us online and those of us those of you here with us today. it's a pleasure to see everyone. my mom called me the other day and said i saw this letter to the editor and the paper. can you help me understand it and explain what's going on and this letter to the editor had words like interest convergence intersectionality names of academics from 40 years ago in it, and she wanted me to to help her. and i said mom have i got a book for you? but it wasn't just for the most important audience who is my mom. it was also for the high school students who i spoke to earlier today. one of whom listened to me talk and describe how america's founding ideals of freedom and opportunity are what make us uniquely american and what create an identity for us. and at the end of my remarks, he asked me a question and said, you know, you're just quoting martin luther king here and and you know, we've heard that over and over again you don't need to to tell us that i said, no way might i thought about what i talked about and i said no i didn't quote martin luther king and he said yeah you did. and it didn't dawn on me until the ride back here that i realized that i had said, you know the founding ideals in our declaration of independence that all men are created equal and down by their creator life liberty in the pursuit of happiness. i don't know if he knew that that was in our founding documents. that's what this book is for. and then finally the book is for this mom who i spoke with a year ago. her name is scarlett johnson, and when i talked to her she described her small town of maquan thiensville in wisconsin as quiet friendly nice. then she told me that she was very troubled at what was happening in her child's school because everything was being viewed through the lens of race. she wanted to do something about it. not only did she tell me her story which is included in my book, but she helped to start a campaign to change who was on the school board because she wanted to make a change. she needed to know what was in critical race theory where this came from these ideas that are dividing america's americans from all parts of the political economic and social spectrum. she said it was exhausting and frustrating. and just months after i talked to this mom from a small town in, wisconsin. as those of you who are watching a line can see she wound up being profiled by the new york times as an example. of what the major mainstream media? anyway was saying was a movement to divide america when what scarlett would say and what's all of you is that she was reacting to an effort to take these ideas that are in fact racially discriminatory at their core in critical race theory and divide people. so that's who this book is for. that's who the audience is. the goal is to help open minds and to help parents and school board members americans all over the us to understand how to interpret critical race theory what it looks like in practice. and so that's why we're here. so the first person i'm going to introduce before i sit down and talk to our distinguished guest who's joining me today is another distinguished guest and that is my colleague here at the heritage foundation mike gonzales. he is an accomplished author in his own right having written books about both identity politics the plot to change america as well as black lives matter, and so mike's going to help to situate us in this moment in time. he's gonna help to place us for where we are and what's going on. so with that it's my pleasure to introduce my gonzalez. thank you. thank you jonathan you i'm not gonna make a joke about anybody because nobody's ever going to make a joke about anyone from a pudium ever again. you guys are in for a treat with jonathan and ian pryor. i've only read parts of jonathan's book. i am looking forward to reading it. can't wait to read it. in fact. and it's great for what i read so far. and i know jonathan really well. jonathan and i have traveled the country from baton rouge to tucson to salt lake city, and i've co-authored a many papers with him who cothering a book right now. and i really admire his scholarship. jonathan is really an imminent scholar. what i really admire about jonathan is his character. he's a man of character. and that's after all will count. he has undertaking this mission against critical race theory because of his character. because it is a threat to our nation. we're caught up right now. in a real battle of ideas. we're leaving through a moment and i think we should all be a very aware of that. the left likes to the right test as the culture wars as our former president president obama did not too long ago. that's how the left operates they capture ground. they capture cultural ground and then when conservative say well not so fast. this oh, that's just a culture war. but actually if you remember the context. obama was stumping for terry mcauliffe and richmond when he said this. and if you remember terry mcauliffe is now back to his full-time job of being a money bags for left of courses, and he's not the governor of virginia. you see conservatives? i finally winning on cultural ground. this is something new to me. i'm a 61 year old conservative. which means i'm used to losing but now now we're winning we're winning a cultural battle. and in a lot of that has to do with the left the left overplayed its hand. it went for a quick. ambush victory and it overstretched itself. and the american people saw what was happening? they looked at the the racial and sexual indoctrination of their children. they looked at the forced struggle sessions in their places of worked. they look at the radicalization of the military and they said no, you know. not here. and the american people have strong motivation to act that way. they love their work americans foreign observers have long held had long observed that we are we see ourselves in our work americans love their children. they don't want them to become canon fodder in this in this war of ideas in america people love their country and ultimately this is about transforming america. the communist eric mann gave an interview not too long ago actually 2015. so six seven years ago. in which he was very candid if i was very good interview. he said look, whatever it is whether it's sex