OCPAC e-mail - The real story behind the AP History firestorm & Crunch time for a call for another constitutional convention!

[Charlie Meadows]

Members and friends of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC)

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++  THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE AP HISTORY FIRESTORM!

++  WILL A CALL FOR CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION LIVE OR DIE?

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, February 25th 2015, will be held at Olivet Baptist Church, 1201 Northwest 10TH street in OKC. Our speaker for this Wednesday’s meeting will be Dr. Carlos Rizowy, with the title of his talk being: “The Emergence of a New World Order.”

Dr. Rizowy is a political analyst for the BBC, National Public Radio (NPR) and a former chairman of the political science department at Roosevelt University. He is a prominent practicing attorney in Chicago with a firm concentrating on domestic and international business transactions. Besides his law degree he also holds a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and is an authority on international legal issues and foreign policy. 

He generally addresses 40 to 70 audiences a year. He has presented to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the National Strategy Forum, Rotary International, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many major universities, including the Stanford University Law Forum. His topics include foreign policy, security, terrorism, the Middle East and foreign trade.

Dr. Rizowy’s unique insights concerning the Middle East, and in particular the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, originated during his studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem with Professor Yehoshafat Harkabi, former chief of Israeli military intelligence. He holds a BA in political science and international relations from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has also authored several books including LATIN AMERICAN BUSINESS CULTURES, published by Palgrave MacMillan in February of 2011.  

I want to thank the OKC chapter of Vistage International for making Dr. Rizowy available to us. They are paying his hefty speaking fee for their meeting on Tuesday and sharing him with us for our meeting on Wednesday. Vistage International is the world’s oldest and largest CEO organization. Since 1957, Vistage has been bringing together successful CEOs, executives and business owners into private peer advisory groups guided by expert executive coaches, known as Vistage Chairs. A 2013 analysis revealed that companies that joined Vistage over the past five years grew at twice the rate of the average U.S. company.

I don’t think in our many years of meeting that we have ever had a speaker with these unique experiences and focus on international business and trade relations. So don’t miss this Wednesday’s meeting. Be sure and invite your friends, especially if they are involved in the management of a large corporation or a company involved in any kind of foreign trade. His normal presentation is 3 hours. However, we will try to start him speaking by 12:05 and give him 1 hour. We will then take a 5 minute break and allow folks that must leave do so, then we will continue for another 30 minutes and hopefully take a few minutes for Q&A. 

++  THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE AP HISTORY FIRESTORM!

Unless you live in an information cave, you realize State Representative Dan Fisher (R-Yukon) touched the hyper-sensitive 3rd rail in politics by suggesting an education reform which got blown completely out of reality by the local and national press, social media and some in the education industry. 

Rep Fisher authored HB 1380 to improve serious problems with the content of the Advance Placement (AP) courses and tests in Oklahoma high schools which allow high school students that take these elective courses and pass these tests to get college credits in History. This not only saves time toward earning a degree, the high school students and their families don’t have to pay the high cost of tuition when the student show a high degree of proficiency on the tests.

These courses and tests are created by a private organization known as the College Board and are aligned with college and university U.S. History survey courses, which in my opinion raises a real red flag. According to an article in the Guthrie News Leader, with the most recent version of the tests the College Board has increased an emphasis on History from 1491 to 1607 and from 1980 until the present and decreased an emphasis for other time periods.

I might suggest this may be Rep. Fisher’s (a published Historian himself, but not a certified teacher) problem with the changes. The History prior to 1620 is far less important as to who and what we became than what happened between 1620 to say 1790. In addition, modern History is less important to our greatness than the early part of the 20th century. Modern history is very important if taught in the context of America’s decline. 

Rep. Fisher never wanted or intended to eliminate AP courses or testing, he wanted the State Department of Education to make sure the content represented accurate and quality History. Of course the legislation needed some teeth to insure compliance and thus his provision to de-fund the courses if the education department and or local schools refused to comply with improved content.

This past Friday, there was a debate at the state capitol in Georgia between an official with the College Board and a Ph.D opponent of the content. During the debate, the official with the College Board admitted there were problems with the courses. I would say that vindicates Representative Fisher and puts a little egg on the faces of all those blindly defending the program. 

This past Wednesday evening’s news on KOCO channel 5 did the first exclusive story on the controversy and did a fairly good job of reporting. However, by Thursday, some newspapers had headlines that Fisher bill would ban AP U.S. History or on KTOK radio teasers with their TV partners at KFOR channel 4 had the female anchor continually couched it as an attempt to ban the program, which simply is not reality.

Here is the problem. There are many events in our History which relate the reasons for our greatness and exceptionalism. We also have things in our History which are ugly and should be seen as the underbelly of who we are. I do not believe any part of History should be censored, but what you emphasize in the teaching of History will have a huge impact upon the thinking and attitudes of our children going forward. If you emphasize the underbelly and de-emphasize the greatness, then future generations may not be patriotic or loyal and in fact may well despise America.

Ten years ago OCPAC brought then U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo to OKC to be a keynote speaker at a banquet honoring Steve Byas and Ron McWhirter for their many years of publishing the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper. Prior to serving in Congress, Tancredo had been a U.S. History teacher. 

As a Congressman, he would often return to Denver and address high school assemblies. He told us of the shock he experienced the first time he asked for a show of hands from the students as to how many of them believed they lived in the greatest country in the world? Only about 10 to 15 percent of the kids raised their hands. He followed up with the question of how many believed they attended the greatest high school in Denver and about 90% raised their hands. How many believed they had the coolest mascot of any school in Denver and again about 90% raised their hands. He was so shocked he began asking the same 3 questions in every school in which he spoke and got about the same results each time. 

