KILLING OUR PAST

Published on Newsmax.              #ALT-LEFT

America’s identity is in danger of being destroyed before our very eyes.

ALT-LEFT activists on the streets, in academia, the media, and government are wantonly assaulting the physical touch stones that support our nation’s civic culture.  There is no turning back from chaos if the connective fabric of our society vanishes.

America is unique.  It is a country based upon ideas - not geography, language, or tribe.  Our historic sites and markers ground us in who we are, and why we are. 

History is about collective memory and frames of reference.  Statues and historic sites are there to commemorate and remind, not to celebrate. Knowing and discussing our origin is fundamental to a civic culture where shared values hold us together.  Civil dialogue with those we disagree is the structure that allows our institutions, our communities, and ourselves to exist. 

Our Constitution is about forming “a more perfect union”.  This means America is always a work in progress.  The Constitution itself is the greatest “rules of engagement” for collective action that has ever been written.  Looking beyond ourselves reaffirms our nation and our individual and collective roles in it.

Recent actions erasing history are unraveling our civic fabric.  For one group to anoint itself as morally entitled to determine what should be saved and what should be destroyed is the very essence of tyranny and fanaticism.

Humans have attempted to alter collective memory since competing Pharaohs chiseled away Cartouches and defaced hieroglyphs.  Carthage was destroyed, Rome was sacked.  Mongol hordes obliterated cities along the Silk Road.  Islamic hordes burned the Library of Alexandria.  Vikings ravaged monasteries and burned centuries old manuscripts.  Cromwell’s Puritan army smashed stained glass windows in countless churches.

World history has been saved by those who transcended their immediate impulse for destruction.  Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella calmed their Christian fervor when they saw the wonder of the Alhambra.  Napoleon’s armies avoided destroying European cities and towns during nearly twenty years of war. 

The Twentieth Century saw a disturbing shift in how history was viewed.  The rise of Communism and Nazism led to intentionally obliterating history on a strategic scale.  Worse, the followers of these dogmas made fabricating history a priority.  Destroying reality and then faking an alternative became one of the greatest threats to civilization.  Cultural treasures were lost to the ages as the Nazi’s raped Europe, the Soviets raped Eastern Europe, and Mao’s minions unleashed their Cultural Revolution.

The 21^st Century brought a new wave of Islamic hordes whose primary mission is to destroy anything, and anyone, not sufficiently promoting their fanaticism.  From the Taliban blowing up thousand year old Buddhist statues, to ISIS smashing the Tomb of Abraham and leveling Palmyra, the erasure of irreplaceable historic sites and artifacts has known no bounds.

ALT-LEFT vandalism against statues they deem offensive is now threatening America.  The chorus of ALT-LEFT commentators from the media, academia, and politics has woven a tapestry of excuses justifying official and unofficial destruction and desecration. 

America’s Civil War was complex and controversial in its genesis, conduct, and aftermath.  Our Civil War tore apart families, friends, communities, and the nation.  It killed 2.5 percent of the U.S. population and impacted all who lived during the war. Its ramifications ripple through America to this day.  The nuances of 21^st Century American voting patterns, politics, law, culture, and language are better understood, the more one delves into Civil War history. 

Arrogance and ignorance are fueling the current wave of mayhem.  The ALT-LEFT’s clarion call for ridding America of racist Southern symbols becomes indecipherable babble when people torch a bust of Abraham Lincoln, spray paint the Lincoln Memorial, attack a Joan of Arc statue, and deface statues of Catholic Saints. 

There is clearly more going on. 

Fanaticism is all about intolerance and silencing opponents.  It is all about indoctrination and erasing individualism.  Fanatics are not satisfied until they completely destroy independent thought.  Their dream is a “hive mind” - thinking and acting as one.  Like Bumble bees, ALT-LEFT, Islamic Terrorists, and Communists want to anoint one leader who is all powerful, surrounded by blind devotion.  Their goal is the end of civilization, the end of humankind as we know it. 

The ALT-LEFT, and its supporters, have this bigger goal in mind. 

George Orwell, a Socialist who grew to understand the threat of tyranny, sent us a timeless warning: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

[Scot Faulkner advises corporations and governments on how to save billions of dollars by achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.  He also served on the White House Staff, and as an Executive Branch Appointee.]

smf53@aol.com  304-716-6235

2013 IN PERSPECTIVE

2013 was like any other year. We found new ways to be humane and inhumane. The frontiers of knowledge advanced both in discovery and dissemination. Creative genius existed next to odd people and events that were undeserving our attention.

