Raising American Idiots

I ran across this very interesting article the other day. The author seems to be surprised that most highschool students know (and care) little to nothing about the First Amendment. The Associated Press didn't point any fingers, but it subtlely jerked its head toward the usual scapegoat: insufficient funding for schools.

Why is it that liberals feel nearly every problem in the world can be solved by throwing money at it? Have they never heard of the concept of a budget, and then operating within its constraints? Yes, to adequately teach the Constitution to highschoolers some things would have to go. . . but if the First Amendment is at stake, would it really be so awful to skip a class here and there?

I am no philosopher--politically or in any other sense, but it seems to me, if the schools spent less money and time on evolutionary science, "special interest awareness" classes and sex education, there'd be more left over for mundane subjects like. . . oh yeah, the Constitution.

Obviously, this solution is a gross oversimplification. I'm well aware there are myriads of issues underlying any one school's spending plan, such as how much funding they get from whom if they teach certain subjects, and how much money they lose if they don't. It's not the schools' fault the students know nothing about the First Amendment--they're only teaching what they have time and money to teach.

So how come highschoolers haven't heard about individual liberty from anyone else? Why hasn't the all-powerful MainStream Media stepped in, or Hollywood, or for that matter, why hasn't Michael Moore put some of his millions toward the cause (given his great concern for the well-being of this country)? More pointedly, why haven't they heard it from the people who were adolescents and young adults during the radically politically active 1970s--their parents?

The bottom line is, young people simply aren't taught anything about the First Amendment. The schools can't teach it, the media won't, and the parents don't. So, the kids take what they know about life and draw their own conclusions. And can we really be surprised at the result?

When the Supreme Court says students can't pray in school--not even voluntarily--what kind of message does that send about individual freedom? When judges are removed from the bench because they won't remove the Ten Commandments from their courtroom wall, what are young people to think about the right of a person to express "unpopular views"? When an entire school district gets hauled all the way to the Supreme Court for lettings its students recite the Pledge of Allegiance, what does that say about our freedoms toward our Flag?

Of course they think flag-burning is illegal. Of course they think the government can regulate indecent material on the Internet. Of course they have no concept of the rights to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, because from what they can see, those rights don't really exist.

What's scary is that these people are on the verge of adulthood and in 20 years they will be the ones controlling our national fate. Do we really want to be governed by a nation of American idiots?

Okay, okay, so I'll climb down off my soapbox now. ;)