Think What You Want, But Do as I Say

I thought I made it clear in my blue jean story that real issue wasn't about blue jeans, it was about the way they made a mockery of the democratic principles they had recently taught us. Don't feel bad if you didn't get it, I don't think anybody else who read that story got it either. Maybe it's me, maybe I was the only one in that school, or in any school, who took those teachings seriously. I naively thought when I wrote the story that it might make a difference in the way people look at things like that, but I should have realized that one little story was unlikely to overcome decades of conditioning. Looking back on it, maybe those teachers were not communist agents after all, maybe they were just ordinary apathetic Americans who didn't know any better and could care less.

Another thing they did wrong was that, when they were teaching us about our inalienable rights, they should have explained that, as minor children, we were not entitled to the full exercise of those rights until we reached the age of majority. Meanwhile, our rights were being held in trust for us by our parents and the state. It was their responsibility to look out for us until we were deemed capable of looking out for ourselves. If they thought we were too young to understand that concept, maybe they should have considered us too young to learn about democracy in the first place. Like some famous guy said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

That English teacher who told you there was only one way to interpret a writer's work, "Because I say so", might have been more competent to teach math than English Lit. I'm not sure, but you seemed to be saying that he wanted you to believe that about real life a well as creative literature. If that's the case, he wouldn't have been much of a philosophy teacher either. I seem to remember that teachers weren't very well paid in those days, so I suppose the administration had to take what they could get. Wasn't that about the time the teachers started to unionize?

One thing they did teach us correctly was that we should feel fortunate that we were born in America instead of war torn Europe or Asia. That's fortunate, not guilty. I don't think the concept of feeling guilty about being better off than others, through no fault of your own, was introduced until college. I don't remember hearing that in any school I attended, and I seem to remember that my memory was pretty good in those days. Do Black guys feel guilty about having big dicks? I think not! Then why should I feel guilty about having certain advantages that they don't have.

Okay, government finally solved slavery in the U.S., I'll give you that one. I was going to say that government caused slavery in the first place but, the more I think of it, I don't think so. I think that slavery was brought to this country from Africa, where it was common practice, by unregulated commercial interests. You know, it's people like that who give capitalism a bad name.