Throughout these past twelve months, there were also patterns and trends that appeared or expanded into our lives. These will shape our existence in 2014 and merit further discussion.

SOURCE VERSUS SUBSTANCE
The quality of civil discourse declined along with its quantity. Rational thought, critical thinking, and reasoned engagement all declined sharply among politicians and pundits. Save for rare instances of good governance at state and local levels, hyper-partisanship reined supreme. The continued collapse of functional democracy was on vivid display in Washington, DC. To the credit of Americans, trust in Congress sank to historic lows and support for President Obama fell to his lowest ebb.

Incompetence, corruption, and deceit played their roles in the deterioration of our civic culture. However, the biggest factor was the expanding inability of people from across the political spectrum to keep an open mind when encountering opposing views. Who was saying something trumped what was being said. Even the old adage that “a stopped clock is still right twice a day” was discarded.

Shutting out differing viewpoints closes the mind to new ideas and prevents everyone from obtaining important “reality checks” for their actions. On a good day, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow provides cogent and insightful analysis. On any day, Fox’s Charles Krauthammer is the most knowledgeable and articulate pundit on an amazing range of topics. We need to return to a time when no one should have to pass a litmus test prior to pulling a fire alarm in a burning building.

CORE VERSUS FRINGE BELIEFS
Pope Francis was named Time’s “Man of the Year” for many good reasons. His most universal contribution was returning to the core message of his church – anyone seeking salvation will be granted it. Communicating and embodying the Catholic Church’s core message immediately welcomed back those wishing to return to its faith and opened a dialogue with all others desiring a caring and tolerant world. In one masterful leap, Pope Francis made his church relevant in the 21st Century.

Pope Francis’ accomplishment should be embraced by the Republican Party. A movement of faith or policy is not the sum of its parts. Its core values and beliefs inform and guide its parts. Specific issues will come and go, but its core should remain timeless. Transient passengers should not be allowed to steer the ship.

WASHINGTON VERSUS AMERICA
Our traditional concerns over government over-reach, and our dismay over its incompetence, were joined by a new and disturbing issue – fairness. “Crony capitalism” moved to the forefront of America’s psyche. The record disparity in wealth has made increasing numbers of Americans wonder if the “America Dream” has been hijacked by a well-connected oligarchy.

These fairness concerns are not about depriving productive people their well earned rewards. It is about those in power rigging the game for everyone else. Special interest tax breaks, regulatory waivers, and program funding have created an undemocratic oligarchy constructing a public trough from which they devour the spoils. This has worsened as large companies and banks continue to get away with wanton abuses, as long as they pay a small percentage of their “ill gotten” gains to complicit overseers.

One of the great missed opportunities for real change occurred when political powers did everything possible to keep the Tea Party from allying with Occupy Wall Street. Both groups arose out of a deep mistrust of established power and concern over unaccountable and incestuous elites perverting America. Such an alliance was the one true chance of a third party challenging the status quo.

In the wake of Washington dysfunction, corporate statism, and consumer exploitation, Americans are growing more restive. The latest Gallup Poll reported that seventy-two percent of Americans say big government the greatest threat to the U.S., a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. Unfortunately, Americans are disengaging from activism, even voting, feeling that little can be done. Opting out is a recipe for civic decline.

AMERICA VERSUS THE WORLD
America continues to suffer from not having a global strategy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Our “war of terror” fixated on misdiagnosing symptoms in one region of the world. America’s role in the world, it competing with 200 other countries for economic well-being, and preventing slippage back to 18th Century amoral adventurism have been absent from meaningful dialogues.

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are willingly filling the void. These nations view 18th Century style power politics as their salvation from their respective internal failings. America’s missteps and miscues are being exploited to the detriment of global stability and morality. A world dominated by any country other than America will be nasty and brutish.

America remains the most parochial world power in history. Only a third of Americans currently hold passports (that’s fifteen times more than in 1970) . Only 19% of Americans travel outside the U.S. and most of them go to North American destinations. Americans consistently score near the bottom among developed nations on geographic knowledge. Much of this is based on the fact that America’s imperialism occurred within what is now its own borders. While European armies, traders, and missionaries spanned the global, Americans conquered our own continent. Except for the Spanish-American War, America’s overseas military activism was not acquisitive. Certainly, American brands and culture remain the top influencers of world consumption, but only a microscopic portion of our corporate and political leaders have actual overseas experience.

