What Happen to History Education–Newspaper Ad Staff Runs Assassination Call
May 30th, 2009 by David Anderson
Assassination ads do not usually get placed in the classified ad section of newspapers especially when they are against the President. It read, “May Obama follow in the steps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!”
I hardly think that I need to condemn such an ad because it should be a given that I see it as reprehensible, but just in case–I condemn such sentiments in the strongest terms, and I stand by the rule of law and respecting the dignity of the people and the leaders they elect.
The fact that we have sickening people out there is a given in a land of 300 million. That is not worth discussing. What is worth discussing is that none of the ad staff even got the meaning of the ad. That is why it was published. What does that say about the state of education? How can we be great if we don’t know what made us great? Why do our textbooks spend more time explaining Mayan culture than the lives of the Founders? How can we claim to know if we don’t even know basic facts like which Presidents were assassinated?
Fortunately, the Secret Service is better educated.
An advertising man once stated that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public. The fact that the offensive ad was run is an indictment of our education system.
About a dozen years ago, the WaPo ran an ad for a person ‘willing to pay to dollar for job references’. I knew the person who ran the ad and he was not among the brightest and best. He offered me payment for a reference and said it would be $100 if he got the job and $50 if he did not. I told the truth and got my $50. The WaPo eventually interviewed him. His parents left him a nice inheritance so a job became superfluous.
During the time of Elizabeth I, it was a high crime ‘to imagine the death of the Sovereign.’
Now that is interesting. Talk about thought police.