TBWAIN - AKA Jeff Svare's Blog

Back on 12 July 2018, City Weekly ran a story on the Orem Colonial Heritage Festival called, Breaking Chains, Building Links . It's an excellent piece, detailing efforts to raise the understanding of what life was like in Colonial America. One part of the story brought front and center to me the lousy job we are doing of teaching children about American History. "On Day 2 of the festival, actors playing James Madison and Patrick Henry workshopped their ideas in front of a large crowd, asking how to set up a system of checks and balances to dilute presidential power and how to preserve the rights of individual Americans. Turning their attention to who should be allowed to have a voice in the political process, faux Madison and Henry mentioned that each slave's voice should constitute three-fifths of a vote. A young white girl around 10 years old slid toward the edge of her seat and interjected loud enough that her voice carried above the crowd.  "Slaves should c...

Lots of commentary and opinion has been thrown around regarding the Trump administration's decision to include a question on citizenship in the next census. Lots of people have weighed in on it, and made statements both accurate and inaccurate, but I haven't seen any one of them yet say anything about what's been asked in previous censuses. I'm going to do that here. But first, Why does the United States take a census anyway? Taking of a census is mandated by the United States Constitution, Article I, section 2:     "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct." What's the data used for? To determine the representation of each state in the House of Representatives. The 14th amendment to the Constitution accomplishes several things: It established the basis for citizenship in the United States...