SECURITY VERSUS PRIVACY
You do not improve your chances of finding a needle in the haystack by creating more haystacks. That is the fundamental flaw in America’s counter-terrorism strategy. In the 1970’s, Americans worried about who was on President Nixon’s enemies’ list and who his minions bugged. Now we are all on our government’s enemies list and we are all bugged. This is not progress.

No amount of Orwellian intrusions will find and stop every terrorist. The odds will always remain in favor of the lone zealot or psychopath. Security forces have to get it right 100% of the time – they will never achieve this certainty. Innocent people will be killed or maimed when bad people slip through these defenses.

They key to success is to remove the roots of terrorism. Unless and until moderate Islamic leaders end the official teaching of hatred, and the perverse interpretations of the Koran, there will always be a threat. Until we establish policies and processes to recognize and treat mental illness there will always be a person using violent means to destroy lives and communities.

TECHNOLOGY VERSUS HUMANS
The irony of our age is that all the amazing advances in communications are creating as many problems as opportunities. We are all part of a technological Tower of Babel. Our common frame of reference ended years ago, to the detriment of our civic culture.

Diversity is a good thing, unless no one can effectively reach out to others. We have to keep track of friends, family, and colleagues who use different communication platforms and environments, and when they change without telling anyone. It is Apple versus Windows; iPhone versus Android; LinkedIn versus Facebook, versus countless other social networks. It is having to remember which of our friends and colleagues prefer emails to telephone calls; texting to Skype, and texts on Skype. It is about not only which people follow which television show, but whether to spend money to subscribe to cable, premium cable, Netflix, and Amazon in order to follow the latest award winning series.

Reaching key people for business or pleasure is bewildering. Platform convergence (who uses a separate camera any more?) is complicated by user divergence. The challenge for 2014 and beyond is having technology enable more than hinder our cultural advance.

RIGHTING THE SHIP OF STATE

Congress and the White House are stumbling toward a temporary deal to reopen the Federal Government and raise the national debt.

This temporary fix does not solve any of the fundamental problems with government spending, fiscal management, or health policy. All it does is pull everyone back from the brink and give them limited time to find common ground.

Washington’s spiral into chaos and crisis began years ago. It accelerated after the 2010 elections. The debris field includes not just both political parties. The faith Americans and the rest of the world have in the functionality of the Federal Government is severely damaged. It is going to take more than a “grand bargain” on the budget to repair that damage.

During the descent into madness, all combatants displayed their willingness to destroy the fundamental fabric of America’s civic culture in order to win rhetorical points during ever smaller news cycles. Politicians and pundits acted as though America was a parliamentary democracy, where a legislative defeat would bring down the government, force the resignation of public officials, and trigger new elections.

Our Founding Fathers intentionally designed America’s rules of engagement to avoid the “all or nothing” confrontations that shape British legislation. Fixed terms of office were supposed to force opponents to work together and govern instead of remain in a constant campaign. The U.S. Constitution’s brilliance and resilience stems from practicality, not idealism. That said, it is going to take an historic effort on everyone’s part to repair the damage and restore trust in our institutions of government.

Unfortunately, many involved in these recent political battles seem to want to permanently undermine these institutions of government. "We are looking for an Egyptian moment here! Enough tyranny...” trumpeted an organizer for the truckers’ protest that ended up being more bluster than reality. Other political voices are advocating continued unrest and chaos. Some now champion nullification (ignoring the rules) or a constitutional convention to completely change the rules.

During 226 years living in a Constitutional Republic, Americans have weathered terrible, corrupt, and incompetent Presidents, tolerated dysfunctional and “do nothing” Congresses, and have had to retry and overturn ill-conceived Supreme Court rulings. No matter how bad things got, Americans and their civic culture persevered without risking collapse (save for our Civil War).

It is therefore dismaying that things got so far out of hand during this recent confrontation. The level of righteous ignorance about government functions and processes, the uncivil and abusive accusations about opposing agendas, and the shrill demagogy have created a hole in the fabric of our system that will take time and creativity to repair. Record low levels of support and trust in our elected leaders and record high levels of dissatisfaction must be addressed.

One possible way to rebuild rational discourse and productive engagement is to experiment with crowd sourcing and facilitated discussion. Go to http://onlinetownhalls.com/start/90 to join in an online conservation to test out a new community engagement tool.

