Book suggests Christian public school takeover

In the Capital Gazette on July 3, there was a Publishers’ Weekly listing of the top 10 nonfiction book sales for the week. The No. 1 listing was titled “Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation” by Pete Hegseth. It has now been listed No. 1 for two more Sundays.

I ordered the book from Amazon.com and received it in two days. When I began reading the preface, I became outraged. I caution anyone who thinks about buying this book.

However, loyal Americans would benefit in knowing the dangerous forces at work in our country. The book is an example of how intelligent, knowledgeable people can be so devoid of wisdom as to be a menace to society.

Those who genuinely love America as our Founding Fathers intended will find it shattering to read. The book’s lead author prided himself as “a former senior counterinsurgency instructor in Afghanistan . ... My job was to study our enemy — the insurgency that was the Taliban.” He proposes using his expertise “to defeat the monopoly of government-run schools — and the leftist unions [to] replace their power structure with reconstructed schools based on freedom and faith, with constant appeals to Heaven.”

He detailed how his program, “Classic Christian Education,” can employ counterinsurgency tactics to liberate “the minds of America’s future citizens.” “It is a battle. A war over ideas.” “The classroom is our battlefield, the hearts and minds of our kids is the prize.” “The very survival of the American Republic, and the greatness of Western civilization, are at stake.”

Among many of his suggested tactics is “.getting video cameras placed in classrooms. The cameras would be trained on the teachers, not the students, and would allow all parents to see what is really taught.”

I cringed at thus being reminded of George Orwell’s 1984.

—Gene F. Ostrom, Annapolis