or race or climate. the goal is destroying america. in in all for us marxist. this is just a little division of labor google that division of labor eric mann. and in that that is what is about that's why jonathan has decided to to waste this battle and write his books. he said he said kind of an unsung hero in this crusade and hopefully after this book he will continue to be a hero, but he will no longer be unsung. thank you. thank you mike for those generous comments. that was very kind of you and thank you for setting the stage for what we're going to talk about now in the next few minutes. it is my pleasure to invite up here with me ian rowe who is a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute co-founder of vertex partnership academies a new network of interbaccalaureate high schools in the bronx. he is works with the woodson center as well as the 1776 unites project distinguished writer former. ceo of public prep network of charter schools and bronx and manhattan and an author himself whose book agency. we're going to talk about as well coming out in may so ian if you'll join me up here. here's jonathan. congratulations on splintered. thank you. thank you very much, and thank you for joining joining me for a conversation about what this means for parents today and what it means not only as a natural movement, but what it means for our individual behaviors? for a moment. let me talk about where critical race theory really comes from and where it's roots are and the quotes. i think that critical race theorists have written in their own documents about founding this worldview are not widely known right and so here's here's one where angela harris is a professor in california. she writes that marx's dazzling analysis of capitalism is still riveting to contemporary theorists. right, so there is a close alignment in almost inseparability between the roots of critical race theory critical legal theory which came before that and then critical theory which of course is itself marxist, right it originated from the marxist lens. derek bell who's known as the godfather of critical race theory. let me let me give a quote here and we're going to talk about what this means and how it how it shows up in the world around us. so he wrote. even those whites who lack wealth and power are sustained in their sense of racial superiority and thus rendered more willing to accept their lesser share by an unspoken, but no less certain property right in their whiteness. this right is recognized in a pebbled by courts in society like all property rights under a government created and sustained primarily for that purpose. so the perspective when we say we see critical race theory in schools, the perspective is that these students are being taught that the american dream really isn't for them. it's only for some people and there's nothing that we can do short of dismantling the system that would repair that. so let me ask. that was something that motivated me to not just talk about critical race theory in my book, but also to talk about what is the american identity. where did it come from? and how does critical race theory reshape or mischaracterize what that identity is. so tell me from your perspective and an agency. how does that shape what you wrote there and your perspective? yeah, so first of all, thank you jonathan for this opportunity and congratulations again as you mentioned for the last decade. i was a ceo of public prep, which is a network of public charter schools. in the heart of the south bronx lower east side of manhattan nearly, 2,000 kids almost all low-income almost all black and hispanic and i'm now launching a new network of international baccalaureate high schools also in the south bronx and in my 10 plus years running schools in the heart of communities that one might characterize as ones that are oppressed. i never had ever a parent come to me to say please mr. rowe include in the curriculum lessons that show that every system in america is defined by racism and that based on your skin color. every system is rigged against you and it's one of the most debilitating messages that you could give especially for young people who are in situations where they are facing challenges. so for me, that's one of the reasons i've written my book. agency, which is all about empowering the rising generation. to overcome the victimhood narrative so that they can forge their own pathway to power. you know, i see young people today caught between these two dominant narratives the first i consider what i call blame the system and the other i call blame the victim in the blame the system narrative that is the narrative of america as this forever oppressive nation that based on your race. your gender you are inherently marginalized or your marginalizer, you know, you're inherently oppressed. or your inherently and oppressor, you know, there's a white supremacist lurking on every street corner capitalism itself is evil. and these systems are so discriminatory. so overwhelming that the only way you as an individual can move forward is if there's massive government intervention or massive societal transformation. otherwise, you have no agency to overcome that's blame the system and then blame the victim almost exactly the opposite which is america's this land of opportunity. the streets are paved with gold if you're not successful, then it must be your fault, right? there's some pathology that you have you should have pulled yourself up. by the bootstraps the truth is both of these narratives these half-truths. add up to a lie, and so i felt there needs to be a more compelling narrative that i put forth called agency and i have a framework called family religion education entrepreneurship, which we can talk through but we need to empower young people because the blame the system narrative is very much grounded in critical race theory where every disparity every negative outcome is only seen through the prism of race and what that often does. it sucks all the energy out of the room. so if topics like family structure or school choice or other factors that really drive positive outcomes for kids, it reduces attention on those levers. to this artificial and perverse ideology. so all great points and so we are both school