The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.
– Edmund A. Opitz


A recent letter to the DM Register by associate professor Kevin Gannon (“Civics quiz leans sharply to the right”) left Rights Boy wondering about his qualifications to teach history. See his letter at :

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071023/OPINION04/710230360/1035/OPINION

I agree with Gannon on the need for more civic literacy in our country. It is a sad fact that immigrants who have studied to become American citizens tend to have a better understanding of U.S. history than a typical high school graduate.

But Gannon’s assertion that teaching the principles of “limited government” and a “free-market economy” is part of a vast right-wing conspiracy against academic freedom is absurd and shockingly ignorant coming from a college professor.

America was not founded on the principles of big government and socialist economics. Our Founding Fathers preached that “less is best” regarding government, and its citizens are owed little more than common protection and the opportunity to succeed through hard work.

Unfortunately, through a number of so-called populist or progressive moves, clearly unconstitutional, by both liberals and conservatives, we now have a massive federal government that domestically does very little other than redistributes wealth. The government provides welfare to every special group that you can think of: corporations, farmers, illegal immigrants, even the so-called “poor” that own a house and two cars yet cannot afford health insurance.

Gannon’s contention that right-wing groups are against academic freedom doesn’t match reality. Rights Boy's observation is that conservatives simply want a more comprehensive curriculum than the narrow, cookie-cutter, politically correct socialist nonsense that Gannon teaches.