Ludwig von Mises Institute

Late last week, the Texas Board of Education, meeting in Austin, the state capitol, made some preliminary decisions about what the next generation of students will learn about subjects like history, economics, and sociology, when they take courses in those subjects in any of the Lone Star State's public schools. The board decided, for example, to make a fairly significant change in the existing official description of what a successful Texas student should know about the influence of 17th- and 18th-century ideas after completing a required course in world history in a Texas public school.

The existing description stated that a student who completed that course would be able to "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present." The newly amended description states that a student completing the world-history course should be able to "explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone."

A House Homeland Security subcommittee meets Wednesday to discuss "Working with Communities to Disrupt Terror Plots." It's a great idea, and the kind of study the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment should undertake. Looking at the witness list, however, shows that the committee is seeking input from a narrow viewpoint - one that is sympathetic to Islamist extremist organizations here in America.

Like any religious and ethnic group, American Muslims hold a wide range of viewpoints about their faith, the role it should play in secular society, and ways to strike a comfortable balance. Nearly all the witnesses share a history of interaction with national Islamist groups - those that seek to infuse a religious ideology into the political debate - while contrary points of view are not given a seat at the table.

The manifold organs of the ObamaMedia are abuzz with outrage over what they are calling Israel's "insult" to the United States. But what was the nature of this awful and outrageous insult? Did Israeli officials pull off V.P. Biden's rug to show off his bald head underneath. Did they ask him why the suit of his pants is so shiny. Did they make him sit at the kiddie table?

[Editor's Note: This eloquent article, while written in October, 2009 bears refreshing in today's atmosphere of repressive attitude of all those who seem to hate America's 1st Amendment, all those who believe that it only applies to what they want to have spoken.  Those who abhor our freedom of speech are often the very ones using America's freedoms to silence all discussion or disagreement regarding their ideology.  It is with this in mind that we should be especially vigilent of these freedoms, remembering that

"Truth is not racist, hateful, bigoted or intolerant.  Neither are those who speak the truth.  However, one has usually only to look to see who is shouting the accusation of such to see the truth of who is."  Kelly Wolf

Original article by Richard Cravatts on Front Page Magazine]