board members as well of different school boards as well as your work in starting schools. so let's talk for a minute about what evidence was important to make clear in in splintered as well as in the work that you've done? and the first is that critical race theory is not taught in schools. that's what we hear all the time in the media has been perpetrating the smith for a long long time and in my book you will find the words critical race theory quoted in school district material. i mean they're using it in the heywood unified school district across the bay from san francisco the california new ethnic studies program has a whole chapter on intersectionality. we've seen it in virginia in the teacher training programs and loudoun county, virginia. i mean, you can find the words critical race theory in schools and in case you're wondering if it's where it's coming from, you know, the nation's largest teachers union adopted a business item just a year ago saying that they would make sure that critical race theory stayed in schools. i think the national council of mayors adopted something similar. so that's the first myth that is was worth debunking the second. is that critical race series just about teaching history and that it's just about about having a discussion about race in america's past if that was the case, then why was a critical race theorist gloria ladson billings the keynote speaker for the national council of the teachers of mathematics in 2019. why did a national association of science teachers have a critical race theorist come and give a virtual presentation during covid about affinities spaces in science teaching and on and on right my book talks about a movement called that has its own hashtag actually called hashtag disrupt texts. oh, yeah, and the idea is to get rid of texts such as to kill a mockingbird right to wipe those out of wipe those out of school curriculum as well as shakespeare things that we would consider things that helped build the ideas on which we create truth. right and we talk about what is true and it was funny. i had a conversation with the louisiana superintendent of education recently, and he actually he said it to me before i we were talking about my book. he said yeah the problem today is that we have to have this conversation again about what truth is and i said, you're exactly right. i put in the title my book. that's why right because we have to remind people about what actually constitutes truth today. and then finally is this idea that we need critical race theory to teach compassion and tolerance? and i think the idea is that we find and research find so repeated. so often through palo friar who is still widely used in colleges of education not to mention france fanon who was also claimed by critical race theorists his idea of decolonization, which is sort of the precursor to disrupt texts. right disrupt text. is this hashtag that you know talks about removing items from school curriculum. well decolonization is what critical race theorists call the effort to change. what is taught based on the color of the skin of whoever the author was so it is not just about teaching compassion and tolerance and the more that you read the modern-day i think incarnations of critical race theory through allyship starter packs. that schools will find online telling people about white women's tears and and what that means for black people and things like that. it creates very much this confrontation that that you were just describing. yeah when it's helpful when i when i was a student in the college college of engineering at cornell many years ago one of our required classes was called theoretical and applied mechanics. in the fiera in the theoretical component of the class, you did all sorts of statistical modeling and spreadsheets to see, you know, what could happen should happen, but then there was a component called applied where you actually put some of these ideas into practice and i think one of the things that critical race theory is say when they say well it's not being taught. they're technically saying that critical race theory as an ideology using those words in first grade may not show up but applied theory is showing up. so that's when you see privilege walks. where imagine this this room would we would ask everyone to line up horizontally with a teacher at the front of the room who says if you're white take two steps forward if you're back if you're black take three four five steps backward and you go through these series of exercises where you literally have divided an entire room based on these characteristics with with all sorts of stereotypical assumptions, which are grounded in critical race theory practice. and so i think those the it's not being taught. it's a dodge. and they're more than enough examples and you know the in fact in the evanston, illinois the district there is being sued because they had several of these practices where they were dividing teachers by race and professional development and there is a teacher in the lesson plan literally in the lesson plan where they did this privilege wall this privilege walk with kids. it said it was to ensure that the white kids had understood their internalized white supremacy and quote. it was in the lesson plan. so these these ideas that it's not being taught. it's just a falsehood. and i think you mentioned evanston the district that comes to mind to me is wellesley up in massachusetts because they're a group. who's we i think both know well the parents defending education was challenging the districts own affinity groups that were these mandatory separations that you were talking about and the district recently backed down. and to me that's evidence that they know right? they know that these policies are not going to stand up to judicial scrutiny and that they do in fact violate the civil rights act of 1964, and that's one thing that's worth that i talk about in the book. but also it's it's worth drawing out for people that derek bell ibrahamax candy today who says his work is based on critical race theory. they have criticized the civil rights act of 964. i mean, they say that it is not doesn't do what people say it does. it can never end racist acts. i mean that's a part of fallen