posted May 31, 2013 01:07 AM
Given how often the schools and ACLU clash I don't think of schools as primarily liberal. Though the unions involved tend to push them Democrat to preserve bennies since Republicans are typically anti-union (but if that weren't the case then I'd see them as more likely to lean Republican...though still not accepting of guns in many parts of the country). And as for teaching kids to abhor guns that's the wrong way to do it. They both undermine their own authority AND make guns that much more attractive (at least once they get older and start asserting independence, especially from idiotic adults that they want to distinguish themselves from). And just as kids see the blatant hypocrisy of "just say no to drugs" while peddling psyche meds they can see the same thing with "say no to guns and violence" while military recruiters often visit schools.
And the media will do far more to shape society, and I don't mean the news but entertainment. Guns are a fetish even to Hollywood (though they do tend to get anti-gun people with no real experience of guns to associate unrealistic scenerios and entertainment with real life, which is absurd as associating cars with mad chases that destroy fire extinguishers, cause people to dive for cover and often ending with a drive off a bridge or pier and/or fiery explosion). My girl has gotten into archery for the same reason as these people (and I got into skateboarding as a kid because of The Crow, and I heard Back to the Future had a similar effect on boys). And if schools were to say "archery is bad" then it would only become more popular. And likewise, too many video games along with enduring characters like James Bond and other action movies (where the man with the gun is the hero and gets the beautiful woman, and most boys are just wired to like weapons, and I've even seen grown men all too often relive childhood when they get hold of lightsaber toys, and I even saw 2 men "sword fighting" with plungers in a store).
Same thing with drugs, it used to be popular for sympathetic characters to do drugs but that's rarer now (even Wolverine went to keeping a cigar in his mouth without lighting it). And before someone throws in an exception to the rule I said it used to be popular, not that it's non-existent today, and I expect that has a lot to do with why marijuana use has decreased (though legal alternatives that are actually worse than the real thing help decrease it, too), and according to a recent study the more anti-drug ads kids were exposed to the more likely they were to do drugs (some theorize that it's because it gives the appearance everyone is doing drugs, but if they could actually recall childhood--obviously, they don't--they'd know the sheer obvious stupidity of a lot of them undermines their credibility and can drive them to rebel out of annoyance). And I believe the anti-gun message from boring adults mixed with the exciting heroes going nuts with guns on the silver screen and in their games likely has a similar counterproductive effect. In any case, all those "don't drink and drive" ads and vids in driver's ed sure doesn't seem to prevent that from happening.
If people in the government were actually smart and wanted to raise literacy rates they'd outlaw reading instead of mandating it in school (the kids who'd obey the government and not read probably wouldn't have done much reading anyway).
Lindaland
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posted May 30, 2013 03:59 PM
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posted June 10, 2013 11:07 AM