The gov did not legislate ed into oblivion. Parents did!
We still have a good education system and some very smart young people benefit from it.
The problem is that the education is only as good as the effort put into learning.
Many kids don't apply themselves and the parents think it's the schools fault. It isn't the schools fault that the kid doesn't have parental supervision or that the parent won't apply discipline at home. Too many parents think it's good parenting to be their kids best friend. It's not.

Oh yea, you are the exception to the rule from what I observe.
Most young people do not have a grasp on American History. Worse yet, they think history is irrelevant.

what would you thik if our educational system adopted a new subject called "white history"? And you say that there are not "true" history books? Why not. How do you know. There is too much pandering to groups now which doesn't have anything to do with "patriotism", which is the subject of the topic to begin with. Our school systems worked for many years, which is how we got to where we are socially and culturally. Should there also be subjects in U. S. Schools like Japanese History, Russian History, Asian History? Some people never realize they have it made and generally for no reasonable input.

I think government should be taught in High School, but history should be left for a college setting. Math, English and Science should be the focus of High School.. The subjective courses should be left as electives when a student is old enough to decide whether the teachers presentation and interpretation of the facts are accurate or are the formulation of some political agenda.

mine also, but not today. I was born in 1941 and graduated HS in 1959. During that period of time, it was required. Not today. There's too much resistence to it because there are many groups in the U. S. that were not that strong at that time, and American History was mandatory. Now, it gets so much flack from some of these groups who claim their "group" isn't included and focused on like it should that we just gave up and said, forget it then. And it has been forgotten.

Ancient History United States History and Civics was taught when I went to school......I personally despised History

No. I am not speaking about history as it pertains to other nations, I am speaking of history pertaining to other AMERICANS. This is a country that is a supposed melting pot, a conglomerate of many cultures and traditions and peoples and it is not one HISTORY book that is going to inlude all of those contributions so why not expand the possible history classes so that students can all have an experience which makes their personal and family and ancestral contributions soemthing that they can feel 'pride' in and learn from, as opposed to just the majority group.

I preferred Science English Lit Latin and foriegn languages

yeah, I didnt care for it either. Fortunately , my family taught me at home about my PERSONAl ancestral history and the contributions of african americans in this country so I was well rounded but I do have a vivid image of the day black history month was announced over the pa in middle school and the white child in front of me asked very sincerely 'why do we need a month on blacks, what have they DONE?'


Im sure thats an easy conclusion for many children to make if they are not EXPOSED to anyone elses contributions.

American history and tribal history are not the same thing.

The history of German farmers in Pennsylvania is not the same as the history of Irish indentured servants in New England.

Saying American history is taught as white history is not accurate.

I think the problem today.
Besides most of the parents.

Is they try to teach them too much.
It's not like in my day when if you took Algebra, you were in it for the whole year. Now they take it for one semester and only teach them chapters that the teacher thinks are most relevant. One semester is not enough time to spend on one subject.
Especially subjects like Algebra or Physics.

this is true. 'white' people are actually from all over


I should say that the american history I learned was mostly notable contributions of EUROPEAN AMERICANS