For 42 years American school children have been subject to a barrage of misinformation about our American history. This has helped cause many of them to hate America. And virtually every day we read about the results.

For example, there’s a curriculum clash in one of our nation’s most conservative states. On Friday, Gary Bauer reported that the Oklahoma Board of Education decided to downgrade the Tulsa Public School District’s accreditation. This is because in Tulsa, they’re still teaching Marxist critical race theory—which is now against the law in the Sooner State.

Oklahoma’s Secretary of Education is Ryan Walters, who told Fox News: “What we’ve got to do is go back to teaching our history and ensuring that every young person has the ability to be successful and be inspired by our history.”

He added, “We’re the greatest country in the history of the world, and our kids need to know that.”

But how will children in Oklahoma, and all the other states, learn to appreciate our country when so many have been brainwashed with a false view for so long?

“Howard Zinn died in 2010, but [his book] A People’s History of the United States lives on and carries the rhetoric of past decades of leftist politics forward with it.” So writes Dr. Mary Grabar, author of the book, Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America (2019).

Grabar is a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization and is the founder of Dissident Prof Education Project, Inc. She has taught at the college level for two decades, including at Emory University.

Grabar describes the late Howard Zinn, the American history professor who would’ve turned 100 this year, as a “communist propagandist.”

In her book, Grabar observes, “Zinn’s pervasive influence is a national tragedy, especially considering just how distorted, manipulative, and plain dishonest A People’s History of the United States is.”

Zinn’s work has been widely read by many who assume it is truthful. Indeed, A People’s History remains among the most widely-assigned history textbooks in America. But Zinn was a self-described Marxist, and author Daniel Flynn once described him as an “unreconstructed, anti-American Marxist,” whose book was a “cartoon anti-history.”

Grabar quotes many reputable historians who similarly find Zinn’s historical standards sub-par.

I spoke with Dr. Grabar for a radio segment on Zinn and his influence. She told me, “I don’t think there’s another book on American history that has sold as many copies as Howard Zinn’s has. It has been in constant publication since 1980 when it first came out…. His view of American history…has become the dominant one.”

I asked her if there is a link between Zinn’s teachings and the mobs in the streets tearing down historical statues related to American history. She answered “Absolutely.” She noted that readers of Zinn tend to “get this very jaundiced picture of the founders, of Christopher Columbus. These people are presented as enslavers, committing genocide.”

For example, in her chapter, “Columbus Bad, Indians Good,” Grabar states, “Zinn was instrumental in the sea change that has transformed Columbus from the discoverer of America into the genocidal villain whose murder and enslavement of the Indians is the original sin that makes America a crime.”

Zinn leaves out such facts as the explorer’s log entry for October 12, 1492: “I warned my men to take nothing from the people without giving something in exchange.”

Graber told me: “It’s all done through lies about American history. Very little of it is accurate, so there’s this false picture of the people we have justly honored.”

Graber continued, “We have generations of people who have grown up disillusioned with this country—thinking there is something better off on the horizon. And what they think is better is socialism.” And Zinn deserves a great deal of the credit—or rather, blame—for that.

This is all astounding when you think about it. Zinn was a propagandist for the Communists, who were guilty of far worse atrocities than the men and women who founded America. The records are not comparable.

A couple of disillusioned former communists summarized the legacy of seven decades of the atheistic U.S.S.R. in one phrase: “tens of millions of corpses.” And yet Zinn continues to poison the minds of millions of Americans against our country.

This reminds me of the famous quip from Ronald Reagan: “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

What is America in its essence? Very simply this: self-rule under God. Both of those phrases are necessary for a free and prosperous future for our country. May God spare us from the propagandists who withhold that information from present and future generations.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

By God’s grace, the American experiment has lasted for 232 years now, since the Constitution went into effect on April 30, 1789. Every political leader that is sworn in agrees to uphold the Constitution.

But now in our day of rampant political correctness, of Marxist revisionism, of “egg shell plaintiffs,” of “safe spaces,” of “hate speech” (which is often just the other guy’s opinion), even the Constitution has recently been labeled as “harmful.” It might offend someone.

