Will The 'Socialist State Of America' Replace The 'United States Of America'?
By Rob Waite
April 13, 2009

A recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey states that only 20% of Americans say Socialism is better than Capitalism. But reading deeper into the report will send chills down the spine of many. Only 53% believe Capitalism is better while 27% ARE NOT SURE!

When broken down by age, for adults under 30 the spilt is 37% in favor of Capitalism, 33% in favor of Socialism and 30% undecided. Adults over 40 strongly favor Capitalism and just 13% favor Socialism.

What is the cause of this huge polarization of views between younger Americans and older Americans? Sociologists can debate this for decades, but the underlying reason, in my opinion, has been an insidious and determined soft inculcation of our children into socialism by our public schools and universities.

I can state this from experience because I witnessed this and was affected by this indoctrination philosophy as a public school student and state university student in the '70's and '80's.

Additionally, my wife was a public school teacher right out of college for a few years. She was so demoralized by the lack of focus on education and the obsession with political correctness as well as the large number of incompetent or apathetic teachers, that she left the profession of her dreams. It was a real shame because she is a brilliant mathematician.

In listening to my children in earlier years it has only gotten worse. Hence, I simply had to work harder and earn more in order to send my children to private school.

As a middle school student, I had a number of warm, enthusiastic, caring and dedicated teachers who cared greatly about their students. In return most of us liked and respected these teachers and listened to their preaching. Rather than teaching social studies and encouraging truly independent critical thinking, most of my social studies teachers stated as fact that FDR did great things with the New Deal, but that "all scholars agree" he didn't go far enough with the New Deal after the beginning of World War II. Also stated as a proven commonly accepted fact was that the Vietnam War was created by the "industrial complex" for profit. Just to name a few examples.

During my high school years, God was under attack. Under the guise of "tolerance" and separation of church and state, our before school hours voluntary prayer group was a source of constant angst for the bureaucracy.

In college, the red carpet was rolled out for any Democrat running for any office. However, the university always seemed to have scheduling and other logistical issues when a Republican was attempting to speak on campus.

We were preached to about "thinking for ourselves". However, when papers didn't line up with left leaning views, they were consistently graded lower than those with right leaning views. "Thinking for ourselves" was a euphemism for "thinking left".

We've all read and heard about similar experiences of others. These aren't outlying exceptions. These types of inculcations take place every day across the country in every state. I know of many parents who expressed concerns to the administration only to have those concerns dismissed. Students who raise concerns are ignored.

Why? Because public schools and universities are not responsible to parents and students. They are not responsible to actually educate our children and young adults. They are beholden to the bureaucracy and unions that sustain them. Also many teachers and administrators believe it is their right to impose their ideological views on students and they are protected by the bureaucracy and unions.

So, what can be done? First and foremost, the GOP has to re-establish itself as the unapologetic standard bearer of Capitalism. Second, the GOP must take up the cause of school reform in an activist way. We need to protect the right of home schooling, expand vouchers for school choice and assure that good teachers are retained through merit pay and that tenure is eliminated so that bad teachers can be "encouraged" to find other lines of work.

Nothing more than the fate of the United States of America is at stake. We can't be willing to sit back and hope we won't become the "Socialist State of America". Despite what our current President says hope is not a strategy. Only specific, measurable action designed to perpetuate our liberties is a strategy for us to follow.

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Rob Waite is CEO and principal invested partner of Drexel Metals LLC. He's author of the book, "The Lost Art of General Management" that was also published in South Korea, Mexico and India... which Rob views as proof that capitalism beats in the heart of all people who desire liberty.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.