Al Franken famously wrote, paraphrasing, that "conservatives" (a term I'll use here as shorthand for people who put themselves on the Republican Party's political color-war team) love America the way a 4-year-old loves his mommy, whereas "liberals" (ditto the Democratic Party) love it the way an adult loves her spouse.
Hereagain we find conservatives, this time in Jefferson County, Colorado, trying to replace the "adult" version of American history with the "4-year-old" version, viz., the one in which mommy/America is perfect and good and anyone who says otherwise is a bad person who should be ignored and punished. Inter alia, this history curriculum is supposed to "emphasize" the "positive aspects" of U.S. history (and, naturally, of conservative ideology such as the "benefits of the free market system"), while essentially pretending that America has never done anything bad to anyone; not to the Indians, not to African slaves, not to any of its own people, and not to the rest of the world.
Yes, it's stupid; yes, it's childish; yes, it's cynical; and to their credit, the kids are not taking it lying down. And yes, conservatives have done this before and they'll do it again. JM Ashby over at Bob Cesca's blog has pointed out a couple of times that "conservatives [apparently] want to emulate the educational practices of nations they would call enemies by censoring negative events in our history," and that the irony is completely lost on them is not the least bit surprising.
The superficial motivation should be obvious: Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be liberals. Don't let 'em vote Democrat and protest social wrongs; make 'em watch Fox News, and sing patriotic songs. If there's one thing I think everyone can agree on about conservatives, is that they strongly dislike liberals and liberalism. They have about as much love and respect for liberals and liberalism as they have knowledge and understanding thereof. They simply, and quite literally, don't want kids growing up to be liberals, which might make them consider voting Democratic in national elections. Anything they can do to prevent anyone from ever voting for the evil commiesocialist far-left liberal Democrat Party, is worth a try.
But how does teaching the "America, F*** YEAH!" version of history in high school accomplish that goal? Do they think that instilling mindless jingoistic rah-rah fanboy "patriotism" is enough to get kids to vote Republican when they get to college and keep voting Republican throughout adulthood? I doubt it. Conservatives may think they and the GOP have a monopoly on that bullshit, but they don't. And I don't think they really care about whether young people actually "love" or "hate" their country, or think it's a "good country" or a "bad country" (as if those are the only options). No; the key lies in the censorship, downplaying, whitewashing or omission of some of the less-flattering aspects of the American legacy -- and, more to the point, what Americans have done about them. Conservatives are trying to eradicate liberalism not only from the present, but from the past.
See, the basis and purpose of conservatism, in a broad and somewhat over-simplified sense, is to preserve the status quo, maintain "tradition," and keep things The Way Things Should Be™. The analogous basis and purpose of liberalism is not so much to change things and abandon "tradition" but to examine The Way Things Should Be, recognize where Things should not Be, or should no longer Be, that Way, find where Things are wrong and make them right. I think it would be fair to say that liberals tend to question that which conservatives accept, and vice-versa.
Which brings us, of course, to all the things we've seen throughout history that conservatives accepted and that liberals questioned; that liberals criticized conservatives for accepting and that conservatives criticized liberals for questioning; that conservatives wanted to keep the way they were and that liberals wanted to make go away. Liberals freed the slaves. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals created the 40-hour work week and got children out of the factories. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals made our food, medicines, highways and airplanes safe. Liberals are getting gay marriage legalized and are going to get marijuana legalized. I, and everyone else who reads The Daily Kos, could go on and on.
The goal of this "conservative" version of history in which America has never done anything wrong, is to make liberalism not only irrelevant, not just self-evidently wrong and bad for the country, but completely and entirely unnecessary. If America has never committed any wrongs, then we never needed liberals or liberalism to right those wrongs. If America is perfect, we don't need liberals to fulfill the Constitution's goal of making it "more perfect." If nothing needs to change, we don't need liberals or liberalism to change anything or to even advocate change; indeed, change can only be for the worse because everything is fine just the way it is and could not possibly be better.
Conservatives aren't afraid that kids will grow up "hating" their country or thinking it's a "bad" country, or that they won't buy into their adolescent "love it or leave it" rhetoric. No; they're afraid that kids will grow up without harboring reflexive hostility toward liberals and liberalism and the Democrat Party 24 hours per day. They're afraid that if we don't censor our history, if kids learn that America has been wrong from time to time, they will also learn that it was liberals who righted those wrongs -- and act, and vote, accordingly.