Just a few short decades ago, patriotism was key to being American. Citizens were proud to assign themselves that title. Our country was irrefutably the best in the world, and one could express this without being deemed a racist Nazi. The history of America was a triumphant tale of overcoming, individuality and self-improvement. We were a nation like none other.

Then, we lost our way.

It didn't happen overnight. Somewhere between middle school and our angsty teenage years, it became cool to hate America. The walls of public schools became echo chambers that insulated the anti-American ideas of liberal education. History was rewritten.

Suddenly, America was evil. Our Founding Fathers were immoral. The country was built on the backs of slaves.

The impact has been detrimental.

History has been devalued. The essence of our country has deteriorated. And we have liberal education to thank.

It begins in high school with the myths of the "Southern Strategy" and the "Party Switch." These myths are taught in history classes across the country, though they couldn't be further from the truth. The alleged "Southern Strategy" suggests that Richard Nixon angled his campaign towards white, racist, deep-South voters. How he did so is unclear. Leftists insist it is hidden somewhere in his "tough on crime" policies.

It's necessary to point out that Nixon's tough crime bills echo views commonly held by "law and order" politicians, including current 2020 Presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. At a June 2019 NAACP conference in South Carolina, Harris stated that being "tough on crime" would help her beat Trump. Her practices as district attorney general of San Francisco have recently come under fire for excessive prosecution of non-violent drug violations and angling to keep wrongfully convicted inmates in prison.

Biden helped write the 1994 "tough on crime bill," which included more severe repercussions for illegal immigrants re-entering the country, expanded the federal death penalty, and increased the strength of the police overall. Since these policies are so reminiscent of Nixon's War on Drugs and tough crime policies, would Leftists argue that Biden and Harris are also pandering to racist, Deep-South whites, that they have a "Southern Strategy" of their own?

Of course not. That doesn't fit the narrative.

The second and possibly most well-known myth of High School history class is that of the Party Switch. In an attempt to erase the Republican Party's reputation as the party that freed the slaves, Leftists have convinced themselves and everyone else that one day all the racist Southern Democrats instantaneously became Republicans. That day, they claim, is the day Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Leftist fantasy world, this is when the Left repented for their sins and finally became the "good guys," while the Republican Party revealed their true, evil colors by opposing the Civil Rights Act.

In reality, only one Democrat in Congress switched parties as a direct result of the Civil Rights Act: Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Congressional Republicans consistently voted in favor of Civil Rights legislation in higher numbers than Democrats between 1957 and1968. House Republicans did not achieve a majority of Southern seats until 1994. The parties did not magically "switch" ideologies in 1964.

History doesn't serve the Left. Instead of acknowledging the truth, they choose to rewrite it.

The Leftist revision of history only gets worse in college, where professors force-feed students ideas of a globalist society - open borders, global citizenship – as a cure for the evils of America, evils which stemmed from our Founders. To say America is better is simply wrong - we are all the same, even as we watch videos of bombs falling in Syria or drug caravans being hauled to the Southern border.

We are all the same, except America is worse. America is racist, evil, and oppressive.

History and objective truth are abandoned in our post-modern world. Emotions and virtue signaling reign triumphant.

If this should continue, the future of our country is bleak. There is no room for American values in a world run by emotions and guilt inherited from the flaws of our ancestors. Calls for socialism indicate the growing desperation of the youth of America.

Indeed, we have lost our way.

However, there is still hope. America can be revived. We can bring back the values on which our country was built. It starts with the end of liberal education.

History is of utmost importance. The ideas of our forefathers are crucial. To brand them as racist bigots, those whom we owe everything, is appallingly elitist and ignorant. These men created a new nation, the best the world has ever seen. Those who heap criticism on them and construe them as nothing more than their flaws are a disgrace to our great country.

The dismissal and revision of history is at the root of the moral depravity of our nation today. If we reject our forefathers as racist, immoral, and wholly evil, we must also dismiss everything they stood for. As a result, the American ideas of hard work, sobriety, and moral correctness have also been labeled as racist and elitist.

Benjamin Franklin had a profound impact on the advancement of moral correctness as a necessity for success. The tradesmen of his time attributed economic success to possessing traits of thrift, ambition, and sobriety. These notions have all been rejected by modern American society.

To suggest hard work as a method of self-improvement is deemed offensive to the poor. To suggest moral correctness as a path to achieving happiness indicates bigotry. And to even think about religion is incredibly naive.

The youth of our day have been indoctrinated by this liberal revisionist history. They have been left with a feeling of hopelessness. If hard work is useless, if belief in God is an indicator of mental illness, and if the government is created to oppress the average citizen, what is the point of it all?

The solution, then, is massive government intervention. The government must expand to take care of us. The government must be our provider, our God. The Founders had it wrong. Their method works only for rich white men. Their alleged bigotry renders everything they argue obsolete.

This is what is taught in public institutions. The Leftist lies in public education have caused millions of young Americans to lose faith in their country and its origins. The Founders created the greatest country in the history of the world, built on the authority of the best political documents in the history of the world – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Their ideas of morals and natural rights are crucial to the maintenance of a free, democratic society.

Many on the Left cling to the fact that the Founders owned slaves as an explanation for the rejection of their entire cause. How could they, as slave-owners, write that "all men are created equal?" This apparent hypocrisy drives the Left to condemn our Fathers and dismiss them, and thereby dismiss America as a whole.

It's true – the Founders of our nation were not perfect men. They had flaws. We all do. The difference between them and the average anti-American Leftist of our time is that the Founders strove to improve. They knew they were flawed and sought to better themselves through moral correctness, religion, and ethics. They wrote that "all men are created equal," knowing this to be an ideal, but also knowing it to be the truth. Yes, all men are created equal. No, all men are not treated equally. That is something to strive for, a motive to improve society as a whole. Slavery was eventually abolished. Wrongs are eventually made right.

The modern Leftist sees only the flaws and not the strides for improvement. To them, there is no hope for advancement. Only the government can step in and promise equality. They refuse to improve themselves. They instead turn to the government to manufacture equality of outcome, no matter how immoral and unfair that may be.

Liberal revisionist history has it wrong. The Founders were not racist. They were not elitist bigots. They were brilliant men who knew the natural tendencies of mankind. They were men of high achievement who constantly sought ways to improve, and crafted a nation in the image of improvement and achievement. To slur and dismiss them and call for a new, amoral socialist government is a great offense to our country and a threat to free society.

It is a privilege to wake up in this country every day. It is a blessing to live in a society created under the philosophy that all men are created equal, that natural rights are innate and cannot be stripped away. There is no other country in the world where one can find immense success through hard work. America is a land of hope, freedom, and achievement. The American dream is alive and well, despite the doomsday signals from the Left. We live in the greatest country in the world.

And we have our Founders to thank.