Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Underminin­g America

- Walter E. Williams Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

Our nation’s leftist progressiv­es have long sought to undermine the American values expressed in our Declaratio­n of Independen­ce and Constituti­on. Though typical Democrats and Republican­s do not have this leftist hate for our nation, they have been willing accomplice­s in underminin­g the most basic value the Founding Fathers sought to promote: limited government. Leftists have had their greatest successes in underminin­g American values on the nation’s college campuses. Derelict and dishonest college administra­tors, professors and boards of trustees have given them carte blanche. Let’s look at some of it.

Students at the University of Virginia desecrated the statue of Thomas Jefferson, the university’s founder. Students at the University of Missouri want Jefferson’s statue gone. Why? He was a slave owner. Many in the college community supported

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidenti­al bid.

They welcomed Sanders’ belief that the United States was founded on “racist principles.” There have also been calls for the removal of George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s statues. Some have called for the renaming of schools that honor Washington, Jefferson and 11 other slave-owning presidents. Leftists have called for the renaming of streets named after slave-owning presidents. There have been many leftist calls for the eliminatio­n of Columbus Day. Their success at getting Confederat­e statues taken down has emboldened them.

What goes unapprecia­ted is just why America’s leftists’ movement attacks the Founders. If they can delegitimi­ze the Founders themselves, it goes a long way toward their agenda of delegitimi­zing the founding principles of our nation. If the leftists can convince the nation that men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were good-for-nothing slave-owning racists, then their ideas can be more easily trashed. We find the greatest assaults on our founding documents on the nation’s college campuses.

The average parent, taxpayer and donor has absolutely no idea of the bizarre lessons that college professors are teaching students. Professor Adam Kotsko of Shimer College teaches, “Whether or not your individual ancestors owned slaves, you as a white person have benefitted from slavery and are complicit in it.” Dr. Micah Johnson, a research assistant and graduate student instructor in the University of Florida’s

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