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Actor Kelsey Grammer issued a warning about the state of American education, arguing that citizens who fail to learn the nation’s founding history risk being manipulated.
Speaking on “Planet Tyrus” Tuesday, Grammer called for an overhaul of the nation’s education system while pushing back against critics who dismiss the Founding Fathers as “old White guys in wigs.”
“If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know who you are. If you don’t know who you are, you can be controlled,” Grammer warned.
Kelsey Grammer speaks onstage during a screening of “Frasier” Season 2 at Quad Cinema on Sept. 16, 2024, in New York City. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Paramount+)
“There’s a whole bunch of things that just have got to stop with our educational system, and we got to retool it. There’s no question,” he said.
Grammer recently starred in the film, “Young Washington,” which follows the Founding Father before he became the nation’s first president. Grammer also hosted the six-episode Fox Nation series “The Patriot War,” narrating key points in the American Revolution ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The former “Frasier” and “Cheers” actor said America’s past serves as a blueprint for its future — one he believes many young people are dismissing.
“Yeah, I’m pretty tired of the old White guy in [a] wig thing,” Grammer told Tyrus. “I mean Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote what is arguably the most important political document in the history of man,” he said.
Kelsey Grammer portrays George Washington in the 2003 historical drama “Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor.” (Entertainment Pictures)
Grammer emphasized that the American Revolution was fought on radical ideas rather than identity and called for a stronger push to teach early American history.
“It never had anything to do with the way you looked,” Grammer said. “It had everything to do with the way you thought and the way you dreamed, and that’s all America.”
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He argued the Founding Fathers did not claim America would be perfect but envisioned an evolving quest for better.
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“The land of the possible. Yeah, absolutely. It’s always [going to] fall a little short, but that’s just it. It’s the world of becoming. We’re becoming a more perfect union, always, rather than we just are one,” Grammer said.
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Grammer said that most of the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence “ended in ruin” by sacrificing everything for the nation. He added, “Some of their children were murdered, some of their wives were raped,” and said their spirit of resilience in hard times remains today.
“They paid the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate one. And they would probably do it again. And I think that sort of character is what still is in most of us. I believe in America that way,” Grammer said.