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this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
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The United States was founded on principles of liberty and equality for all.
While I was taught that in elementary school, I was also taught about the 3/5ths compromise as early as middle school. By the time high school rolled around I was being taught about reconstruction and the corrupt bargain of 1877. I guess I’m lucky I got a good education in the north because I am aware that’s not necessarily the standard nationally.
I was also taught these things in the south, living in North Florida. As part of a 1 semester Florida history class in middle school, we also went into each of the spanish conquistadors and how they murdered their way across the continent.
My AP history teacher gave us copies of Zinn's A People's History of the United States as a supplemental to our textbooks. She was an awful teacher overall, but I appreciated her trying to make sure we had multiple perspectives.
Then I went to an elite east-coast private college, where I almost failed US History because I called the professor out for teaching Lost Cause bullshit.
Any academic peddling lost cause bullshit is a complete joke. Just curious, were they from the south?
Of course they were.
He also characterized the 2000 election as "a perfect tie" that could've just as easily been decided by a coinflip instead of the more historically agreed upon view of the Supreme Court ratfucking Florida's recount.
Yeah we talked about colonialism in my middle school.
However, it was discussed as a fact of history and we went into detail about the slave trade triangle and all that.
And we did it without politicizing it. It was facts-based rather than pushing some weird political narrative about how america is heroic, or america is evil. Fancy that... just teaching history.
Sometimes moralizing is necessary. In Canada we had one teacher go into detail on the kidnapping of indigineous children and the residential schools they were sent to where they were often beaten or raped. I'm glad that teacher did that since many of my contemporaries were not aware of that history and some remain oblivious into adulthood. There's nothing worse for a nation than people having a false sense of pride in it (as we're seeing in the US currently).
That isn't moralizing dude. That's just telling facts.
The moralizing/politicizing part is when you tell the kids that it's their fault and they should feel bad about it. It isn't, and they shouldn't.
Technically, it was founded on the principles of liberty and equality for all. Just not the practices of liberty and equality for all. it was an aspiration, a goal of our forefathers.
But the way they teach it in school is pretty deceptive— as if it was all accomplished magically on that day in 1776, when, even today, it’s a constant struggle— a goal that we’re much closer to, but still remains elusive. that’s the part they don’t teach.
Nah, I was taught the latter way in school. They pretty explicitly told us about the 3/5 compromise, the lack of voting rights for women, etc. Really, its pretty hard to avoid the idea that all people were not seen as equal in the eyes of the constitution when ratified, when you know that we have a whole unit on the civil war coming up.
I just do not believe this. These are people who regularly raped their slaves, and then enslaved the progeny.
It was an aspiration for white men specifically. It took centuries for the definition of humanity to expand from that perspective.
No. Not at all. Give me a break. No women, natives, enslaved people, etc.
If we didn't have this lie, people wouldn't be as mad when they found the parts where it is untrue.