I MOWED
And while mowing, I thought about my voting habits as a college age fellow. I did my civic duty by voting for blacks and women whom I had been taught were just as capable and were underrepresented and oppressed. I was the kind of guy who knew nothing and voted anyway -- the kind of guy who should not vote at all.
I thought about all those intro classes -- Intro to Sociology, to Psychology, to Philosophy, to Film Studies -- and how they gave me just enough indoctrination to make me think I knew something, but not enough breadth, exposure, or real debate to really make informed judgments. Tom remembers me wearing an X on my head, for Pete's sake.
Wasn't it Stalin who said control the schools and use them to mold young people's minds? A mere generation since I espoused all the liberal talking points and voted for Clinton, have we lost the fight? Does Obama win, not on merit but because we've all been taught it's the right thing to do? That his merit is that he's not the rich white guy, and that's enough?
I believed back then that the European white man was the problem, and anything else was a better solution. Later, I grew up and decided that was no way to pick a President, or congressman, or state auditor, or anything else, but I feel today like I am now in a minority that will only get smaller, which bothers me not because I think I am so right but because I think I used to be so wrong, and because everyone who was schooled after me has received the same indoctrination yet lacks my benefit of years.
3 comments:
I'm doing my best to shine a beacon of hope in the mire. Truthfully, there are many more "Rush Baby" professors out there like me and I think, as the Baby Boom generation dies out, you'll see a gradual change out. I see it in my own department with many Professors my own age espousing openly conservative/Chirstian and/or Libertarian views. Keep the faith brother! It's always darker before the dawn. This election cycle is much like 1976 with a moderate President and a Moderate candidate running out of scandal and war. The Dems could have run Captain Kangaroo and would be ticking up in the poles. It's not who the Dems are the problem, it's the Republicans who have forgotten who they are (or are supposed to be). McCain would be up 20 points in the poles if he had come out against this Bail-out plan and for conservative ideas. But that's not the "Maverick" thing to do, so he will lose possibly, and I say good. Let's have a new generation see that socialist ideas do not work and they'll remember or realize why. They we'll rise from the ashes, and sweep again (I hope, and Lord willing).
That was a poignant and heartfelt post, E. I tried to think of a comment, but you said it all.
When I was coming of age in college, I was lucky to have Stamper at my side. We both shared the Jeffersonian outlook on life and liberty and would keep each other sane with wry comments whenever the liberal world view was presented as fact.
My first vote was for Bush 1, which at the time held promise of being Reagan 3. I barely listen to Rush anymore, but at that time, finding that there were not only people like Rush but they could actually appear on the radio was a revelation that brought great hope to a young fella in the wilderness, vindicating that my outlook was shared by men today and not merely in history.
Bush was mediocre but along came the next great conservative hero, Newt Gingrinch, who lead a wave of conservatism into congress in '94 and promised a national shift in ideals that sadly seems antiquated now.
Bush W has been a horrible leader who grew government like LBJ was whispering in his ear, and there is now very little separating conservatism and liberalism other than the timetable for withdrawal in Iraq. It's not the conservative ideal that has changed, but the lack of true leadership that will faithfully steward the cause.
These things are cyclical and our country will not stand in ruins during our lifetimes so we play for the long run. There will be bad economic times and eight years of Obama in the short term and maybe that is what men of reason need as a call to action to determine that these times are unacceptable.
After only two years of Clintons, there was a Gingrich. The times make the man. 2010 holds promise.
Post a Comment