humanity, which i think what the civil rights movement did for us as a culture our habitus to i think a steal back something that robin deangelo and white fragility borrowed but our habitus our cultural understanding is that whenever something that is racist happens we condemn it as we should right we can dim it in the media. we condemn as a people we content legally, right? that's it immediately comes under the sort of criticism that it should so i go ahead just by see, i mean a lot of this ideology. is this belief that in order to end racism we must practice racism. that is you know, and kendi says it over and over again. the other danger is not only the this. again, every system is you know saturated in racism. it's also the effort to reduce standards in the name of equity which is another sort of practice related to critical race theory. so you see in states like oregon where the governor announces that in order to serve the minority kids. they're no longer requiring that a student graduate has to graduate from high school demonstrating proficiency in math and reading wait, what? how is that even on the table or in san diego? where did yeah, there's no there's no homework that has submitted on time. right hallelujah when you hear that, right, but i as a school leader. i know how important it is to build the habits of daily homework checks for understanding but in the name of equity to be an anti-racist school district. they were they eliminated the requirement for homework to be on time for all 100,000 kids. in the system, right? so it's not that these practices related to critical race theory just adversely impact. low income or kids of color it impacts everyone by diminishing standards and diminishing expectations about what we know kids need to succeed. absolutely the poll that i've put up on this slide the point in showing this poll is to show that americans don't like the ideas that are built into critical race theory. i mean over and over again. we see polling that americans don't want students taught that slavery is what to find who we are as americans. it is something that should be taught. it is something something that schools, you know, should not avoid but it's not something that they want to define them or to define their present. and so i think to recognize and polls like this that americans are very much aware that when they hear something like we've what we've described up here that this doesn't sound right to them right that this description of critical race theory. it does not sound like what should define the communities which they live. um, so my last question for you, so we've talked about some caricatures of america's sense of national identity, which is something that i bring up in my book splintered and and you know three of the big takeaways that i felt were important were, you know first that we should be getting to a place where you know, martin luther king jr's words of judging people by their characters, very important, but if you're not interested in that, how about his other sermon where he says we have to be a culture who loves their neighbor right? and that is ultimately what we need to be striving towards right that is the sense of cultural habitus that we need to be building around not these ideas that will be taking people apart. i think another big takeaway is the scholarship which is quite good excellent. in fact from those in fact a colleague of yours at 1776 units john sibley butler who looks at the entrepreneurship of americans who are black in the 19th century and in the 20th century even in the midst of these obstacles and what they were able to overcome is a clear honorable and end in representative. i think situation that that represents and helps to define what america is all about right this overcoming of the obstacles and success in this in know despite them. and then finally the something that that struck me in the writing of this book as i was reading a book from a long time ago by gunner murdal called the american dilemma is he makes a point in there that slavery the jim crow era any source of policies redlining that were contrary that were discriminatory and contrary to our founding ideals could not long coexist for america to remain what it was meant to be and i think that that is borne out today. i think that is born out in the habitus that i was describing to you before curiously enough myrtle receives quite the bit of well a little bit anyway of criticism from those such as candy and his book can he dismisses him and i would argue that if you look closely at what murdo is saying, he's saying that there is a american identity. there is something that would not allow discrimination to last it lasted far longer than it ever should have but the very fact that our political institutions and culture had a self-correcting mechanism that allowed for it to be defeated was so important. so yeah, i mean, that's what that's what's so frustrating when you do you see projects like the discredited new york times project which literally wrote that the sounding principles were quote false when they were written, you know, the the phrase that i probably said, you know 500 times when i was running for school board in my hometown was equality of opportunity. individual dignity and our common humanity and i think it really resonated, you know, sometimes saying the obvious things gives courage to others like yeah, that's what we do believe and that's who we are. you know, there's a there's a this graphic that if you're in the education world is very widespread. it's an image of equality on the left hand side and equity on the right hand side with the inherent message that equality is bad and equity is better because what it shows is three people of different height who are trying to see a baseball game and in the equality frame each one gets a the same box. and so therefore these people of differing heights and by the way height is a euphemism for race, right? so that's your inherent advantage. if you're the tall guy, that's your white guy and so you can see the baseball game and the person the short person can't but in the equity chart, the boxes have been shifted so that the tall person no longer has a box and the short person has two boxes. and so now they're all equal