First
off, although conspicuously absent, Rep. Tom Tancredo was the unsung hero of
the presidential debate that was sponsored
by the Spanish-language television network, Univision.

Based in the United States,
Univision is not based on English. The candidates were spoken at in
Spanish, which is why Rep. Tancredo declined to participate. One of the
moderators was a Mexican citizen and a strident advocate for Hispanics. The
politics of special interests was yet another reason to turn-down the
invitation; Tancredo declined to dignify a debate in which one of the topics
was whether English ought to be America’s official language.

Rep. Tancredo made the right choice.
Faces furrowed in an effort to comprehend the language, the seven dwarfs looked
decidedly un-presidential during the Univision debate.

Mainstream media were agreed that
for the occasion, says VDARE.com’s Allan
Wall, all the presidential panderers “toned down, tempered, cooled, [and
only] gingerly defended” their professed positions.

Especially conspicuous in his sappy
sentimentality, syrupy sweet talk—in education he was going to “unleash weapons
of mass instruction”—and statist solutions, was Mike Huckabee. I can see why
media, women especially, love Big Daddy; whether he’s sermonizing about diet or
the deity, Huckabee is the Oprah of the Evangelicals. 

Here’s Huckabee’s
Heads-Up-for-Illegal-Aliens Plan, articulated at the Univision “panderfest”:

“When people come to this country,
they shouldn’t fear. They shouldn’t live in hiding. They ought to have their
heads up, because the one thing about being an American is, we believe every
person ought to have his or her head up and proud, and nobody should have to be
in hiding because they’re illegal when our government ought to make it so that
people can reasonably come here in a legal fashion.” [Emphasis added.]

Let’s unpack Huckabee’s hucksterism:
Illegal aliens in the US are hanging their heads when they ought to be holding
them high. The reason for these imaginary drooping crests is illegality brought
on by harsh immigration policies. The way to raise heads high is to make
illegality a thing of the past.

During the nationwide illegal-alien
rallies, heads were held hubristically high. Since Huckabee, it would seem,
missed those halcyon days, he would like to ensure illegals are hallmark happy
by removing the reason for the slumping noggins. Translated from Huckabese,
that means aiming to overturn, or leave unenforced, existing immigration laws,
and thus disrespecting the rights of Americans and the country’s social and
economic fabric.  

What Huckabee fails to get into his
head is that illegal infiltrators are demanding what they most certainly are
not entitled to. All men are imbued with natural—but not necessarily political—rights.
The laws of this country ought to respect the natural rights of all people,
legal and illegal. Not so their demands for political and welfare privileges,
which is what Huckabee would like to continue honoring.

Illegal aliens on the march for
undeserved political rights—that was not the only specter to have passed
Huckabee by. As any on the liberal left, the Governor is also ignorant of how
pedagogic pop psychology has helped lighten the cerebral load in the craniums
of American schoolchildren.

Huckabee’s antidote for the bumper
crops of ignoramuses being produced in public schools follows the progressive
Pleasure Principle: Please the little darlings; pleasure them, Huck prated at
the Republican Presidential Debate in Iowa,
for they are “bored to death.” We must “make sure we build the curriculum
around their interests.” [Emphasis added.]

Hackneyed Huckabee is unaware that
child-centered schooling has been in place for decades. Progressive pedagogues
and parents have been gratifying children’s demands for fun and frivolity for a
very long time now. 

The Governor should also rest
assured: It’s been quite some time since America’s youth were burdened by a
core curriculum or exposed to a literary canon. Content-based, top-down
education has long since been supplanted by pop-culture-friendly,
non-hierarchically delivered flimflam.

Huckabee’s “idea” that learning
ought to flow from the child is vintage romantic nineteenth-century
progressivism. In their dedicated efforts to “romance the child,”
progressives—also Hillary’s preferred handle—have always insisted that learning
must be made natural, organic.

Classicists, as the authentic
educator E. D. Hirsch Jr. has
illustrated, see effective, analytical and explicit instruction as very
definitely not a natural but a highly artificial, often-unintuitive process.

In other words, genuine learning is
a tough process. Nothing that’s worth learning comes easily.

I’ll spare you Huckabee’s brain
bifurcation balderdash—he puts great stock in right brain/left brain
discredited pop psychology. His pop pedagogy is bad enough for one day.

©2007 By Ilana Mercer

   WorldNetDaily.com

    December 14