The Left wants to teach our kids that America is systemically racist. That’s false and it’s meant to divide. It’s time to replace lies with the truth! America is a great nation of good people - and our kids should be proud of that. That’s why I’m introducing the Love America Act
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 23, 2021
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO, might be the smarmiest member of Congress, though I admit the competition is stiff. The Love America Act? Gag me. The rest of his thread goes like this:
It will require schools that get federal tax dollars to teach kids the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution & Bill of Rights, and the Pledge. These texts affirm the truths that unite us, and make us a great people.
No more critical race theory. No more hate. Let's teach our kids what unites us as Americans—what we love together. Let's teach them the truth.
The principle of "local control" applies unless Josh doesn't like what the locals are doing, in which case the Big Bad Federal Government must bud in to make sure that schoolchildren are sufficiently reverent toward the homeland. There isn't another way to understand his proposal, but, since schoolchildren like mine, in Ilhan Omar's congressional district, already learn about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and begin most days with a recitation of the Pledge, the Love America Act is just hand waving—virtue signaling, one might say.
And the details of the signaling are a little weird. Why does he want kids to study the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, specifically? Since the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution, he appears to be deliberately omitting the subsequent ones, which include the Thirteenth (bans slavery), Fourteenth (requires equal protection of the laws for all citizens), and Fifteenth ("The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"). These amendments were necessary because parts of the Constitution that he seems to think should inspire veneration and "unity" are actually—I hope we are united in agreement—deplorable. For example, Article 1, Section 9:
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year 1808, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
Slave owners wanted to keep importing Africans to be slaves on their plantations. The Constitution guaranteed that this evil could continue for at least 20 years. In that amount of time, perhaps enough Africans could be "imported" so that procreation alone would meet their needs. In any event, they got what they needed for 20 years, and could fight again then if necessary.
And from Article 4, Section 2:
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Such dainty language! It just means that if slaves escape to a state where slavery is illegal, their owner gets them back anyway. A constitutional right to own slaves explicitly trumps any state law that might seek to limit or bar it.
Then there is this, from Article 1, Section 2:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
The "other Persons" were the slaves. Some people imagine that the scandal of this "three-fifths compromise" is that slaves were deemed just 60 percent of a person. But the scandal is that, for purposes of determining representation in the Congress, they were counted at all. Their owners wanted to send to Washington as many representatives as possible to make pro-slavery policy, in direct opposition to the interests of the slaves they would "represent." That the slaves had no political rights whatever made it necessary to accept the 40 percent discount.
I'm no scholar of critical race theory, to which Hawley refers, but it seems what upsets him is the idea that the country, going back to its founding, has been all about race and slavery and the oppression of people of color. As a corrective to this grossly distorted view, he will require that schoolkids study the Constitution, so that they learn what virtuous people we have always been. LOL!
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