Online Townhalls is used by professional and business groups to aggregate opinion and facilitate consensus. In 2012, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the U.S. State Department used Online Townhalls to engage citizens in 35 nations using four languages to support the Summit of the Americas.

Here is a 7-minute video that explains how to use Online Townhalls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW2OLEM-qeE

Another way to learn about Online Townhalls is to follow a sample conversation based on the famous movie “Twelve Angry Men”. This tracks the jury’s consideration of trial evidence. http://onlinetownhalls.com/read/6

One online tool is only a very small step toward re-establishing sanity and decorum in our public processes. Just like after a wind storm, you start the recovery process by picking up the first downed branches. While chainsaws and a tree removal service may become part of the clean-up process, you have to start somewhere.

The recovery from our most recent political storm will take more than a few months. It will probably take years. We all must start somewhere. Your ideas are welcome! We must all pitch in. Perhaps trying out http://onlinetownhalls.com/start/90 is a good first step.

Rebuilding America's Civic Culture

[Richard Dreyfuss' Remarks at TEDx]



You might know me as an actor, but I’m here today as an advocatefor a very particular kind of education that I believe has gone missing from our schools today. Those of us who are older know it as civics. But I’m talking about not just one single class that you take in high school, but a complete K-12 curriculum.


Why do schools need this curriculum? I believe that tomorrow’s leaders need to be able to do three things, and do them very well.

They need to engage in civil debate.

They need to be pre-partisan.

And they need to appreciate the revolutionary notions that this country was founded on.
Let’s start with civil debate. Imagine we’re in Philadelphia. It’s July, 1787, and the Constitutional Convention has been in full swing since May. It’s hot and humid, we’re wearing wool suits and powdered wigs and pantaloons with stockings. We’re probably pretty cranky.

Fifty-five delegates from the thirteen former colonies are—pretty much—all arguing with each other. We’ve been independent from Britain since 1776. We have a temporary government, but it’s not working very well. We have to figure out how to rule ourselves.

You have the rock star, George Washington. Loaded with charisma and gravitas. If I was casting George Washington for a film, I couldn’t cast him. No one is good enough; no one living today has enough star power. Washington was the first person to think of himself as an American, as opposed to a Brit. King George thought he was the greatest man in the world, because he had willingly given up power.

There’s Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s right-hand-man during the war. Hamilton was the only true genius in the group, a person whose ability to understand political power was immense. He knew that this country could only be great as a world power, a manufacturing and industrial power. Hamilton looked west and saw the continent stretching out before us. He knew the future lay west, not east back across the Atlantic.

Our third key player is thirty-four year old James Madison. Shy. Short. Nerdy. Bookish. Absolutely brilliant at politics. He drafted a good part of the constitution while waiting for the others to arrive. Madison took notes under the table throughout the convention, so we have a pretty good idea of what went down.

Everyone at the convention has a different idea for how to structure the new government. Some want to copy England’s system and make George Washington king. Some want to let each state rule itself. Some want three Presidents, to share the power. Three presidents! Many of these men couldn’t stand each other, and Washington was frequently called over to mediate among them.

But throughout their disagreements, they maintained civil, if sometimes heated, debate. They found common ground. Civil debate is uniquely American, this idea that everyone has a voice, and all voices are equal. We take freedom of speech for granted, but it was these men in their powdered wigs who designed our system.

Is this what you think of when you think of the founding fathers? These guys couldn’t stand each other. Some of them were at risk of hanging if they came home with a single, federal government instead of each state being independent. But they worked through their differences and eventually came up with our constitution. Washington later described it as “little short of a miracle.”

So that is the first key aspect of American leadership that we need to be teaching our kids: civil debate.

Next is the ability to be pre-partisan. What do I mean by that? That you value the country more than your party, that you value the good of the whole, even before the good of the state that elected you.

It’s a pretty tall order. Our democracy depends on this principle. That a citizen of Tennessee can morph into a citizen of the whole, make decisions for the whole and—in many cases—make decisions against Tennessee, that's a pretty tough thing. It’s a very high expectation that we have of our citizens.

But tomorrow’s leaders need to recognize that some issues should be accepted and agreed to by all Americans, regardless of our party. Like civil liberties, free speech and assembly, freedom of religion, and the other amendments in the Bill of Rights. So teaching kids how to be pre-partisan is key.

