I'm going to read that 1776 Commission Report.

And live tweet it? Maybe?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf

It opens "In the course of human events there have always been those who deny or reject human freedom, but
Americans will never falter in defending the
fundamental truths of human liberty proclaimed on July
4, 1776" and I already hate this so much.

I...

You can't make this a drinking game. @robgreeneII is right, you'd die in the first page.

describing America as "an exemplary nation, one that protects the safety and promotes the happiness of its people, as an example to be admired and emulated by nations of the world that wish to steer their government toward greater liberty and justice" just... wow.

This is already the whitest thing I've ever read.

"They amount to a dispute over not only the history of our country but also its present purpose and future direction" is so true except this commission is on the side of the confederacy and they don't seem to get that.

"The facts of our founding are not partisan. They are a
matter of history" is a completely ahistorical statement on every possible level. That's not what history is.

If I were one of the historians connected to this commission I would resign, retire, fake my death, move abroad, and live out my days under a false identity away from the world.

The level of self-aggrandization is mind blowing. " But no
nation before America ever dared state those truths as the
formal basis for its politics, and none has strived harder, or done more, to achieve them" is certainly a thing you can write but why.

"The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission presents
this first report with the intention of cultivating a better
education among Americans in the principles and
history of our nation and in the hope that a rediscovery
of those principles and the forms of constitutional
government

will lead to a more perfect Union."

At least they just lay out that this is straight up propaganda but Jesus H Tap Dancing Christ this is bad.

You know that feeling like you should throw up but can't?

That's more of less the feeling I get reading this.

This is the level of an AP essay. But with less support, and, frankly, less well written. I've graded enough AP exams to feel pretty good about that comparison.

I'm pretty sure reading this takes a decade off of how long I'll be in Purgatory if that's a thing.

"From the principle of equality, the
requirement for consent naturally follows: if all men are
equal, then none may by right rule another without his
consent." I. I just. I mean. HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THIS COUNTRY AND ITS HISTORY FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

I mean God Damn people, I know you've heard of the Civil War, this fucking thing references it and keeps throwing out Lincoln quotes like it's a Mardi Gras float launching beads.

...I suppose you'd need to be that level of shit-faced tourist to thing this wasn't garbage too...

This is the most egregious piece of American exceptionalist crap I've ever read.

Random pictures of MLK Jr. and Frederick Douglass without engaging in their writings or frameworks, drink.

It's amazing how far we are--I'm 9 pages into a double columned hellscape--without mentioning slavery.

I WONDER WHY.

Oh God.

OK, bottom on 9 onto 10, they're going into fundamental freedoms, and it very much stops being slightly funny bullshit and goes very much into being dangerous.

I'm just going to give you the full thing:

"Our first freedom, religious liberty, is foremost a moral
requirement of the natural freedom of the human mind.
As discussed in Appendix II, it is also the indispensable
solution to the political-religious problem that emerged
in the

modern world. Faith is both a matter of private
conscience and public import, which is why the
founders encouraged religious free exercise but barred
the government from establishing any one national religion. The point is not merely to protect the state
from religion but also to

protect religion from the state
so that religious institutions would flourish and pursue
their divine mission among men.
Like religious liberty, freedom of speech and of the
press is required by the freedom of the human mind.
More plainly, it is a requirement for any government

in which the people choose the direction of government
policy. To choose requires public deliberation and
debate. A people that cannot publicly express its
opinions, exchange ideas, or openly argue about the
course of its government is not free." So far, so good... ish?

Given the way this same group weaponizes the idea of "free speech" I'm not happy about that second bit, but ok, we're discussing freedoms, we've got lots to go... oh. Oh shit. Oh no we don't, just one more paragraph. Fuck.

"Finally, the right to keep and bear arms is required by
the fundamental natural right to life: no man may justly
be denied the means of his own defense. The political
significance of this right is hardly less important. An
armed people is a people capable of defending...

...their liberty no less than their lives and is the last, desperate check against the worst tyranny."