Case in point. Recently, Ophelie Jacobson of Campus Reform approached students at the University of Florida to ask them what they think about the Constitution. Their responses, as seen in this video, were mostly negative.

Here were some of their comments on the U.S. Constitution:

• “Absolutely terrible. Needs to be redone immediately.”
• “I think it needs a lot more reform for the changes that happened since then.”
• “I think we just need to update it on like—more equality, equity, stuff like that.”
• It’s the product of “all old white men.”
• “It should have been made by a group of diverse people.”
• “The time period, you know, was rich, old white men; and that’s exactly what that document says and stands for and vouches for.”

No wonder so many of them were willing to sign a petition to abolish the Constitution!

Furthermore, even the keepers of the Constitution in Washington, D.C. have contributed to this negative view. On 9/24/21, The Federalist reported: “Over the summer, the National Archives issued ‘harmful content’ warnings on all its collections of online documents, including Founding-era documents like the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.”

Why would they do this? The Federalist explains that the warnings “allegedly protect against documents that ‘reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more.’”

U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) want the National Archives to remove these “harmful negative alerts” from our founding documents.

This is getting ridiculous. If these views prevail, the Marxist attempt in America to “tear it all down” and start over might well succeed. May it never be.

The Constitution has brought unparalleled political freedom and prosperity. Marxism has brought unparalleled misery and death. People don’t clamor to get into the Marxist countries like China or Cuba or Venezuela. But they do risk their lives to get into the United States. That’s not despite the Constitution and what it represents. It’s because of it.

But many forces today, because they love power (and often the perks that come with that power) are willing to undermine the Constitution, so they may gather unto themselves more control. This does not bode well for the future of our republic.

Thomas Sowell warns, “It doesn’t matter what rights you have under the Constitution, if the government can punish you for exercising those rights. And it doesn’t matter what limits the Constitution puts on government officials’ power, if they can exceed those limits without any adverse consequences.”

This point is reminiscent of a warning from the father of our country.

As Dr. Peter Lillback and I noted in our 2006 book, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, “Washington asserted that human depravity could ultimately destroy the Constitution, even with the checks and balances it possessed. In his proposed Address to Congress in April 1789, he described how the Constitution, with all of its wisdom, could ultimately come to naught by the depravity of the people and those who govern them, since the Constitution in the hands of a corrupt people was a mere ‘wall of words’ or a ‘mound of parchment.’”  (p. 220).

One of the geniuses of the Constitution is the way its principles were built by men who acknowledged the sinful nature of man. I believe that because it was based on a correct anthropology—one that recognizes our innate selfishness—that the Constitution has been so durable.

James Madison, a key driving force behind the Constitution, learned well from his teacher, Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, the devout Presbyterian who was the president of Princeton, who taught Madison what the Bible says about man’s corrupt nature.

Madison said, “All men having power ought to be distrusted.” Therefore, the founders separated power, explicitly, so that we would have liberty rather than tyranny.

I agree with William Gladstone, the distinguished 19th century Prime Minister of England, who declared, “The American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”

Why this constant attempt to tear down those things which are right in our world? The Constitution of the United States is one of them. We have our work cut out for us to convince many fellow Americans of that truth.

This article was originally posted at JerryNewcombe.com.

As city after city in America is under assault, with buildings on fire and bloodied bodies laying in the streets, we need to unite in our condemnation of these violent riots.

There is nothing righteous about looting. Or bashing someone over the head with a skateboard and pelting him with stones. Or vandalizing the store of a black business owner.

This is chaos. This is anarchy. This is lawlessness. This is wrong.

We can be outraged over the killing of George Floyd and aggrieved over the sin of racism without resorting to this.

Here are four reasons why these race riots do far more harm than good.

First, they came at a time when more and more Americans were willing to talk about apparent racial injustice. As tweeted by the influential black rapper and podcaster, Zuby, “The USA temporarily had a moment where virtually ALL Americans were united in empathy and sympathy, over the pointless, awful killing of a fellow citizen.