in their ability to see the box and see the see game and it's this simple image but it says a tremendous amount because essentially it's the marxist ideology is from each according to their ability to each according to the need and so who is this person that is or who is this government? who's deciding? well, you have the privilege and so therefore i'm going to take away resources from you and i go through i actually have this chart in my book and i show that if you're in a classroom, for example, if you've got 20 different learners you have to differentiate instruction so that each child does get different kinds of support but not for the purpose of achieving an equal outcome, but ensure that each child has access and an equal opportunity and that's where the critical race theory in my view ideology. just completely falls down you can achieve equal outcomes unless you're somehow got some overwhelming force. neo marxist force that makes making these decisions and that's the antithesis of what we want to build in our country. it's nice to be the dictator if you're the it might have a dictator if you're the dictator, right? and so we have a few minutes left, and we'd love to take some questions from both those in the audience. and i know there are online viewers will have some as well. do we have any questions that from those of us with us here? i have to see one in the back. freedom of god even at the very beginning you mentioned that you never hear parents of the schools that you work at in south bronx minority parents. ask for these to be a part of the curriculum. can you elaborate a little more on that disconnect between elites who champion these ideas and what parents actually want and why it seems to be just this huge disconnect. right. well, i hate to use the term elites because it's it's affording a status which is unearned in my in my opinion. but yeah there is this connect. i mean and it's not just in critical. i mean consider things like defund the police. that's it. i'm going to live in my very comfortable neighborhood. that's quite safe. but over there in that neighborhood where there's a high crime rate. let's defund the police. so it's it's nonsensical because the data is overwhelming. that people who live in communities that face challenges. the very thing that they when they hear will the founding principles are false when they were written or let's defund the police like no. no, i want to embrace. i want my kids to embrace the founding principles around family faith hard work free enterprise entrepreneurship because they know that is the pathway from persecution to prosperity that millions of people of all races have followed in order to change their station in this country even in the face of structural barriers. so it's a political agenda. it's a narrative but we need efforts like splintered or agency to provide a compelling alternative to how more young people in particular can have true in their own lives. great response, and that's a great answer. any others margaret? yeah, so one is how do we get the mainstream media to permit a debate to occur between our two sides, you know, they win by ignoring us. so how do we get the word out? well, that's why i actually in my book agency. i set up this dynamic of blame the system and blame the victim because in some ways again the side there there have truths again that add up to a lie that in both instances and instances my view. it's a debilitating message to young people. i mean nicole hannah jones, who's the author of the new york times 1619 project wrote? a magazine a magazine a magazine issue called what we are owed. and basically was her treatise on why reparations is the only answer for the black community a 13 trillion dollar reparations program and in it. she says it doesn't matter. what a black person does doesn't matter if you get educated doesn't matter if you get married doesn't matter if you buy a home doesn't matter if you save none of those things. can overcome 400 years of racialized plundering and quote? imagine if you were 12 year old black kid. you hear that? like, how can you possibly think you can be successful in this country? right, but you also don't want to send the message that you've got to do this on your own that that you've got to be that single person at 12 years old who can just leap over, you know, overcome any boundary. so that's why i set up these two narratives that i think are competing with each other in my view agency this idea of the the force of your free will guided by moral discernment force of your free will guided by moral discernment so agencies like a vector you know velocity is not just speed it's speed and direction. so the question is if you do have free will what are the institutions that are going to help you become morally discerning in your own personal choices, and that's why this framework family religion education entrepreneurship. i put forth as those pillars of society, which have more young people were to embrace they'd find the supports that can help them be successful to overcome the institutional barriers that the critical race is constantly say are insurmountable while also knowing there are support there are institutions like the church your own family. schools and school choice that can help you be successful. so that's the nuance that i think we have to advocate for and part of the reason i run schools. we also have to build institutions that actually embody the principles that we're talking about. right, so my school, you know, it's going to be organized around the four cardinal virtues of courage justice wisdom and temperance and the idea of equality of opportunity individual dignity and common humanity and we want to show that you can actually build institutions that live up to these values. well, i think just as well. we need the media to recognize the facts and i think when you show the facts and i remember responding to that essay that you were talking about in with an article and i one of the things i brought up was the success sequence, which i know you've done all sorts of research on and but that this idea that you can keep yourself out of poverty by finishing high school getting a job and getting married before you have children and when you showcase that there