Obama Wants To Talk To My Children Now?
There’s an interesting article in the WSJ today about the reaction to Obama’s planned televised speech to school children, planned for Tuesday. White House plans were released that scared some people. From the article:
Mr. Obama plans to encourage children to achieve their educational goals in a televised speech from a Virginia high school at noon Tuesday, according to the White House. Lesson suggestions to accompany the speech at first encouraged students to write letters to themselves about ways in which they could “help the president,” stirring an outcry among some conservatives, who said the assignment was an effort to politicize children.
Yes, this sounds completely ridiculous to me, too. Shouldn’t the President be able to encourage school children to stay in school? Is this really a race issue? Are people protesting because they can’t imagine a black man addressing their children?
That could be part of it. But I think this comes down to a fundamental disagreement about the role of government in our society. People worry that if their children are exposed to a radical ideology when they are young and vulnerable, their values may shift in a harmful direction for the country.
I can understand this fear. I certainly wouldn’t want my children exposed to someone whose views I felt were fundamentally dangerous. What if wingnut Sarah Palin were President right now, and she wanted to address my children? The woman believes that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as men. Vulnerable children might interpret her speech as sanctioned by their teachers and society…and the long struggle of human intelligence and civilization would be set back.
On the other hand, there are probably wingnut teachers embedded all over the school systems, teaching wingnut ideas to our children. We can’t hide them from ignorance forever. Like a game of wackamole, we need to be vigilant when these ideas emerge in our society. Someone needs to bonk Sarah Palin on the head whenever she opens her mouth.
So…are Obama’s ideas dangerous? Is he going to use the address to decry the evils of property ownership and individual responsibility? Is he going to push our children towards a collective society where we all become wards of the omnipotent State?
Probably not, but I’m sure this is playing well on Fox News.
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