`What do you expect. People send their kids to government schools for 13 years, then they go to hammer & sickle colleges for 4 more. Do you expect them to come out capitalists? The way to raise intelligent kids is to teach them yourselves, and just let them learn.

I don't really have much confidence in government-operated schools teaching thought processes; I don't think such schools are ultimately going to make much distinction between how and what. When you have the government in charge of teaching epistemology, you are going to eventually have government thought control. What I want is outright abolition.

I like what you said about teachers used to teach students how to think. My favorite instructor started the year off giving us a stack of papers with our assignments which we could do all at once or take a semester to complete (as we wished). That really made you think! Actually he ended his career being a favorite of just about every student he taught. We all went to his 95th birthday party. Our small class graduated engineers (one who discovered a new species of life), teachers, various executives, and several career military men, nurses (21 boys and 19 girls).

Teachers used to teach students how to think. Now they tell them what to think. Teaching rote doctrine as the scripture of a secular religion closes the mind to logical discourse. Charter schools are becoming a popular alternative, primarily because children in these schools are perceived as better thinkers.

Of course. Who wouldn't be tempted??

What we need to do is get rid of public education. I mean government-financed, government-operated education. Aside from its not being a police function, education teaches thought processes, and that is something the government, whether state, local, or Federal, should not be in charge of. It is bound to lead to government thought control. It never should have been started in this country, and we should put an end to it as soon as possible. (Which might not be very soon, but the home-schooling movement could help).

This has nothing to do with idealism or altruism. It is pure (temporary) self-interest. If you are paying little or no taxes and someone promises you free tuition, free medical care and forgiveness for all student loan debt, you'll be tempted.

Young people are attracted to Utopian concepts, and it isn't new. The Communist ideology was quite popular in the 1930s, given capitalism was being blamed for the depression. The young are even more drenched today in the belief that these unworkable ideas are more "fair" than a capitalist representative republic.

We already have more than enough socialist fixes that address poverty, so the new angle is how "inequality" of wealth is unjust. Bernie Sanders is representative of that thinking when he says there should be a limit on how much money one is allowed to have, suggesting any income over a million dollars should be taxed 100%.

For many of these naive young people, reality eventually sets in, and they witness how the best of intentions fail more frequently than they succeed. Unfortunately, the damage is perpetuated by flawed representatives they voted in who live in a delusional state inside the beltway.

Good story. Likely forbidden reading for the illiberals.
If you can get the average IQ down to zero you have achieved equality.

One of my favorite short stories of all time is Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron". It's a classic which exposes the fallacy of enforced equality.

If they keep trying they may finally achieve equality. The only way that could be done is to make human beings equally extinct. Destroying the faculty of reason is a very effective way to achieve that.

More like critical insanity. Theory implies that you try something and actually learn from the outcome. Progressives keep trying the same failed things over and over expecting to get different results.

Tiger77. There comes a time when “another perspective” can not be tolerated without losing civil society; a time to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor” in order to “(re)establish justice, insure domestic tranquility” et al.

Yet what these nationalizing socialists teach is critical theory.

This is the result of the education system which was taken over and nationalized. It started slowly and then took off during the 60's. Studies continue to show that a vast majority of college professors are liberal-progressives and they teach according to that mindset. The irony is that at the same time they keep calling for students to be taught "critical thinking" skills!

No, they are educated not to think and to do as told. Civic is not taught. Victimhood is taught. Oppressor and oppressed.
Indoctrination to induce cancer to bring this country down from within.

The middle sounds great. No more social justice and identity politics. No more government banking and crony capitalism.

We can dream.

This isn’t new- in fact it’s as old as mankind. This is what coined the phrase loosely quoted- If you aren’t liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. If you aren’t conservative when you’re older, you have no brain. People’s ideologies evolve. Mine did- and each will evolve according to their own experience and perception which is for all intents and purposes, their reality. The truth is, liberalism and conservatism today aren’t what they were in their classical form during the time of our forefathers. Liberalism then was educating liberally like putting gravy on potatoes liberally-and focusing on individual liberties. Conservatism was looking at other societies / nations experiences when certain changes were made before making a similar change- and not changing for the sake of doing something different. That is what liberalism and conservatism were. Past tense. Neither term means today what it meant back then. I submit that choosing one today in its entirety isn’t practical. It leaves no room for any consideration for another perspective. One can be for the second amendment while being pro-choice. In identity politics, there is an inherent dogma- the stigma that says there is only room for one ideology & the other is wrong. During campaigns, two minorities exist; the base of both sides. Division must be created FROM and AMONGST the middle to gain the edge & hence a majority. Wouldn’t it be something if we could cause those we vote for to be more balanced and bring them to the middle rather than in-fighting amongst ourselves- won’t that be a sight?

[Sarcasm]The study showed that young people are more liberal than older people? How can that be? It must be some kind brainwashing conspiracy b/c we've never seen this phenomenon before. [/Sarcasm]
Sorry for the sarcasm. On a serious note, I think younger people are more liberal b/c a) liberals promote "change" and b) because it's easier to fall for facile solutions when you're inexperienced.

Yes