Fox & Friends Segment Suggests That Schools Teaching Kids “To Dislike American Values” May Lead To Radicalization
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
On the June 17 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
BRIAN KILMEADE (HOST): But in a world divided because our kids are taught to dislike American values, how do we unify and take pride in who we are as a country? Here to discuss is senior fellow of the Heritage Foundation, Michael Gonzalez. He also served at the State Department under President George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States. Michael, you look back at our cirriculum, the way we are teaching history and you think that is the foundation that is crumbling beneath us, leading to situations like this. In what way?
MICHAEL GONZALEZ: Well we need to ask, how does an American born in Queens and raised in Fort Pierce decide he wants to execute 49 of his compariots? How does he believe thinking that women should not drive or that he should cheer 9/11? And I think what need to understand is that in fighting ISIS, we fight them with bullets on the battlefield. But it's also an idea, and you have to fight an idea with a better idea. You know, young men need to believe that there's something bigger than themselves. If we don't give them that, a recruiter, a terrorist recruiter is going to come in and fill that vacuum.
KILMEADE: Right, and one way to do that is teach the true history of the country, which never has been a problem in the past, but there is a problem now. It seems we're screwing with our past. Take a look at this, you point to one of the best selling books around about American history, which skews it in a negative direction. Here is one of the excerpts from this book by [Howard] Zinn who writes this, A People’s History of the United States is the name of the book. He said,“They found,” our founders, “that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from favorites of the British Empire. In the process, they could hold back a number of potential rebellions and create a consensus of popular support for the new rule of a new privileged leadership.” That's not exactly the rah rah history we know about.
GONZALEZ: That's right, you know that book was published in 1980, it's still a best seller, the number one best-selling book in political science, and it teachesthat the founding was a ruse. It was a farce. It teaches that the United States has been an experiment in oppression. So we have to go back and say, “Why are we doing this to ourselves? ” We need to re-open this debate. And the fact that President Obama and other liberals are saying “Hey e pluribus unum,” we conservatives should say, exactly, bring it on, let's have a debate on e pluribus unum. E pluribus unum is assimilation, it's making one nation out of many different ethnicities. Telling newcomers, “You too can be American, but here are the virtues, here is the belief in individual liberty, the things that Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, Madison in the Constitution.
KILMEADE: We are the world's success story, why people want to come here, and people who are here have to learn to appreciate it by learning our true history and how far we have come and they’re not getting it. And that's why this boom in homeschooling is happening. Mike Gonzalez, thanks so much, we'll talk to you again.
Previously:
Fox Guest: American Schools Are “Indoctrinating Our Children Into Slavery,” Bernie Sanders Is Proof