That was not shocking to me as about the same time OCPAC sponsored a speaker from Minnesota in addressing more than 20 lawmakers about education trends in America. While the speaker crafted a message that would have heavy application to Oklahoma he also exposed the national trends in education and the leftist, progressive influences upon education, primarily brought on by the federal government’s unconstitutional interference in education. 

Advanced placement courses and the opportunity to earn college credits in high school credits is a good thing and Fisher is fully supportive of the concept. What he wanted to do is make sure the content is important with a tilt toward the important principles and events which caused America to become the greatest experiment in self government in the History of the world. 

Only by recapturing those ideas and values might we have a chance to stop the slide down the slippery slope into depravity and destruction. The controversy may have killed any momentum for the bill this year, hopefully he will try again next year with a little more experience and education for all involved.      

++  WILL A CALL FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION LIVE OR DIE?

There are several bills in the legislature for the state of Oklahoma to join other states in calling for another Constitutional Convention. With the deadline for bills in each side of the legislature nearing, the advocates are in full court press in their efforts to get legislation through to list Oklahoma as a state calling for another constitutional convention. 

Article V of the U.S. Constitution allows two methods to amend our Constitution. One is for congress to propose an amendment and if passed, the proposed amendment will need to be ratified by three fourths of the states. The other method is for two thirds of the states to call for a convention and once convened, whatever would come out of the convention would have to be ratified by three fourths of the states. That is, unless the convention changed the requirement for ratification as was done at the convention in Philadelphia 1787.

Following the Philadelphia convention a nearly 2 year long battle ensued to get the document ratified, with the federalists supporting ratification and the anti-federalists opposing such. During that effort there were times it looked as though it would not be ratified and there were also calls to have another convention to start all over again.

During that tumultuous period James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, wrote a letter in which he stated:  “Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the Second, meeting in the present temper of America, and under all the disadvantages I have mentioned.”

One must ask, if today, with our nation closely divided on most every issue and with emotions running high, would the present temper of Americans be much different than the divisions between the federalists and anti-federalists? I think not and as such many conservatives believe there would be extreme risk to calling for another convention. 

Most conservatives believe, with the Bill of Rights being added to the Constitution, we had a good blueprint for a successful government that recognized the dangers presented from the sin nature of man. As such, if we were to follow that great document and the first 10 amendments, our government could last throughout time.

However, the sin nature of man being what it is and with patriotic qualities of citizens in serious decline due to the perversion of our government schools, we have for several decades been perverting or ignoring the intent and realities of our Constitution. Therefore, many would suggest our primary problem is a decline in the spiritual substance of our population and the abandoning or disobeying of the principles and tenants of the Constitution. If trashing, perverting and ignoring our Constitution is the problem, what good will it do to add more amendments to it?

Frustrated and scared conservatives aren’t the only ones calling for another con-con, there are also voices on the left. Just recently a state lawmaker from one of the northeastern states called for an article V convention to convene as he wanted to shred the document that was standing in the way of his leftist agenda going full blown.

May I suggest another reason for opposing the call for another con-con, and that is the realities of the changing demographics and values in America. This past Thursday, a well intentioned State Senator called me to discuss his frustration with the opposition to the efforts to call for another con-con. During the discussion, I asked if he thought we could get an amendment ratified to outlaw abortion? His answer was no. I asked if he thought we could get an amendment ratified that would establish marriage between one man and one woman? His answer was no. Then I suggested any attempt to get a balanced budget amendment passed which mandated the balancing to be done through spending cuts and not through tax increases but would still allow for deficit spending in time of a constitutionally declared war did not have a snow balls chance in hell of getting ratified. This is especially true when the economies of at least 45 of the states are dependent upon deficit spending? His answer was, well you have a point there.

Folks, please understand, if a con-con is ever convened in today’s climate, the best one could hope for would be failure with the second best being a hodge-podge compromise where conservatives would give up some of what we care about and liberals would give up some of what they care about. Based upon our history of compromising with liberals in the past, can anyone point to a deal in the past where conservatives came out on top of such compromises? This whole effort to call for another con-con is a diversion wasting precious time and resources from what is needed to make the difference in the lives of citizens in states like Oklahoma. 

The day conservatives and Constitutionalists realize and admit that the people in large parts of America have different values from the average people in Oklahoma, that will be the day we can start in earnest toward nullifying unconstitutional laws and have our sovereign state government begin to interpose itself between the overreaching tyranny of the federal government and the people of Oklahoma. 

We must realize the majority of people in the northeast, west coast and most of the great lakes states believe more in socialism, are ok with killing unborn babies and are quite happy to celebrate homosexual marriages. As such, conservatives in those states are overwhelmed by the superior numbers of liberals, much like liberals are overwhelmed by conservatives in Oklahoma. 

If just half of the conservatives in those states that are culturally gone would relocate to the battle ground states, in the short run, we could reliably elect a Republican President and control both houses of congress for at least the next 20 years. 

More important, if more and more Republicans learn the concepts of the constitution and actually hold our elected officials accountable and elect better quality state lawmakers, we will reduce the power of the gubber Republicans and therefore put into office lawmakers that will guide us into good government once again. If you care about this issue, please call or e-mail your personal State representatives and senators to politely ask them to oppose the support of any legislation calling for another con-con. 

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

Charlie...@gmail.com 

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