Whoa!  How did a simple plan to make a PSA encouraging kids to stay in school and work hard get people so paranoid about a potential socialist brainwashing session?  And then someone actually thought of giving schools the ability to opt-out, and some schools did?

To my confusion, my father actually did consider opting-out my brother - who is 17, and a senior in high school.  And I don’t get it.  In order to accomplish what?  Shielding his tiny, malleable brain from the ever-invincible liberal mind-control?  Even if Obama’s speech was going to be some kind of propaganda-ridden rallying cry for all the school children to raise up in mobs and… vote Democrat?  Support health care reform?… it’s still ridiculous.  A 17-year-old is only one year shy of being able to vote and I’m pretty sure that means that, as a country, we have determined he or she to be capable of thinking critically and discerning for his or her own self what is fact from fiction.

And if that student can’t figure out what is true and what isn’t?  Maybe the problem is that so many people are forcibly shielding kids from ever having to make that call.

But the point is… the speech was just about staying in school and doing your homework.  As was planned.  Jesus.

Click on the link at the top for the transcript.