“People of ALL colours and ALL political stripes, unanimous on an issue of clear injustice.”

“That’s extremely rare…”

He continued, “Now this unity and sympathy has been divided, diluted and misdirected as people fight on the streets, steal from their neighbours, and torch their own communities.”

“It’s fricking sad to see.”

“I’ll say it again. Some people thrive on division and anger. They don’t want solutions.” (A hat tip to my colleague John Zmirak for these references. He responded to Zuby’s tweets with his own: “The looters in Minneapolis no more represent black Americans than the neo-Nazi thugs in Charlottesville represented me.”)

As I emphasized in my latest article, “Hope for Black Americans,” this was a rare time when law and order conservatives like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Dan Bongino united with Christian conservatives like Franklin Graham in condemning the killing of a black American by a police officer. Yet the focus has now shifted to the violence and lawlessness of the riots. How on earth is this positive or helpful?

Second, the riots paint a negative picture of black Americans, as if this is what “they” do. As expressed in a May 31 email, conservative Christian activist Scott Lively “contends that the purpose of Black Lives Matter rioting is to INCREASE Racism to justify the Marxist race-war narrative, and laments that too many conservatives and constitutionalists fall into the trap of lumping the innocent majority of Black Americans with the trained thugs of the BLM and the useful idiots who run with them.”

Obviously, Lively’s words are confrontational and even inflammatory, and one can debate his larger thesis. But his overall point is clear: the race riots, allegedly carried out in the memory of George Floyd, play into the worst racial stereotypes of black Americans. I ask again: how on earth is this helpful?

Third, these riots are destructive in their very nature, appealing to our worst instincts. As I tweeted on May 31,

“Peaceful protests can be righteous, godly, and powerful, even reflecting the Spirit of Christ. Rioting and looting are unrighteous, ungodly, and destructive, reflecting the spirit of lawlessness and chaos and murder. Which spirit is that?”

One of my black friends, a historian with a strong social conscience, said to me, “Anything that comes to kill steal and destroy is the enemy” (meaning, from Satan; see John 10:10). Precisely so.

In response to my tweet, someone challenged me, saying, “Forgive me if I’m wrong but didn’t Jesus clear out the temple with a whip?”

I replied,

“1) He acted in perfect harmony with the Lord. We often do not. 2) He did not kill anyone. He did not set the Temple on fire. He did not destroy the businesses of honest, hardworking people. I could go on and on. Surely you must know this.”

Enough said.

Fourth, there appears to be strong evidence that these riots are being aided and abetted by bad players.

Pastor Jim Garlow reported via email on May 31, “A couple of hours ago, some bussed-in protesters were attacking the La Mesa, CA police station only a few miles from where I live.

“A close friend of mine who is black has reported that the Minneapolis Airport was full of people today being flown in to create havoc. Many were being bussed in. And now we are hearing reports of pallets of bricks being dropped off at street corners in cities to give weapons to the anarchists. The George Soros types have found their moment. We pray for our President, governors and mayors.”

This was confirmed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, himself a liberal Democrat and an African American Muslim:

“We have evidence that outsiders have been present and, in some cases, have played a very negative role. But I’ve been talking with protesters and trying to get a sense of who some of these folks are and I’ve heard mixed things. Some of the negative stuff has come from people in Minnesota and some of it has come from people on the outside. What I’d say is we’ve got enough to handle on our own and that what we really need to do is refocus on justice for Mr. Floyd. And the negative behavior, looting, arson, does not help us achieve that goal.”

Conservative broadcaster (and former NYPD officer) Dan Bongino was even more blunt: “This isn’t a protest anymore, this is a coup,” he said.

He added, “This is an organized internal coup by a small group of agitators acting as a domestic terror group. That’s a fact.”

No wonder that President Trump has now declared Antifa a terrorist organization.

Groups like this rip at the very fabric of our nation, and their goals are vastly different than the goals of the vast majority of Americans.

Let us then work together for equality and justice. One way we can do that is by denouncing these violent riots. Then, we can refocus on the killing of George Floyd and the larger questions of equal treatment under the law.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.