Say Anything Blog

In case you don’t read the whole thing…the author begins the next paragraph with this:

I certainly don’t mean to lay all—or even much—of the blame for the church fires at the feet of my colleagues at Birmingham-Southern or at any other liberal arts college. There’s the family (functional or dysfunctional), there’s the culture, and, of course, there’s free will….

 

An ancient problem: Socrates opinion

Metics refers to resident aliens, and of slaves.
Michael Yon

the father accustoms himself to become like his child and fears his sons, while the son likens himself to his father, and feels neither shame nor fear in front of his parents, so he may be free ; the metic [563a] becomes the equal of a citizen and the citizen of a metic, and similarly with the foreigner.
It indeed so happens, he said.
To these, said I, such trifles do add up: the teacher, in such a case, fears his pupils and fawns upon them, while pupils have in low esteem their teachers as well as their overseers; and, overall, the young copy the elders and contend hotly with them in words and in deeds, while the elders, lowering themselves to the level of the young, sate themselves with pleasantries [563b] and wit, mimicking the young in order not to look unpleasant and despotic.

http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq003.htm 

The problem is socialism; it requires constant indoctrination without dissenting opinion, preferably practiced on children who cannot clearly discriminate for themselves, and who trust their teachers to be truthful with them.

So I guess the author just likes ranting about things with the word liberal in them and passing judgment on messed up kids.

He’s right. The article is critical of society as a whole, not specifically "liberal" public education.

A pampered upbringing by indulgent parents probably didn’t help instill any great sense of reponsibility in these kids - and thats a fairly common trend these days.

Doesn’t matter whether the parents are liberal, conservative, church-going or tree-hugging, our society has put child-rearing at the very center of the universe for most parents, and they revel in it, not that that’s a bad thing.

In this situation, the fault lies absolutely with the kids themselves. They were old enough to make their own decisions, and should be punished as such.  

End of story.