Indoctrination, Interrupted

Dennis Prager says that it is possible that a person could go their entire life without being exposed to a single conservative idea or principle. School-children are indoctrinated rather than educated. They are taught to feel compassion for animals and the environment, but not personal responsibility. Then they attend liberal institutions of higher education, to earn their B.A.'s, M.A.'s, and PhD's. The rest of their lives are filled with exposure to liberal friends, culture, and media.

I was on track to become one of these people. As a child, I was riding in my father's car, and we passed a police station. A black man was being taken out of a patrol car by an officer. Since I was taught very early on by my liberal mother that black people were victims of society and poverty, I offered to my father, "He probably just stole a loaf of bread." He was incensed, and let me know, gently, that there was no way I should assume that.

Too bad for me that I didn't have a father in the home until I was already in high school. When I was in college, Ronald Reagan was elected. The left constantly portrayed him as a trigger-happy moron, so I voted for the other guy. About a year or two into Reagan's first term, my father took us on a ski trip to Mammoth. I liked to go off on my own, pressing my skill on the black diamond runs.

On one lift, I rode with a gentleman who brought the conversation around to politics. He said he was glad that Reagan was President, because we shouldn't be giving welfare to able-bodied people. "They should be working like the rest of us, if they can." I agreed with that, inside of my heart of hearts.

It wasn't until my final Economics class in senior year that I was exposed to a conservative point of view by a professor. I went to U.C. San Diego, which is to the right of Berkeley and Columbia, but left of just about everyone else. My professor was this thin, bald guy in his forties. He liked to put three or four packets of sugar in his styrofoam cup of coffee before class. The subject of executive compensation came up. Somewhere in my heart, I believed that to grub for money was kind of dirty. I knew that I was preparing myself for a career of some sort, but I still had no idea what kind of work I wanted to do. Maybe a management position, if not graduate school.

The idea that C.E.O.'s were all grossly overpaid had been drummed into all of our heads. My professor mentioned one executive who made $300,000 per year, and the classroom let out a collective 'tsk-tsk.' These individuals were responsible for earning a return of investment on the resources placed in their trust, he pointed out. That amount is commensurate with the value of those resources. This was a radical idea to the classroom, one that had never been considered. And these were all Economics majors. Had it not been for that one professor, one never knows what kind of political ideology I would gravitate toward. I like to identify with my father, so I like to think my drift toward libertarian/conservative would have been inevitable, but you never know...

The Not So Green Zone

After two weeks of release, Matt Damon's movie, "Green Zone," is out of the top five in revenues. So much for word of mouth propelling ticket sales. That was about all the movie could count on after it's dismal opening. A movie like that needs to open huge, over fifty million dollars at least, and it did a quarter of that.

All I can say, is, Matt, you had it coming. You rock your anti-Sarah Palin views all you want, just keep them to yourself. And keep the fraudulent history of Howard Zinn out of your movies. I get the message: If you read and believe Howard Zinn, then you are a genius, just like your character. Was that the whole point of the movie?

I think Hollywood should go back to the old studio system. In the old days, the stars had publicists who were their mouthpieces, and the dreck that preoccupies them was never known by the public. I think Damon will be okay. His career is on a trajectory that one bad movie cannot derail. The movie will make up some of it's losses on DVD sales. The fact is, that this movie is a huge money-loser, costing over two hundred million. Whoever green-lighted this bumper sticker against Bush 43 should lose his or her job. Or worse. This movie provides more propaganda for the radical jihadi than Abu Ghraib. Both are scandalous, and should have been prevented from happening.

Meshugas

The United States House of Representatives has passed a two-thousand, seven hundred page bill in the name of health care reform. I have imposed a total news blackout on myself. No live television or radio since getting off work yesterday. I knew the dreck was going to be passed, so there was no self-delusion. I couldn't bear the proceedings, like watching Ohio State getting mauled by Florida in the championship game, magnified by a billion. Or, in this case, several trillion.

The central argument seems to be whether health care is a right. I certainly believe access to health care is a right: nobody should be turned away from a medical provider. The leftist side of the debate skipped that reality and asserted, instead, that health care should be subsidized or free, that the government should take care of its citizens. Should brain surgery be free, or just checkups? Should my medication be free, even if I have to take twenty different kinds?

Mazel Tov! No citizen with pre-exisiting conditions can be turned down for an insurance policy. Does this mean that I can wait until the house is on fire, then purchase a homeowner's policy? That is not insurance. That will only guarantee that the insurance company will lose money. Within ten years, insurance companies will be regulated utilities or bankrupt, and the country of the United States of America will have socialized medicine.

Countless millions of human beings haven't risked life and limb to come to our shores because of the medical care. The come here because there is an opportunity for anyone to acheive their dreams if they work hard, since this nation is a meritocracy. The left doesn't like that, however. They dream of equality for all. Even if it means equally crappy crap for everyone, because they will be in their ivory tower deeming the size, shape and quantity of crap that everyone should receive.

The media blackout will lift at nine a.m., because I want Rush to break the news to me. Or Dennis. The only emotion I can identify right now is utter dejection, and desolation.