Science & Math, and more...

Science and math. Yes, we should definitely study science. We need to be better at it and for one important reason: we are a republic.

Our citizens must study what Hamilton and Madison called political science. Three hundred millions, a vast continental space that is our political map, international challenges, an ever-changing set of variables. Preserving and strengthening the foundational structure of our political system is essential to all of our endeavors.

At its most basic, how can we create great technical achievements but allow erosion of the political system, the press and our very freedoms? We've seen that before - Nazi Germany armed with superior science.

While our methods are not subject to pure mathematical models, we may consult history for prior to attempts to design and organize working government systems; how men and women have behaved under similar circumstances in the past; what results from temptation, greed, honor, passion, power; the consequences of a breakdown of principles; structure that provides order and that prevents the destructive unleashing of intelligent, resourceful, and cunning men with black hearts.

We are the most complex set of variables of all. Every citizen needs to know the essential elements of our political system and the ways in which its delicate balance may be harmfully altered.

Quarks and quanta are surely complex, but we creatures that discover and understand these phenomena are, by our cleverness and creative ethos, also phenomena of the first order. To organize our disparate nation and achieve cohesion political science - Civics - instruction is essential.

If the polis falls apart, or mutates into a radical form, we will have lost what fundamentally sustains us and the hard-won freedoms we have inherited.