Sons of bitches. And JFC tone deaf and poorly timed... well, actually, given the source, exactly what they want.

The freedoms that matter? Religion, speech, guns.

Yep. It's a white nationalist kind of report.

IT ONLY GETS WORSE FROM HERE FUCK MY LIFE.

"At the same time, it is important to note that by design
there is room in the Constitution for significant change
and reform. Indeed, great reforms—like abolition,
women’s suffrage, anti-Communism, the Civil Rights
Movement, and the Pro-Life Movement—" FUCK. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

ANTI COMMUNISM AND PRO LIFE ALONGSIDE MOTHERFUCKING ABOLITION, WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE AND CIVIL RIGHTS YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKERS.

Oh my fucking hell it goes straight into slavery apologia each and every person who wrote this should be slapped.

"The most common charge levelled against the founders,
and hence against our country itself, is that they were
hypocrites who didn’t believe in their stated principles,
and therefore the country they built rests on a lie. This
charge is untrue, and has done enormous damage,

especially in recent years, with a devastating effect on
our civic unity and social fabric." Fuck each and every single one of y'all you racist motherfuckers.

Also, I'm sorry, they were indeed hypocritical pieces of shit who also built the country we live in, both are true.

"Many Americans labor under the illusion that slavery
was somehow a uniquely American evil. It is essential to
insist at the outset that the institution be seen in a much
broader perspective." No it fucking does not.

Hahahahahahahahahaha "It was the Western world’s repudiation of slavery, only just beginning to build at the time of the American Revolution, which marked a dramatic sea change in moral sensibilities" are you fucking kidding me with this apologetics bullshit?

This could absolutely be written by any douchebag on the alt right in a Reddit thread and reformated and be identical.

I am so angry I'm trembling.

"The foundation of our Republic planted the seeds of the
death of slavery in America" is not true, that took a giant fucking war.

This is how those bastards end the section on slavery: "Yet
the damage done by the denial of core American
principles and by the attempted substitution of a theory
of group rights in their place proved widespread and
long-lasting. These, indeed, are the direct ancestors of
some

of the destructive theories that today divide our
people and tear at the fabric of our country. "

I'm going to get to the end and there will be names I assume and I already hate each and every one of them.

OH GOOD THE NEXT SECTION IS PROGRESSIVISM ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.

This is conspiracy peddling bullshit.

This isn't funny. This shit is dangerous. Fuckers are going to teach these ideas to kids--especially in charter schools and private Christian ones and homeschooled but fuck--and these are the talking points of the coup attempt.

Here's how the "Progressivism" section ends, and seriously, this is what gets people shot by fucknuts:

"Far from creating an omniscient body of civil servants
led only by “pragmatism” or “science,” though,
progressives instead created what amounts to a fourth branch of

government called at times the bureaucracy
or the administrative state. This shadow government
never faces elections and today operates largely without
checks and balances. The founders always opposed
government unaccountable to the people and without
constitutional restraint,

yet it continues to grow around us."

Literally a Deep State conspiracy mongering bullshit attack on civil service in this country, in a time of QAnon and conspiratorial bullshit that has led to deaths.

The people who wrote this are monsters.

Fuck my life the next section is Fascism.

I taught an entire class via Wolfenstein this fall about what a pile of bullshit this section is. Moving on to the next fucking section, Communism, because this is hell.

This is the worst description of Communism and worst history of the Cold War I have ever read.

Skip this shit, read a book on what we did in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Cointelpro, the works, during the Cold War, and then see how little resemblance this Red Dawn-inspired horseshit bears to reality.

HERE WE GO THEY'RE GOING FULL WHITE NATIONALIST BECAUSE THE NEXT SECTION IS "RACISM AND IDENTITY POLITICS"

Oh my God "The justification for reversing the
promise of color-blind civil rights was that past
discrimination requires present effort, or affirmative
action in the form of preferential treatment, to
overcome long-accrued inequalities" sons of...

