In recent commentaries, the author finds himself too often using the words "ignorant" and "ignorance" without offering sufficient explanation. We are all born ignorant and through education and lifelong devotion to learning, we move through various stages of ignorance on the road to enlightenment (and hopefully wisdom). No one can know everything, but there is some common knowledge we should all share in order to share the responsibilities, which accompany the rights, of citizenship. The Founders advocated education in our country as the surest means to enable citizens to maintain their liberty. We have failed to maintain "civic instruction" at the level required and that failure is evidenced by our fall from relative liberty to tax slavery and empire.

The examples of widespread historical ignorance are many; many have been referenced in recent commentary [ Example 1 - Example 2 ]. Another is the 2007 survey commissioned by the U.S. Mint as mentioned in Chuck Norris' recent commentary. That survey determined that only seven percent (7%) of Americans could correctly name the first four presidents in the correct order. It should terrify all of us that a significant number of the "ignorant 93%" are voting citizens. My concern is not that 93% are not equipped to compete in trivia games. If Americans have forgotten the first four presidents, then they have certainly forgotten or perhaps never learned the Founding Principles those men espoused and for which these men were the foremost advocates.

Make no mistake. The pretended patriots we know as "Neocons," those war-mongers and hucksters of global empire take every opportunity to twist and distort the Founding Principles ---and the words of the men who embodied them---to their own nefarious ends. The "progressive elite" whose 'religion' requires larger and more intrusive government power to address every problem despite the century of abject failure for centrally planned utopia---they, too, twist and distort the Founding Principles to discredit them. In many cases, they slander the Founders themselves and falsely paint them as selfish, paranoid aristocrats, "dead white slave-owners" who are no longer relevant to the modern world's needs. The ad homimem attack on the person rather than the idea is a typical tactic of the "progressive elite."

History shows that Americans for the most part have always favored the Founder's policy of non-interventionism. It has always taken a deceptive leader to convince Americans that empire and war are morally preferable to available alternatives. Such 'leaders' have always twisted the words of the Founders to suggest that their proposed ambitions and adventures are the wise, prudent and moral course.

Abraham Lincoln is an admired word-smith whose noble rhetoric has inspired more books than any of the Founding Fathers except George Washington. It's amazing. Books critical of Lincoln's hypocrisy, brutality and suppression of dissent make a short list (maybe a few hundred). Books paying courtly attention to Lincoln's words and imagined good intent while ignoring his acts and not-so-nice words number in the thousands. Strategic omission and logical acrobatics are needed to lionize Lincoln's behavior at any level of depth.

Author Thomas DiLorenzo rightly labels these acrobatic writers collectively as "the Lincoln Court historians," the Lincoln Cult, or simply "Lincoln Idolators." Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is the best known oration in American history according to H.L. Mencken, and despite its brevity, is one most filled with lies. Virtually every American child is forced to memorize and recite it in school. Given the prevailing volume of Lincoln mythology, it's little wonder that many Americans rank Lincoln as a "great" president who "saved the Union." The truth is that Lincoln's war destroyed the union of consent and converted the republic to a national empire. [ See Lew Rockwell's King Lincoln Archive. ]

As Josh Eboch rightly observes in his commentary entitled Jefferson v. Lincoln: Americans must choose, it is absurd, it defies logic for a people to honor both Lincoln and Jefferson. We must choose between Lincoln's force, empire and tyranny --- or we choose Jefferson's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. We can't rationally honor both. It is noted that Lincoln often used language from the Bible though he was certainly no practitioner of Christian principles. Lincoln often invoked the words of Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, but he most certainly didn't revere the consent of the governed or practice allowing people to peacefully choose their own form of government. Lincoln let it be known that everything was negotiable EXCEPT paying the tariffs. As Eboch suggests, Lincoln was more like Tony Soprano: "Pay up (tariffs) and nobody gets hurt."

Other deceptive leaders led us to war for causes professed to be noble.

Woodrow Wilson expressly promised not to involve the U.S. in a European War; but after his election, he did. He promised that this war would end all wars. It simply set the stage for the rise of Hitler's Nazis in Germany. The other major result of Wilson's war was to expand the government. As Robert Higgs' "rachet effect" tells us, once the government expands to meet war needs and emergencies, it never returns to its smaller pre-war size and scope.

FDR explicitly promised not to involve the U.S. in a European war unless it was attacked --- promises that wouldn't have been made except to persuade American voters who wanted non-interventionism. Then, as Laurence Vance, et. al., have set out, FDR provoked the Japanese into attacking the U.S. FDR valued his promise to Churchill more than his promise to the American people. Over 400,000 Americans died in that war; millions of Europeans would have died whether or not we were there. Vance also documents America's long tradition of non-interventionism through the 19th century. Most Americans favored continuing that policy before and after Wilson's war to "make the world safe for Democracy."

As Robert Higgs states in his book, RESURGENCE OF THE WARFARE STATE - The Crisis Since 9/11, his earlier writings accurately predicted the government's reaction to 9/11, "the government’s hasty reactions would resemble its responses to previous crises, providing little more than opportunities for special interests to feather their nests and for the government itself to expand its powers at the expense of the public’s wealth and civil liberties." The special interests are the same that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in 1960, the military industrial complex. The long Cold War kept America ready for another World War at any moment. For the Neocons and their special interests, the War on Terror has filled the vacuum left by the end of the Cold War as a justification for spending more on "defense" than the next ten nations of the world combined. No other nation even comes close.

As Pat Buchanan's commentary entitled Liquidating the Empire (text below) lays out,

"Our Navy exceeds in firepower the next 13 navies combined. We have 100,000 troops in Iraq, 100,000 in Afghanistan or headed there, 28,000 in Korea, over 35,000 in Japan and 50,000 in Germany. By the Department of Defense's "Base Structure Report," there are 716 U.S. bases in 38 countries. ...US troops are stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories." --Pat Buchanan