This Nation Needs an Enema

"Ask not what your country can do for you, [THE REST OF THIS QUOTE IS OPTIONAL WITH WRITTEN PARENTAL CONSENT]"

This nation needs a serious enema. I'm talking a total intellectual high colonic. We've reached a serious WTF?! moment when a sitting president of the U.S. can't even plan a "stay in school" message to schoolkids without the ignorant masses getting into a tizzy. We all love the 1st amendment, but we tend to want to silence those with whom we disagree. "I don't like him, get him off of the air!" Seems a little anti-American doesn't it? Seems anti-democratic to wish to silence people's views. Almost seems communist. And they do it, on the left and the right. What kind of message are we passing along to our children when rather than expose them to myriad viewpoints and then teach them right from wrong, we censor what we do not like and inculcate our children with our self-righteous idea of patriotism? Not a fortnight goes by when somebody isn't protesting to shut somebody up. People take to the streets, the papers, the airwaves to exercise their 1st amendment rights calling to take away those of someone else. Do they fail to see the irony?

Why not use something as a teachable moment, as a way of illustrating that free speech is a responsibility that goes hand in hand with free thought. Parents should use these opportunities to tell their children why they feel that what was said or broadcast is right or wrong. Instead they take the easy route and hermetically seal their child's ears from reality in the hopes that they can somehow handle it when mommy and daddy's earmuffs are out of earshot.

So the President of the "Greatest Democracy on Earth" wants to address America's schoolchildren, tell them to "stay in school" just like many presidents did before him. (The last president notwithstanding, it's interesting that this flap comes up after an 8 year absence of an intellectual leader -- "wait, this guy can read and speak coherantly? That's novel".) But the same cancerous forces that divided this nation under 8 years of neoconservatism continue to divide the nation today. The big boys fight over health care, label their opponents as "socialist." And the simple message to "stay in school" becomes a political lightning rod. Why encourage free thought? People who think freely might actually ask their leaders for better healthcare. Educated masses might actually hold their leaders accountable and not succumb to mindless propaganda. It was encouraging last November to see a man elected despite the color of his skin. Hope and change were in the air.

Still, roughly nine months later, our nascent change has a way to go....