Chuck Norris vs. Education

Once again, Chuck Norris has come out fighting. This time, Walker, Texas Ranger isn’t administering roundhouse kicks to cattle rustlers or decimating drug smugglers. Today, his fists are flailing in a vicious attack on education. He thinks the Bible needs to be in your — not his, YOUR — kid’s school.

Chuck Norris isn’t just a B-movie action hero. He’s also a right-wing conservative who writes columns for WingNutDaily and Townhall.com. We’ve reported to you in the past when he supported a slate of candidates from the Bigotry Party.

Norris also serves on the board of directors of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, an organization promoting the use of the Bible in public schools, and also speaks on behalf of organizations advocating official prayers in public schools.

In a March 16 column, Chuck pitched quite the hissy fit over the Texas State Board of Education. In part:

Liberals and progressives complain that conservatives are hijacking the curriculum process and modifying textbooks to fit their ideological whims. But the history of textbook alterations clearly has proved it is the liberals who have changed the course and content of curricula and textbook production. Conservatives have been largely the guardians or preservationists of tradition. Progressives have changed curricula content to pacify the politically correct and adopt what they value today and want others to value tomorrow.

. . .

The fact is that the majority of the SBOE’s members find themselves in good company, in line and legacy with America’s Founders. Their educational philosophy even included teaching on the Bible. As Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote: “Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education.”

Ah, so your school didn’t mention Benjamin Rush either?

Rush was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence and attended the Continental Congress. He was also a staunch opponent of Gen. George Washington and worked tirelessly to have him removed as the Commander-In-Chief of the Continental Army.

Chuck tries again:

Noah Webster, the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” stated, “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed. … No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

Noah Webster was a founding father? Oh, wait. No, he spent most of the Revolutionary War in college, though he did join the Connecticut Militia:

At the age of 16, Noah began attending Yale College. His four years at Yale overlapped the American Revolutionary War, and, because of food shortages, many of his college classes were held in Glastonbury, Connecticut. During the American Revolution, he served in the Connecticut Militia.

And the quote Chuck uses? It’s from the 1828 edition of Webster’s American Dictionary.

In 1789, during the same time when the First Amendment was written, then-President George Washington signed into law the Northwest Ordinance, which states, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

Does anyone not know what the term “forever” means? Can any member of the SBOE or any other state board of education be penalized for agreeing with America’s Founding Fathers?

Does someone have a difficult time parsing sentences? “. . . schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Not “religion shall forever be encouraged”.

Maintaining balanced curricula in our public schools is the reason my wife, Gena, and I joined the board of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, whose state-certified Bible course (elective) has been implemented in 532 public school districts (2,035 high schools) in 38 states. Visit Bible in Schools for more information.

According to their website, over 360,000 students have already taken this course nationwide, on their high school campus, during school hours, for credit, paid for by your tax dollars.

Chuck suggests a number of actions concerned parents can take to ensure that Jesus comes to school:

As I wrote in my newly released and expanded paperback version of “Black Belt Patriotism,” if you want to join me in stopping educational corruption, gridlock and tyranny, then consider doing any of the following:

–Stay active in your child’s education, homework, classroom, PTA, school board, etc.

–Get familiar with how academic curriculum is reviewed and chosen in your state, and then e-mail your thoughts on it to your state’s education board.

–Get involved in local, state and national politics, and make your voice heard. The time for passivity is over. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

–Learn your state’s laws on education, and understand your parental and educational rights. Then teach them to others. To quote Thomas Jefferson again, “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. … They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

–Petition your representatives to support a constitutional amendment protecting the child-parent relationship from unreasonable government intrusion.

–Consider petitioning your state’s education board, school district and local school to adopt the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools’ curriculum about the influence of the Bible in history, civilization, law, literature and the founding of America.

Frankly, I support each and every one of the above actions . . . well, except that last one.

As Vixen Strangely comments:

Mr. Norris’ Christian god has no more place in the public classroom than a bronze furnace in the shape of a horned Elder God with a maw just the right size for accepting children . . .

She wonders, as do I, if Norris is

thoroughly ignorant of the place that the bloody conflicts in Europe that specifically concerned religion held for the Founders, who genuinely wanted to keep such conflicts rigorously separate from their democratic experiment?

If parents who value a secular nation over a theocracy remain silent, allowing others to decide what their kids’ schools will teach, and do not stand up to people like Chuck Norris and his National Council, we the people will soon find ourselves to be serving under they, the Paliban.

Related articles:

1. Chuck Norris Supports Electoral Slate from “Bigotry Party”
2. Texas Appoints Fundies to Rewrite Statewide Social Studies Curriculum
3. Texans Wrangle Over Science and History Texts
4. Kentucky Moves to Teach Bible as Literature
5. Connecticut Parents Elect Creationist to School Board