Our culture has clearly done a poor job of instilling that fact in the generation now emerging into adulthood:
Young Americans seem to be losing faith in freedom. Why?
According to the World Values Survey, only about 30 percent of Americans born after 1980 believe it is absolutely essential to live in a democratic country, compared with 72 percent of Americans born before World War II. In 1995, 16 percent of Americans in their late teens and early adulthood thought democracy was a bad idea; in 2011, the number increased to 24 percent.
These views are showing up within both political parties among this age group.Young Americans also are disproportionately skeptical of free speech. A 2015 poll from the Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of millennials (ages 18 to 34) believe the government should be able to regulate certain types of offensive speech. Only 27 percent of Gen-Xers (ages 35 to 50), 20 percent of baby boomers (ages 51 to 69) and 12 percent of the silent generation (ages 70 to 87) share that opinion.
It is so very late in the day.
Well, well, well, we might have to mow em down then I guess. We always fight for freedom, don't we, regardless of where it is threatened.
ReplyDeletePeople trust the polls they want to.
ReplyDeleteWhen you tie health care in with freedom and call countries who have universal plans collectivist, well? Your freedom is really largely of the economic sort anyhow. Go against your personal "principles" and we become canine vomitus.
ReplyDeleteCollectivist health care is pure tyranny.
ReplyDeleteHas LITD ever said people weren't free to espouse dog vomit? They'll just get called out for it, which is the point of a conservative website.
If economically gutted cities and towns left by the feeedom lovers and market crashes that wreck the world of many in favor of the few is emblematic of freedom, well, many might just say fie upon that. The freedom we were supposedly fighting for in Nam was a bloody depressing mess.
ReplyDeleteOf course you'll fire back with freedom comes at a price and call me out for class envy.
ReplyDeleteI do have to say that you are becoming more aware of the gaping holes in your worldview.
ReplyDeletePure tyrrany? You're nuts!
ReplyDeleteNo, I just know you.
ReplyDeleteThe linked article ends with suggestions besides pissing and moaning about how so very late in the day it is. And, oh, curbs on freedom of speech according to college students last year, referred to speech that is purposely offensive to certain groups. Anyhow, good article from that NDSU psych prof who demonstrates he's good to go for the majors. Good article for a great daily rag. Since 1851.
ReplyDelete"What can be done? It isn’t enough to criticize young people for being overly sensitive and insufficiently independent. They didn’t engineer our security-focused culture. We must liberate them, let them be free to navigate the social world, make mistakes, fail, experience emotional pain and learn to self-regulate fear and distress. If we want future generations to have faith in freedom, we need to restore our faith in them."
So be a light, not an off switch, to the world.
ReplyDeleteThe linked article does indeed acknowledge your great fear though.
ReplyDeleteYou will increasingly meet them all out there in the world. I fear Republican President Donald J. Trump is a very very poor example of aging boomers but he is in a very very special category of the rich boor. I hope our youngsters understand that, but I fear they won't.
ReplyDelete