Upholding Lady Liberty: Sarah Palin was Right at CSU

 What a perfect example.

FOXNews.com had a headline today: Massachusetts School Offers to Allow Pledge of Allegiance -- but Not in Class. The story is that 17-year-old senior Sean Harrington has been fighting to have a voluntary Pledge of Allegiance said in the classrooms of his school, Arlington High School in Arlington, Mass. Earlier, as a freshman, he succeeded in having flags installed, when there were none inside the school. High five to him on that!

Listen to this student's wisdom:

"If we can't find one teacher who is willing to say the pledge, then the system we have is cracked," he told FOX News Radio, noting that a number of teachers signed his petition.

He said the school's ban on the pledge sent the wrong message. "It tells me that we've basically cast aside what our country is founded on," he said. "It's saying that we don't really care, and it's sad."

It appears that after much debate over voluntary/involuntary and "one nation under God", school officials were tied at voting for and against the recitation allowance. Now, the principal has relented, with the caveat that the voluntary pledge be held in the foyer before classes begin.

It's a start. And less anyone think this was a right wing thing, even Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman sent letters of support in addition to this young man's petition of 700 signatures, composed of students and teachers.

After listening again yesterday to Governor Sarah Palin's CSU speech, so much that is related to this was fresh on my mind. And when I saw the FOX headline, I was struck at how exactly right the governor was when she expounded on Dennis Prager's point of passing on what it means to be an American to the next generation. It sounds like such a simple thing, doesn't it? Yet, the school officials in Arlington show exactly what kind of uphill climb we have in encouraging our schools to just do the right thing and ensure the survival and the success of liberty.

This is not political. It's a commonsense strategy to retaining our freedoms.

Consider these quotes from Gov. Palin's speech (emphasis added):

America may be founded by laws see, but it's sustained by a morality that's recognized by so many other countries even. As the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville said America is a great country because America is a good country. And Dennis Prager's point that night in Denver was that this uniquely American culture of freedom it needs protecting and nurturing and it needs to be carefully handed over from one generation to the next, and Reagan used to speak of this too. So schools, the universities, need to take note of this message I wish. It's where education does come in.

President Kennedy once spoke of the survival and success of liberty. Well there can be no survival and success of liberty without an education in freedom and the values that made this country great. Values like thrift and perseverance and responsibility and work ethic, reward for honest hard work. And some might say that there is a contraindication here perhaps. They'd argue that academic freedom is incompatible with our need for a civic education that instills in young people the wisdom and the patriotic grace necessary for the survival and the success of liberty. But I think that they are wrong. I think that they are dangerously wrong.

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And obviously these things aren't exclusively the purview of universities, but schools and universities do play such a crucial role in educating young people about what it means to be an American. And it is up to the universities to help make sure that our liberties are secured for the next generation.

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Politicians have to do their part too by ensuring the survival of the institutions on which our free society is built. One can't do one without the other. President Kennedy said liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain. From Valley Forge to Gettysburg to Omaha Beach, the fate of America has always kind of skirted a precipice. But most of us we never doubt that there's been a providential hand that has guided us and is guiding us towards a better future. Education's highest aim should be instilling in students a sense of this uniquely American predicament, of the fragility of it as well as the greatness of this republican experiment of ours. And an awareness of the survival and the success of liberty depends on them.

Congratulations to Sean Harrington for standing up and holding the flame of liberty high. May others see his example, and be motivated to do the same, no matter their political affiliation.

@Karen_Allen

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