Addressing Our Students... A Double Standard

President Obama is scheduled to make a speech to students today in Utah. The purpose of the speech, unlike many of his recent speeches, was to focus on the benefits of continued education and (hopefully) inspiring students to continue learning. Unfortunately, most anything Obama does these days comes under tremendous scrutiny and is turned into a major partisan dilemma which has a tendency to turn ugly, even when it doesn't need to. No sooner the news was released that Obama was planning on making this speech to schoolchildren across the nation on September 8th, cries of protest began ringing out across the nation; one of the loudest was from Glenn Beck, the conservative commentator from Fox News who made comments that basically implied that this speech was intended to brainwash children into following socialism.

I think it's a sad day in this country when kids are being told by their parents that they shouldn't listen to their leaders. Apparently because Obama is a Democrat (I will try to avoid labeling people as liberals or conservatives because the disparity between those two classifications is growing day by day) there is a fear among Republicans that he will try to influence children into following his advice. What do they have to fear? Honestly, even if this were a politically tinged speech, none of his target audience are old enough to do anything about it. Kids in elementary school aren't old enough to vote. They can't vote for change in Congress and even the oldest ones will barely be old enough to enlist in the military after graduating from high school so then why the 'fear' that Obama intends to brainwash them? Is it because they think that he will attempt to promote some other agenda?

Well why the double standard? On September 11th 2001, President Bush was in an elementary school in Florida where he was giving a televised new conference on the merits of education. He didn't really get to deliver the message because of the terrible events of that day but a little over a month later, he delivered a speech at Wooten High School in Rockville, Maryland where the message was to be 'patriotism and the efforts to increase patriotism in high schools'. Sounds like a good thing. I remember when I was in high school there were many students who refused to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. I used to feel frustrated at that fact that many people didn't appreciate what they did have and rather chose to focus on only the negative aspects of their lives in this country. Still, about halfway through his speech, Bush began talking about his plans for the global war on terrorism.

Recent evidence shows that by this time there was already planning underway for Afghanistan and that plans were already being laid out for the invasion of Iraq even though intelligence sources around the world could not find a link between 9-11 and Iraq. Nevertheless, Bush used the speech to tout his agenda and his plans and made oblique remarks to the effect that like the heroes of World War II, Bush was looking to this current crop of students to do the right thing and support their country. He didn't say it blatantly at the time but it is clear in retrospect that his goal was to 'inspire' students to be ready to fight back against those who attacked our country on 9-11. And indeed, many of the students who did graduate that year did enlist and have fought (and in some cases have died) in both those conflicts. At that time though there was no talk about partisanism or the fact that Bush used the speech to push his agenda.

At that time it was okay to push agendas and be patriotic. At that time it was okay to declare anyone against the President as being un-American or un-Patriotic. No matter what anyone says, the greatest influence a child has is the people who takes care of them whether that's a parent or a guardian. If a child is influenced by something the caretaker of that child is the one responsible for talking things out with their kids and helping them understand just what it is they are asking. In the case of Obama's speech, the fear that he will preach and therefore 'brainwash' kids into becoming 'socialists' smacks to me of the Red Scare and Joseph McCarthy. To me, if a child suddenly comes up to a parent wondering why socialism (if that is what they interpret his speech to be) is wrong then a parent should explain it. Do a practical example and help kids understand what the difference is. Don't know how? Simple. Take your kid and have them do all the chores while you (the parent) do nothing. Take $10 and divide it equally among the two of you (so $5 each) and explain it is for all the chores done.

Knowing kids their immediate reaction would be to state how 'unfair' that is and you will have effectively helped explain to them what is wrong in socialism. Now if you feel that that's what Obama is going to be doing then what you will have done in addition to explaining the ills of socialism is convert another child into a stringent follower of conservative government ideals so again it's a win-win situation all around. I think Roosevelt said it best when he said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". He was talking about the efforts and steps needed to recover from the Great Depression. In this case I think we have become so divided as a society that the only thing that I have to fear is the crass and hypocritical ways in which so many people are behaving now that the President is from the opposing party.

You don't have to mindlessly agree with him nor do you have to like what he says, but to shun anything he says without listening to it and accepting it as the gospel is wrong. Remember "Mission Accomplished" (finally admitted to be a mistake by the Bush Administration and his cohorts)? At that point hostilities had ended in the war in Iraq. Yet years and thousands of deaths later, the war continues. Isn't that a case of being 'brainwashed' and blindly accepting what you're told? Perhaps that's the fear that many conservatives have; the fact that some facts on why it made sense to invade Iraq were mistated or out and out lies but were fed to the public, so perhaps they believe that Obama is going to do the same thing. A safe theory to have given the history of the last 8 years but still, that's not why we should listen. I think the base message of the importance on continuing education is what is missing and the sad thing is that children may miss out because their parents are too busy worrying about potential socialist messages. Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss.