Anyone who has taught in the American secondary education system knows first hand how superficial the process can be and what little it teaches. Eighty per cent of Americans cannot read beyond an eighth grade level. 44% of students admitted to college drop out by their fourth year. It's a rare event if an American can tell you who invented the TV or the jet engine, or the computer or discovered penicillin. Everyone knows Alexander Bell invented the telephone but wouldn't know he was born in Scotland. The main teaching methodology requires a student to sit there, be quiet, do the test, get the grade, leave. So it is frightening to read or listen to adult conservatives who try to argue a case in any logical manner. The main proof for the correctness of their arguments seems to be "This is my opinion so it must be right." "It's in the Constitution. " (which of course they have never read) "This is my right as a citizen." and at worst "If God wanted us to wear masks he would have equipped us with one."

Today's political cartoon follows that same path. If you want to pull down a monument you are an Islamist extremist capable of barbaric acts of murder and genocide. Telling the cartoonist that Columbus was a sailor not a prophet that he discovered the West Indies which he thought were the East Indies and he never set foot on North American shores might be to undercut the perceived ideas told from the perspective of the invader. Columbus was a harbinger of death. His discovery of America led to the deaths of millions from the pandemics introduced by the Spanish and other Europeans. You might want to add that the Vikings actually reached these shores before Columbus. Is there a statue? Who cares?

Misquoting people comes naturally to conservatives who want to give themselves scholarly credibility. I think your cartoonist was trying to misquote Churchill "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it" which was actually by George Santayana. (How on earth do you "destroy history"?) Destroying people's perceptions of history by looking for the truth is another matter. Edmund Burke wrote, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." The latter quotation seems particularly relevant today. However, it all goes to feed the ignorant conservative mind whose mouthpiece, the President, just says any old thing that comes into his head. Usually nonsense and usually hurtful and usually not true. What's the "lie count" now? I have lost track.

We actually only have one enemy in this country and it's ignorance and at the moment, it's winning and destroying us. Thank you Rupert Murdoch. Thank you Facebook. Thank you the internet and thank you all the media platforms which allow the voices of ignorance to prosper and make money from it. How far down the path of losing our democracy do we have to travel before we realize we need to be on the bus going in the other direction? All we can do is remember what was left in Pandora's box. It's all we have.