"Today, far from a regime of equal natural rights for
equal citizens, enforced by the equal application of law,
we have moved toward a system of explicit group
privilege that, in the name of “social justice,” demands
equal results and explicitly sorts citizens into...

“protected classes” based on race and other demographic
categories." I hate these bastards so much.

This is their history report? God damn it all, these clowns would flunk high school history classes, let alone be allowed to run... anything..

"Eventually this regime of formal inequality would come
to be known as “identity politics.” The stepchild of
earlier rejections of the founding, identity politics
values people by characteristics like race, sex, and sexual orientation and holds that new times demand new rights...

to replace the old."

Wait for it. It get so bad.

"This is the opposite of King’s hope that his
children would “live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character,” and denies that all are endowed with
the unalienable

rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

THE UNBELIEVABLE WHITE SUPREMACIST GALL OF THESE WRITERS.

"The choice before us now is clear. Will we choose the
truths of the Declaration? Or will we fall prey to the
false theories that have led too many nations to tyranny?
It is our mission—all of us—to restore our national
unity by rekindling a brave and honest love for our
country

and by raising new generations of citizens who
not only know the self-evident truths of our founding,
but act worthy of them."

Drink.

"This includes restoring patriotic education that teaches
the truth about America. That doesn’t mean ignoring
the faults in our past, but rather viewing our history
clearly and wholly, with reverence and love."

Big Brother Loves You, America.

The next section is "The Role of the Family" and this is pure Focus on the Family garbage, "For the American republic to endure, families must remain strong and reclaim their duty to raise up morally responsible citizens who love America" I almost cannot believe this.

"States and school districts should reject any curriculum
that promotes one-sided partisan opinions, activist
propaganda, or factional ideologies that demean
America’s heritage, dishonor our heroes, or deny our
principles."

I don't have words. That's what this is. JFC.

Oh, right, wait, you mean you want to gut history education even further. Got it.

"Any time teachers or administrators promote political agendas in the classroom, they abuse their platform and dishonor every family who trusts them with their children’s education and moral development" drink.

Freedom of speech but only to say what we want you to, amiright?

"Universities in the United States are often today
hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship that
combine to generate in students and in the broader
culture at the very least disdain and at worst outright
hatred for this country."

Disdain and outright hatred for this.

"Colleges peddle resentment and contempt for
American principles and history alike, in the process
weakening attachment to our shared heritage."

My first response to this was too crude even for me and this incredibly vulgar thread.

This section on "A Scholarship of Freedom" is not funny or cute or really something for me to mock--if you teach at a college, read this, because this is exactly the kind of attacks that we will all be getting.

"To restore our society, academics must return to their
vocation of relentlessly pursuing the truth and engaging
in honest scholarship that seeks to understand the world
and America’s place in it" is how it ends but absolutely not what they mean.

Let me say, as someone who has actually read Orwell, that this document does in fact feel mildly Orwellian.

Appendix II opens with this "History underscores the overwhelming importance of religious faith in American life, but some today see religious practice and political liberty to be in conflict and hold that religion is divisive and should be kept out of the public square" NOT GOOD

Appendix III is "Created Equal or Identity Politics" and is also... bad.

"These ideas led to the development of Critical Race Theory, a variation of critical theory applied to the
American context that stresses racial divisions and sees society in terms of minority racial groups oppressed by the
white majority." Drink.

"Identity politics divide Americans by placing them perpetually in conflict with each other. This extreme
ideology assaults and undermines the American principle of equality in several key ways."

Not great.

Appendix IV on teaching history is also... bad, and not funny, and faculty should probably read it to see what attacks will be lobbed at us.

"This pronounced decline of American education began in the late nineteenth century when progressive
reformers began discarding the traditional understanding of education" this is a hell of a good old days of only rich white men learning flex.

Page 41 is the list of members and it is a list of people to know and be pissed at for this garbage.

My recommendation is that instead of reading this, find a vat of jungle juice, drain it, and profusely vomit until your stomach and throat are raw, embrace that hangover... and it'll still be less unpleasant.