Debate teams are a great example of this skill in action, because you are have a 50/50 chance of having to defend a position you disagree with. Learning to make a case for the other side allows you to have a broader understanding of the issue.

The third aspect of American leadership that we need to teach is to appreciate the revolutionary.

What was revolutionary about democracy? First of all, it depends on citizens, you and I. You don’t need good, educated, engaged citizens when you have a king or a warlord running the country. But democracy depends on everyone playing their part. Not just voting, but being engaged in the process. Understanding and appreciating how revolutionary democracy is.

What is amazing about America is that we said:

If you can get here, you can rise. No guarantee. But we give you the opportunity to rise, to be mobile, to start again, to fail and start again, to fail and start again. You can move around, say what you want, do what you want.

We were, and still are, a political miracle. And I mean, a political miracle. Because the norm is so dark and bloody and so unfair. We offered fairness and we offered a legal system that said no one was above the law. And that was completely unheard of.

We can see revolutionary in the Preamble of our Constitution. Let’s take a look.

We, the people of the United States:

Think about that for a minute. Never in history had a document like this been written. This assumes the people are deciding their own fate. This assumes that there will be a United States. It assumes that the average person from Tennessee or Massachusetts could be educated enough to help lead the country.

Think about that for a minute. All other forms of government assume you have to be born into leadership, or that leadership is won through violence. But in America, anyone in this room with the inclination, education, and drive, can run for and win office, and lead.

In order to form a more perfect union… by that they meant, a better way to lead, a better form of government than having a king tell you what to do, or having lords born into leadership who will always be in office, no matter how poorly they lead or how corrupt they are.

This next section tells us what the government is supposed to do. Notice the words in bold.

Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves…

These are all active verbs. That means that the constitution is a living document, always able to be modified and interpreted. That’s why we still elect people to office, still have a Supreme Court, still have a President, still make laws.

Now the next three words are the ones I want you to pay special attention to:

and our Posterity.

Who is posterity? Posterity is our kids and our grandchildren.

And that’s what I fear is in jeopardy right now. Why? Because we no longer teach kids how democracy works. We no longer teach civics, how to debate in a civil manner, how to reason through a problem. Just turn on any news channel and you’ll see what I mean. People have no idea how to reason through a problem, they just repeat sound bites over and over.

If we don’t teach kids how democracy works and why it’s so special, so revolutionary, who will run the country in 30 years? In 50 years? Who will have the skill set to run the country when your grandchildren grow up?

Kids need to learn how we share public space with those we disagree with. How do we debate issues with civility? How can we tell facts from spin? They also need to learn how to communicate clearly, so they can interact with public officials or speak at a community forum.

These three elements: civil debate, being pre-partisan, and appreciating the revolutionary are critical life skills. We don’t need everyone in these civics classes to get a 4.0… we simply need enough people to get 4.0s to eventually run the country.

So I started this organization, The Dreyfuss Initiative, to address this issue. We’ve partnered with The American Bar Association and Common Core to develop a K-12 curriculum that offers elements of civics in lessons for every grade level. And I’m asking you to do a couple of things tomorrow.

For kids who are watching, go online and sign our petition, asking that they teach you how America works.

For parents, ask your kid’s teacher tomorrow, is civics being taught? Is debate being taught? And, how can I help?

If you don’t have kids, call your local school and ask if you can volunteer to help with a debate team or to teach civics or American history.

No matter what your politics, whether you’re a republican, independent, green, democrat, or libertarian, this needs to matter to you.

Because America is still the best answer to the question humans have been asking for 13,000 years: how can we live together in peace and prosperity?

And we need to teach our kids how to run it.

Thank you for your attention.

EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER

[Guest Contributor - Richard Dreyfuss]

Here are 3 legs of a coherent, linked strategy that is an unapologetic assault on our most fearsome enemy, the Darkness of Stupidity.


This is not a declaration of war, it is a coordinated response to a declaration of war already moving against us; it is based upon Maxims of Common Sense

Events do not control us, we control events the “Haves” never deny education to their young

It is not meant that All of us must see the light and change, just enough of us

There is a shared anxiety in the country that no two sides agree upon but all sense. Whose fault, who’s to blame, is the current cultural hobby of America, and it is utterly meaningless, a waste of our social intellect, a distraction from its shared consequences.

We have actually reached the point where those consequences have to be restated, and most likely argued, when in fact the consequences of Stupidity, or the lack of excellence as a goal of Education, are as clear as the Fall of Rome, a phrase I no longer believe resonates with enough people of influence or power to make a difference.