are behaviors and decisions that you can make that are a part of you know, it requires the types of communities through the schools and churches as well to support those young people, but when you show the evidence to the media, they need to be able to confront these facts in order for us to have a discussion about, you know, then we can talk about what the real issue is. well the irony is that in the case of the coal hannah jones and millions of americans all the things that she said doesn't matter if you do those things we be successful. well guess what in her own life. she's done all of those things right to lead a very prosperous life and good for her. yeah, so let's not let's hide the ball and not let young people know that millions of people that look just like them who were from similar situations have become successful by embracing these founding principles. yeah, and you know, that's why it's worth quoting from critical race theorists in the work that we do because they the public needs to see what these what they are saying and what they are trying to defend and once they do once they recognize the public recognizes what critical race theory really is. all right, then we can have a debate about whether you want to go that way or not because we have talked about what we're actually doing right? i mean the one thing i'll say in defense. of the 1619 project is that it actually did reveal that there is an interest in our country of learning more about history broadly and african-american history in particular. and by the way, you know, according to the national assessment for educational progress back in 2019 only 15% of all kids have any basic understanding of american history. it's just that where we disagree. is that the history that in our view that they portray is very cherry picked and negative. we say, you know warts and all so i joined forces with bob woodson, and we created 1776 units to build a curriculum. there's now been downloaded more than 30,000 times by teachers in all 50 states and district schools charter schools home schools after schools prison ministries. because in again in our view we're teaching a more expansive full truth story of the african-american experience united states to tell specific stories, but have you but are universal and timeless in their appeal because they stand for all of these curriculum units are around the principles of family faith hard work free enterprise entrepreneurship not running from america's past but sharing how the embrace of these principles were the vehicle through which we could improve and in splintered. i call it a vacuum. i mean there's a vacuum of lack of knowledge about civics and history that test show over and over again and it's being filled now with these ideas from critical race theory that they're trying to disguise by not calling it critical race theory for sure. so i think we have time for one more question before we close margaritas there another from online. sure. one person said i'm starting to see commentary associate seo which i believe social-emotional learning with with crt. what are your thoughts? so i would you know, i would just start by saying that sociomotional learning just like math science history has been co-opted by critical race theory. i think the evidence on seo prior to this recent phase of three or four years where crt is in the news all the time was just not conclusive that it was effective in the first place. so it's arguable about we can have a discussion about whether it should be taught and how it should be best done, but i would argue that now it has been taken over by critical race theory just as math science and history the same way. i mean in my book i talk about scl in north carolina and how they're at one time. anyway, you know how these things get scrub from websites once it's covered that critical race theory is there but there is an sel guide book that had you know, white privilege in it discussions of critical race theory without calling it crt. so it is just as with all these other subjects. it's been taken over now. yeah, i mean similar to anti-racist. i mean who wouldn't want to be anti-racist until you actually see how it's defined like, i'm against racism, but i'm not anti-racist, right? so social emotional learning similarly, of course particularly in the last two years. i mean kids have experienced and adults have experienced great amount of negative experiences particularly related to school given covid and and remote learning all of that. but what it is now evolved into our in my view reduction of academic standards. reduction of expectations around excellence and a lot of more identity-based practice where now you can get the transgender issue and other things too, but things that are far away from the core elements of what i think sel was originally intended to support kids. yeah, great point well in the last few minutes remaining i'm gonna give a sneak peek at one other project that ian and i had the chance to work together on as well as some who are here and the heritage building but forthcoming in april and is a book called the critical classroom, which has folks who we both know who wrote chapters and contributed to it, but it talks about the manifestation of critical race theory in k-12 schools today, and so that'll be available for ordering online at heritage.org coming soon. so check back to the heritage website for more information about that book. so thank you to everyone who joined us online. thank you to see span books and thanks for everyone who's here today, and it's been a pleasure having you. so thank you very much. thank you. good morning, everybody. welcome to history 3011 the american revolution. hope all of you had a great spring break last weekend and look forward to hearing a little bit more about. what you did? in our upcoming discussions now we spent the last two weeks talking about the war of independence the actual war. and the amazing thing about the revolution is that while war was raging american drove constitutions and debated how to construct a government that would protect the people's rights and in facilitate their happiness. i mean this word happiness is not just appear in the declaration of independence. it appears over and over and over again