It seems that concerned parents and the Republican party are terrified that their “impressionable” children will be "brainwashed" into supporting a "socialist agenda" just by hearing one speech, which will not even focus on anything political, but rather the importance of education and hard work in making dreams come true.
It boggles the mind that some parents think their kids so dumb that they can actually be "brainwashed" after one speech. I mean, Obama is a wonderfully gifted orator but he's not that good. Have they never been kids before? Most kids don’t even pay attention. If they did, do you think there would be such rampant drug use after all those D.A.R.E. presentations we endured? Obama is an amazing speaker but one wonders how great his speech can be if he has to dumb it down for the youngest kids. By my mind, he won't dumb it down too much but will rather go middle of the road so that the older kids don't feel talked down to. But that means that the younger kids, the more impressionable kids, won't understand him that well anyway, at least not well enough to understand “health care reform” if he should dare say it.
Of course, what parents are really afraid of is not that their kids will become liberals per se but rather that their kids will stop listening to them and their ideas. They're afraid of losing control over their kids' thinking. But they should know that when it comes to politics kids listen to their parents more than they listen to strange men on TV, even if that strange man happens to be the President of the United States. After all, I was a Republican as a kid. That's because my parents are Republicans, so I figured I was too. I didn't really think it was a choice. It was like religion. Whatever they were I was. And I didn't care enough to choose differently.
But by making this speech such a big deal and by getting it banned in some schools, what they and the Republican Party have done is to make it cooler to those older kids who matter more – the ones who will be of age to vote for Obama for reelection. Yes, that’s right. That’s the primary reason that the Republican Party is up in arms over this speech anyway. They’re afraid these schoolchildren will like Obama so much, they’ll abandon the Republican Party in droves and flock to the Democrats. That’s what the Republican party is worried about the most: That young people, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008, will be so enchanted by one speech by him that they will, four years later, when they come of age, propel him to another four years in office. That’s the main fear, Obama’s charisma charming future voters, not all this stuff about forcing ideology, because you know Obama would never be able to get away with talking about any of that.
The funny thing is, those kids, who might have thought it was lame before, will now be intrigued by the controversy surrounding it. Because you know the thing that kids (and people in general) like the most? Banned stuff! And with the internet, kids banned from seeing the speech can easily hop on a computer (and they will) and watch it anyway, just to see what all the ruckus is about. At the same time, kids who are allowed to see the speech might just feel privileged because they know that there are kids in the country who aren't allowed to watch.
Apparently, some people haven't learned enough from history to realize that when you tell someone "No!," that's the one thing they really want to do. Especially when other people get to do it for nothing. Heck. I want to see this speech now.
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