Econ Prof: 80% Students Say 'American Dream' is Liberal Entitlement

Via Liberty for Kids:

The following interview scares me but it doesn't surprise me. That liberal indoctrination of youth in many public school classrooms and through varied media platforms (movies, TV, Internet) should not be a surprise to anyone. I once read that most adults don't stray too far from the political views they held prior to the age of 20. Similar to many religious organizations, the statists realize that if you get them young they will likely hold onto those beliefs.

In the interview below Jack Chambless, an economics professor from Valencia College in Florida, tells of an assignment he gave his students on the first day of class. He asked them to write an essay on what the American Dream meant to them and what they expected from government to help them realize the American Dream. He said only 10% said they wanted the federal government to stay out of their lives as much as possible. 80% said they wanted the federal government to pay for their education, find them a job, help them buy a house, and give them money in retirement. Professor Chambless suggests that his students are simply parroting back what they have been indoctrinated to say from their years in public schools.

As I said, this interview scares me because I suspect Professor Chambless is correct.

Click here to link to Professor Chambless' 5 minute long interview where he details his assignment and his conclusions.

The results the professor saw on assignment fit with my own observations. From my post Students Accept Majority Tyranny:

Last week I was asked by a testing group out west to help grade some essays that students wrote. I apologize for not being too specific- I always fear for my future employment when I write posts like this. Thousands of students from the area took this test, which was designed to evaluate how well students understood how government worked in our society. These students all took either a semester or year-long course in government prior to taking this class, and all the students who took the test were either seniors or juniors in high school (17 or 18 years of age). I personally graded over a thousand of these essays over several days of work. In doing so, I was able to read first hand what the students in our classrooms thought and believed, and what I read chilled me.

The test asked students to discuss the advantages of being in the majority party in Congress compared to being in minority party. The correct answers included being able to control the agenda, controlling debate, having the presiding officer, setting the rules for debate, and having their majority also reflected in committees....

...According to most of the students (about 2/3rds), the advantage of being the majority party in Congress, like the Democrats are today, is that they can pass laws that favor themselves, they can vote to transfer money from the minority party's districts and supports to the majority party's districts and supporters, that being in the majority means they can pay themselves more money and the minority party less, that being in the majority means that they can tax anybody they want, and can do 'whatever they want.' The phrase 'the majority party can do whatever they want' was written on over half of the essays that were written....

...The overwhelming (majority of students thought that it was) totally okay and fine with majority tyranny. In their minds, there is nothing wrong with one party, just because it has more, putting in place laws and policies that favor their supporters over others. In my class, I pound majority rule with minority rights, and I talk about the problems of democracy and why we went with a republic, but most teachers- in fact almost all teachers- seem to be giving students the impression that minorities do not have rights and that our nation is a democracy.

The future of our nation is mentally and morally okay with a majority group enriching itself and advancing itself at the cost of the minority group.

... The Constitution is almost never mentioned and as far as students know, it might as well not even exist...

.... (the students) are okay with the President doing 'whatever he wants,' students are okay with 'Congress doing whatever it wants,' and after months of government classes they are okay with the majority party 'doing whatever it wants.'...

Students are being churned out of our educational system steeped in liberal views- they have sipped so much liberal Kool-Aid over the years that they parrot out liberal responses to questions in an unthinking and unblinking manner, assured in their ignorance and comforted by limited world experience. The 'American Dream' to these students is an all powerful government controlled by a tyrannical majority or a knowledgeable elite that takes property from minority and unfavored groups and redistributes it to those who it favors or supports- and this is called 'fairness' or 'justice'. These students think that it is right for 51% to jam its views on the other 49% in our nation- that if 51% are okay with something that is justification for it. If 51% felt that I was some sort of threat to the government, students would be okay with me being taken out by government authorities- they believe in 'majority rule' and 'democracy' over 'minority rights' and 'republic'. The future of our nation believes that it is entitled to receive goods, services, and property from others, and in so doing they'll give away their liberty, freedom, property, wealth, prosperity, and ultimately life.