Living Conservative in a Liberal World (Part 2): Why I Am Writing This

NOTE: This is a post that was written some time ago. I am gradually posting them in order to build up the blog and perhaps get myself into the habit of the blogging regularly.

I was talking to my class one day when I was struck with a couple of revelations. One revelation is that my urban students are "stuck on liberal," a revelation that is none too shocking. The second revelation, however, was shocking. The revelation was that it is the fault of conservatives that my students are stuck on liberal. As a matter of fact, it may well be the fault of conservatives that urban public education is failing altogether. This got me to thinking about the world we live in. It truly is a liberal world. Young people are inundated with liberal thoughts and ideology for at least twelve years if they are in public education.

Conservatives are an interesting bunch. I ought to know, because I am one. There are many different types of Conservatives, but there are a few distinct characteristics that many conservatives share. Many conservatives believe that the public education system is a bankrupt program which has failed to elevate the masses to full participatory citizenship in the great experiment we call the United States of America. Public education has failed to fulfill Jefferson's belief that only when people are well-informed can they be "trusted with their own government."

I would argue, however, that this failure is due to the ascendancy of liberalism in the public schools and the flight of conservatives out of them. In the 60's, liberals realized that the best place to replicate was in the sector of public education. Liberals started to go into teaching and take over the staff lounges at the nation's public schools. During the 1980's, seeing the path that liberals were taking our public schools, conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, pulled their children out of public schools and placed them in private, often church run schools. Removed from the population of public schools in one decade were not only the students whose family upbringing would make them conservative in nature, but the conservatives who would have otherwise worked in public education to teach them.

We are rapidly approaching a time when those who believe in a greater government role in the lives of citizens will not only outnumber those who believe in limited government, but they will have a large enough voting bloc that old fashioned liberty, liberty envisioned by Jefferson, when he said "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."

It is sad, as one who loves liberty, to see the people of the United States sliding into the depths of being a culture of dependency. They look to the government for the things that our forbearers did for themselves. During the "great recession" of 2008-2010, a Facebook group was created called I.N.A.F.J. which stands for "I Need a F-ing Job." It was a poignant plea from people who are fed up with being unemployed. They wanted jobs, sure, but by creating a Facebook group, it seemed like what they were really after was validation. Through online T-shirt sales, they actually raised the money to pay for a billboard that greeted the President in Buffalo during a stop there that read "Dear Mr. President, I need a freaking job. Period. Sincerely, inafj.org." Last time I looked, it was not the job of the government, or the President, to help you get a job.

Now, I understand that the costs of regulation and high taxes leads to private sector job losses. I also understand that government action can create a favorable business environment that leads to job growth. That is not the point here. Sure the INAFJ folks talk about taxes and regulation on their website. They favor (supposedly) smaller government that spends less, allows people and businesses to keep more of what they earn and with that kept wealth, stimulate and grow the economy. But anyone who would buy a billboard that reads "Dear Mr. President, I need a freaking job" is a group that Makes me say "Dear Billboard Owner, Retrain, Reapply, Relocate" because, when it comes down to getting a job, I believe in the three R's.

An Impartial Media?

As I prepare for a new school year, I am slowly starting to get my materials together.  I am trying to plan out the first few weeks of my classes so that I have everything at my fingertips when students arrive on September 1.  Since students won’t have textbooks for the first week or so of school, I have to do lessons that lay a foundation for the class, but don’t require a textbook to complete.

One of the lessons I am contemplating is one on media bias.  There are three views to media bias.  One view is that there is no media bias.  The illusion of media bias exists because of our own biases.  We see something happening in the world of politics that we believe that the press should be shouting from the rooftops, yet it doesn’t get mentioned.  Because of that silence, we see it as media bias.

Another belief is that there is conservative media bias.  It is held (obviously) by people on the far left side of the political spectrum.  They say that the media has a conservative bias because the TV stations, newspapers and radio stations are owned by corporations, and since business is (supposedly) in the hip pocket of the Republican Party, it is obvious (to those who believe in conservative media bias)that this would affect the neutrality of the media.  They believed that Bush should have been impeached and prosecuted for the Iraq war, and since the media did not take up that cause, it was proof that they biased.  They also have to point no further than Fox News for examples of conservative media bias (oddly enough, they cannot find examples of conservative media bias on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, or NBC).

The third view is that there is a distinct liberal bias in the media.  This view is held by most on the right and many in the center.  One of the proofs of this was the way the media fell over each other covering the candidacy and now Presidency of Barack Obama with the attitude of a slobbering lapdog.

If you hadn’t figured out yet from my comments, I believe that there is a distinct liberal media bias.  This bias is even admitted by some “conservative” Democrats.  One great essay by one such Democrat is by Orson Scott Card, the science fiction writer.  In his essay “Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn Off the Lights?”, Card lays out a most convincing argument in favor of this point.  At one point he says: “Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11 … you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link.”  The point is made yet again, when he points out: “[Y]ou have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.”

Despite my own personal belief, I let my students decide for themselves.  I allow them to examine all three points of view, and decide for themselves what they believe.  Should you want to look at the three articles: there are links below:

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/msnbc-confirms-liberal-media-bias/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-indisputable-media-bi_b_4022.html

http://www.michigandaily.com/content/media-bias-and-worst-president-ever