History Lesson (for you and for me)

Oh guys, where do I start? I have no clue, honestly. After my last post my genius of a friend Kayla suggested that I write more about history and what has happened in the past so as to better understand what is going on right now and I thought "Duh! Why didn't I think of that?!" Well, after she made that brilliant suggestion I went and found a book that I had used as a reference in one of my papers and started reading it more in depth. The book is called The Growth of America by Clarence B. Carson and I encourage you ALL to read it. It will open up your eyes!

I started reading in the middle of the book (I'm weird like that) because I saw that the chapter name was "Progressivism". Progressivism is an ideology that links progress to reform and believes that progress can be achieved through the use of government power. I am trying to explain this as best I can, but it is really kind of hard because it's a very complicated thing to explain and I still have a lot to learn about it myself. I hope that above definition, however rough it may be, will help you though.

Progressivism started to show it's face about a hundred years ago or so in the early 1900's and one of the biggest things it did was link government instituted reforms to the idea of progress. What this did (and does) is gives people the feeling that progress is being made because the signs of progress are all around, or at least what people think the signs of progress are. Wouldn't you say that sounds like what's happening right now? I mean there is progress being made isn't there? We have computers that fit in the palm of our hand, we are going to have cars that are run off electricity pretty soon (or so we hope), and I could go on and on with things that are being made better every day. So yeah, there is progress happening, but is it the right kind of progress? You may want to be careful how you answer that question if you are out in the world somewhere like a classroom or a meeting or even just talking with friends. Why? Well because by linking government instituted reforms to the idea of progress it makes anyone who is opposed to reform look like they are opposed to progress. Again, I know this may be hard to follow, I had to read this chapter twice over just to get my head a little bit around it and I am still basically just telling you what I read in the book only in a little bit simpler terms. So, I hope you are able to get this from my scrambled way of explaining it.

Here is the thing though. This book I am reading and referencing was written in 1985! 25 years ago! And this guy who wrote it is saying the exact same stuff about progressives and big government that Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'reilly, and any other true conservative right now is saying. Isn't that a little crazy? Well not really, cause here's the other thing: The guy who wrote this book has his doctorate in history. He knows that by learning about the past you can predict the future and by learning from the mistakes of the past you can try to change the future by not making those same mistakes again! Knowing our history is important guys! Now, you don't have to go crazy and all go major in history, but I think it would be a really good idea to educate yourself a little more thoroughly on history in general, but U.S. History especially. Thank you Kayla again for the suggestion! I really need to do some homework on history =).

You doing your homework and learning history is something that progressives are scared of though. Progressives are trying to change how we are educated so that we don't know about history or they make it so we don't care or they color it their way. Because they know that if we are dumb to history then we will never learn from it and as a result just go on repeating the mistakes of our fathers. Guys (and girls), lets be the first generation to prove that old saying that "History repeats itself" wrong. What do you say?

My next post is going to be about Progressive Education, where it all started, and how it has effected our country in the last 100 years. Thanks for reading. Let me know if you like this post, whether you want me to keep going on this track, or whether you want me to do something else.