Soapbox #2

Last Sunday, as I was giving snacks out in the nursery, one of my friends proceeded to tell me a shocking, disappointing and very true story. Her daughter had recently participated in a mock congress for high schoolers in Madison County, and when she came home she went straight to her room and just sat there. My friend went to see what was wrong, and she was told this: all but two of the students participating had voted in favor of changing from a capitalist society to a communist one. Their rationale was that capitalism puts a price on people and that is wrong. Communism is for the people, so that is good. End of debate. There were four adults of varying ages listening as she shared this, and we were all floored. What on Earth are we teaching our children when in a place as conservative as the one I live in those children would choose communism? Not one of these kids was aware of the history that communism has forged. What about the 10,000,000 Stalin starved to death in one year? What about the 70,000,000 people who died in China? What about all the people who are willing to trust their lives to anything that floats through shark infested waters to escape Cuba? We all came to the conclusion that not only did these kids not get the education they needed, but that they didn't have any personal experience that allowed them to appreciate what freedom is. We all shared stories of what we remembered and experienced during the cold war as children. We talked about the people we knew who had lived through some of these regimes. These things are shared less and less with the young people of this country, and if they choose to embrace an opressive way of life based on what they aren't taught, who will save us from our educational neglect when they rule the world?