When we reach the point of endangering the future well-being of the country with a partisan budget screech that is as shallow and filled with a void of content that one suspects both parties need a designated driver, the over-used senselessness of ‘we can’t afford to give our kids the education they will need” seem inevitably sad and childish. This is the best our system has produced? Let’s at least recognize the pearl we are throwing away, and as we watch our progeny flounder, out-thought and outmaneuvered in the cold world the present office-holders have not prepared them for, remember that right here is as good a beginning to retake a position as can be found.

Here are three endeavors that will solve the problem we are as yet unwilling to admit we have:

A methodology for the re-alignment of the Mandate of Education that is designed to achieve excellence in all subjects and a devotion to those ideals commonly known as Western Civ, with an acknowledged goal of excellence and a demand for expertise that can be comprehended and reflected back from American society.

The mandate of Education which if asked of those in charge could not be answered without political extremism muddying the answer is to make agile and thoughtful the minds of our young, as follows:

We will tie the youngest of our young to the singular design of this nation with Glory Tales and Mythology, and as the brain develops its capabilities to introduce concepts of Reason and Logic, exercises of dissent, debate, in the service of honing the intellect to Clarity of Thought and Expression; to use context, detail and differing opinion as tools to sharpen the mind regardless of subject, and when the necessary maturity of mind is reached, to practice critical analysis on the subject of our political system, so that before graduation from high school our kids will all share a sense of ownership, pride, and realism, and be able to spot a horse thief a mile away, and have the skills to hold him accountable. Any subject can be made more excellent by this shift in emphasis. And we will need Reason and Clarity of Mind well before we need a Mercator Map or Geology.

Part Two: A pathway that leads from classroom to culture, so that the values and ideals that should be taught in schools can be known, accessible.

We are creating an American History Play writing Competition, among all the LORT theaters of the country. Stories unknown, or known but not seen as drama, comedy, destiny; at the end of each season, a financial prize will be given of some hundreds of thousands of dollars. Do that for 20 years or so, and we will raise a crop of writers who can tell our stories.

From all the institutions that make our family lives, artistic and spiritual lives, and with a clearly chosen emphasis on the forms of economics, governance, accountability, and responsibility that lays beneath any definition of Republican Democracy, not only use the tools of intellect enhanced in schools but see them put to use by all our pillars of society, our business ethics, our justice system, our families, and our arts.

We have lived as a nation for over 200 years bound only by the ideas oven throughout our Constitution, its Preamble, our Bill of Rights; all of which share a common set of principles and a fervent belief structure in the importance of the individual as equal to if not more central than the Story of the Nation. We have certain bragging rights regarding our sense of what a nation is, and the inalienable right of all people to know who they are, and why they are who they are.

We have been neglectful of shoring up the Intellectual Capital known by our 1st generation as Enlightenment Values.

Since the 18th Century, there has never been an Institute, Research Facility, Think Tank that is dedicated to the Enlightenment ideals we grounded ourselves within.

There has always been a strong, secure foundation that all Americans stand on and share, and from which we can disagree about almost anything to our hearts content. That foundation has existed on a highly respected set of ideas that have had no support or enhancement other than the separate intellectual fads of Kant, Voltaire, Pitt, Jefferson, Paine Rousseau and others, and the whims of historical events; which is why Values Untaught have wrought such havoc in our present life, with decay the only common denominator.

Decay is all around us. Decay, the loss of a sense of reliability on our own, that decay is a stand-in for another, older word, Darkness. And as representatives of the Light of Intelligence in the eternal war with the Darkness of Stupidity, it’s time we made up for the crippling lack of scholarship and Thoughtfulness and establish the 3rd leg of our re-alignment, an Institute for the study of the values of the enlightenment, individual civil liberties, the willingness to share space with those whom you disagree. An Institute, created now, to mine the ideas expressed by political theorists but never collated, never drawn together, and even with that design flaw

to become the most fateful, the most respectful, the Ambition and heart’s desire of so many......to create such a place, where the knowledge of Man, the varied histories, the sciences scrutinized even if only since they were first put to use.....scholars in residence, who are a stone’s throw from the political Capitol of the West; debates that draw their participants from the cream of today’s wisdom and tomorrow’s visionaries, events hosted by the Institute that allow for innovative thinking, dreadful astonishing pictures of the roads not taken.