Posted by
Mustang on Saturday, November 29, 2008 9:38:02 AM
Kathleen Parker’s recent article in Jewish World Review does a good job assessing the average American’s understanding of civics, and she was equally credible tying this lack of understanding in to our recent presidential elections. She does overlook one or two things, however. The first is that American education today is precisely where socialist educators wanted it to be from the beginning of their efforts ninety years ago. We cannot expect the American people to choose wisely (from a conservative point of view), when liberal educators have been busily dumbing down our children for more than three generations. I agree American voters did not choose wisely in the past election, but they do have a right under our Constitution to throw off the manacles of freedom in exchange “free” government programs. Our forefathers didn’t trust popular wisdom, and this explains why they created a republic, rather than a democracy.
Last week Victor Hanson wrote a typically exceptional essay, during which he reminded us, “Failure is not an option.” I had to laugh. Failure is most certainly an option. It has always been an option . . . just not one that we older Americans selected for our Nation, our families, or future generations. Failure is always possible, and perhaps even likely in the most difficult endeavors. But we should note the difference between the failure of men who tried to do well, but fell short, and those who failed because they were lazy, inept, or corrupt. Republicans failed when they promised us smaller government, when they reneged on their contract with America. One cannot achieve smaller government while maintaining massive spending, and I think spending less is the key to conservative, smaller government.
The other day, I watched a YouTube video with Mary Katherine Ham participating in a Heritage Foundation forum. The entire focus of the discussion surrounded the question of how to attract younger voters to the conservative camp. They discussed video presentations and ‘chic’ gadgets, and massive text messaging ala Barack Obama. I suppose that’s our direction these days. But I wonder how much substance one can possibly put in 140 characters of text messaging? Not much; but then, how much substance can younger people retain for more than thirty seconds? As I listened carefully to the discussion, it suddenly dawned on me these people were discussing almost everyone in the United States below my age bracket. The “new generation” consists of people content to know, rather than to understand . . . they would rather amuse themselves with video games than read a book.
The new conservative leaders are people like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindel, and Mark Sanford . . . and while they may recall Ronald Reagan for his contributions, they speak of Reaganism as something that occurred in the “olden days,” somewhere around time when Davy Crockett “kilt his self a bar when he was only three.” I cannot help but wonder if Ham’s post-election discussion would have pursued a different track had John McCain not demonstrated how irrelevant or “out of touch” older people are.
I wish the new generation luck, of course. The new conservative leaders will be dealing directly with people who are the product of liberal education, who do not know the fundamentals of American government, and true to form, don’t really care. Liberals, of course, understand it is easy to lead the ignorant . . . and this is why I believe so much effort has gone into dumbing down the American people. Conspiracy theories always raise eyebrows, but I can find no other explanation why extraordinarily expensive school systems are only able to produce woefully uninformed people who lack the capacity of critical thinking. Well, it did seem to work well enough for socialists in Europe; we Americans just happen to be the last great society to trade government oppression for human dignity and liberty.
After the new generation of conservative political leader finds out how to send text messages, wrap themselves in attractive packaging, and learn how to speak to vast crowds in small sound bites, I hope someone will do something important for the American education system, if it isn’t too late. Since only thirty-four percent of the American electorate is conservative, the failure of our new political leaders to woo moderates toward traditional ideology can only mean one thing: the end of conservatism.
Cross-post: Conservative Convictions