The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has become a major player in the radical left’s mission to bring America’s foundation crumbling down to nothing. “NARA’s Statement on Potentially Harmful Content” as taken from the view of a radical leftist teacher is only fuel for their agenda and will help them reach their goal of destroying America through educational institutions.
The term “outdated” is particularly troubling. With some radical leftist educators making the argument that America’s founding documents were written centuries ago, making them severely out of touch with the present, and therefore, irrelevant, they have essentially been given consent from the National Archives to push this narrative (not that they needed such approval anyway). Most likely, teachers may pose a question along the lines of, “Could a document written in the 18th century still be relevant to the present?” Responses will likely vary, but there is no doubt that a radical leftist teacher will draw out the answer he/she wants – that the document is in fact outdated, and possibly needs to be re-written from the very beginning. This could lead to the next lesson, which could be highly effective regarding a teacher’s evaluation (especially regarding action civics), to rewrite the entire U.S. Constitution.
In a recent Fox News article, college students were asked “if they would be willing to sign a petition to abolish the Constitution and replace it with a modern, inclusive one.” Responses included, “It has to be…It was written in the late 1700s, it wasn’t written for the 21st Century.” And, “There are a lot of outdated things in there that nowadays aren’t accepted.” Some even claimed that the American flag itself should be replaced. This point of view is not confined to a small sample, but it is part of the main tenets of very influential companies including publishers whose goal is to “abolish America.”
The Bill of Rights apparently also contains “potentially harmful language” but a more accurate warning should be that it may contain “inaccurate language” as leading civics resources have taken it upon themselves to make minor, yet significant, adjustments to reflect their interpretation of the first ten Amendments. For example, iCivics, one of the leading resources for civics education, has corrupted the meaning of the Second Amendment by changing the language in their Do I Have a Right? resource. In a review-style quiz of the first ten Amendments, iCivics defines the Second Amendment as having the right to “own ordinary weapons,” a popular argument of the far left. In the guide pertaining to the game students play in this lesson, the Second Amendment is not referred to with this language; rather, it is reserved for the closure through which students are most likely to retain the information covered, and participants are less likely to notice the slight of hand made through the change in language. An audience is tricked by a magician, but the magician knows exactly what he has done. In this case, a simple study of adolescent psychology mixed with a clever lesson design gives iCivics the ability to impress the minds of students in a quick and unnoticeable, yet effective manner.
The Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, was recently “pleased to share” the final report from the Archivist’s Taskforce on Racism from April 20, 2021, in which the agency will administer Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) training, “develop and foster safe spaces” (which is “especially for people from historically marginalized groups”), and maintain a “report card system that examines how diversity is executed at each facility.” Also, in this final report is the Proposal to Reframe and Revitalize the Visitor and Experience in the Rotunda to more “adequately reflect [the] Rotunda’s [exclusionary] language and imagery.” One member of the committee “commented that it is tone deaf and oblivious to use the term ‘Charters of Freedom’ to refer to ‘documents that institutionalized slavery.’” Another account claimed that “these documents represent the entrenchment of chattel slavery, denial of rights to women, and triumph of European colonists over the original inhabitants of North America.” It appears this taskforce has an affinity for the 1619 Project, and it may not be far-fetched to think they would make the discredited and disgraceful work of fiction a central feature in the Rotunda.
The “NARA’s Statement on Potentially Harmful Content” has features more suited to be a disclaimer on Learning For Justice’s website (formerly known as the intolerant Teaching Tolerance), or Embrace Race. It is on these platforms that one will find the “harmful or difficult content” listed in the details from the warning label. While we understand that the United States is not a perfect nation, as no nation is, the National Archives’ obsession with its faults undermines the progress our nation has made since its founding. This organization and its employees are employed to preserve our nation’s history and founding documents, but instead they are using their position to attack and defame what they are paid to preserve. One must wonder if they are trustworthy enough to protect and not destroy the documents which they find so offensive.
