School Daze

It's that time of year.

The end of August and the beginning of September is when America's children head back to school.  Most of these children will be going to public schools, including most children of conservatives.  And that bothers me. 

For decades conservatives have sounded the alarm about the academic failings and leftist social engineering plaguing public education.  And for decades conservative parents have kept sending their children to public schools.  Why?  If public schools have become liberalism's madrassas, as Ann Coulter called them, why do conservative parents blithely entrust their children to them?  What kind of sense does that make?

Yes, I understand that the main alternatives to public education, homeschooling and private schools, aren't feasible for some conservative parents.  But I suspect that a lot of conservatives could home school or private school their kids but just aren't willing to make the sacrifices that would entail.  They'd rather take the easier and cheaper way out and send little Johnny to public school, convincing themselves that he'll somehow escape the secular progressive indoctrination endemic there.  He won't.

Polls show that the majority of younger Americans, those 30 and under, support Obama, while the majority of older Americans don't.  Why this generation gap?  Public schools.  They have been shockingly successful at inculcating the PC, liberal, big government ideology into their captive audience of children.  Conservatives know this, yet they keep giving public schools their kids.  It makes me wonder how committed conservatives really are to the survival of their own principles.

I believe that if conservatives want their beliefs to not only survive but flourish then private education must become the norm for them.   Public schools are hostile to conservative ideals and that isn't going to change any time soon.  Entrusting their children to public education when they don't absolutely have to is, in my view, a failure of conservative parenting.  It's like Abraham Lincoln said.  The political philosophy in the classroom in one generation becomes the political philosophy of the country in the next generation.  Conservatives can stop that "prophecy" dead in its tracks.  Don't send little Johnny to the little red school house.  Teach him at home or use private education.  Aren't conservative ideals worth the sacrifice?

It's Really That Simple

Many conservatives realize the growing power of the Hispanic vote and are almost desperate to grab an election-winning piece of it.  To do that some are opining that the GOP needs to move to the left on the issue of illegal immigration.  No, they don't say it like that but that's what it boils down to.  The GOP needs to ditch its "hardline", claim these conservatives, and soften its message.  I say no.  The GOP's position on illegal immigration is not hardline, nor is it complicated.  In fact, it's quite simple; we just need a simple, direct explanation of it to Hispanics and anyone else who leans left on this issue.  And I think I have it.

Imagine America is a store.  Imagine you're the store owner.  Like any businessman you love paying customers but hate shoplifters.  Paying customers build your business up, so you welcome them.  Shoplifters, on the other hand, tear your business down so you do anything you can to keep them out of your store.  And no one would blame you for that.  It's the same with immigration.  Come to America legally, learn our language, respect our culture, i.e., be a "paying customer", and you'll be welcomed.  Come to America illegally, impose your language on us, disrespect our culture, i.e., be a "shoplifter", and you will NOT be welcomed, nor should you expect to be.  And that goes for foreign nationals of every race.  That's the Republican position on immigration.  It's really that simple.

What objection can you raise to that, liberals?