The following radio program aired Saturday, November 4, 2018, on Jan Markell’s “Understanding the Times,” and is entitled, “Defiance: The Consequences of Government as God.”
Her guests are former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, R-MN, and retired, former Homeland Security Officer, Phil Haney.
I believe they have very important things to say for our serious consideration particularly just now ahead of the U.S. midterm elections but also for the future of America.
pnissila 
Thank you Phyllis, and also for the link to Jan Markell’s discussion. Incoherent discourse and rabble-rousing is a short step away from anarchy on the streets. Are these people seeking to emulate the October Revolution and similar events, or have they no sense of history and the outrageous consequences of widespread disorder? When the mob rules there is chaos and violence and the outcome is totalitarianism. This has been played out countless times and it always ends in tears. Extremes of right and left never learn the lessons of history.
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Colin,
Thank you for your reply.
Regarding people having no sense of history when it comes to events in the United States that nowadays often resemble the kind of anarchy that has led to authoritarianism elsewhere, here is my perspective from academia.
Having recently retired from teaching, the last fifteen years at the higher education level where among other things I also served as a curriculum specialist, I believe part of the problem is that history classes have gradually morphed more into social engineering workshops than history lessons.
For whatever one might argue that “history is written by the victor,” one can also say, from my expertise and perspective, social engineering in the guise of history is, and has been, often very effectively used to turn education, whether reading, writing, arithmetic or history, into a political versus informational endeavor.
One of the most famous proponents of political education, as it were, is Paulo Freire. His ground-breaking work in the field of “critical pedagogy” made his 1968 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed a very popular read in the University system in which I took all of my education, educational philosophy, and education methodologies coursework back in the late-sixties and early seventies.
That, of course, was a generation ago. But I believe we can see the fruit of that early politics-based, reconstructionist educational influence today. And that, I believe, is why so many “history” courses in schools today, particularly at the high school, community college (where I taught) and university levels, neglect certain facts about nations who did succumb to the politics of division, identity, socialism, communism–and mob influence–which cause and will continue to cause “tears,” as you noted, not to mention wholesale destruction and oppression–whether the political agents are on the far right or far left.
Information both exposes injustice and the need for reform, and facilitates the cause for freedom for all, but we need information from all sides, as objective as is possible, and with all eyes on the outcomes.
Let’s just hope that there is enough time to really stem the threatening anarchist tide in America.
Phyllis
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It’s easy for me…VOTE THE BIBLE!
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