Ron Paul e a juventude

The X and Y Generations and Ron Paul: An Alliance for Our Age

by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD

Members of Generation X, born 1962 to 1981, and Generation Y, 1982-2004, are rallying behind Ron Paul in his run for president. Media commentators find it odd that people under the age of 40 in the X Generation and especially voters under age 30 in the Y Generation are so taken with this unassuming, soft-spoken 76-year-old candidate. Ron Paul is in the Silent Generation, whose members are now 70 to 87 years of age (born 1925-1942)... 
In Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069 (1991) and The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (1997), William Strauss and Neil Howe examine the four main generations alive today, including the Boom ("Baby Boomer") Generation, born 1943-1961. They show how these generations mirror ones in the past. They note that a "Young Hero and Elder Prophet" pairing occurs repeatedly in history, myth, and art, as with Joshua and Moses in the Old Testament, the Gray Champion in Colonial America, King Arthur and Merlin in Celtic myth, Tolkien’s Frodo and Gandalf, and Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. In Star Wars, Episode IV, Obi-Wan Kenobi instructs Luke in the ways of the Force and in Episode VI tells him that killing Darth Vader (his father) is the only way to destroy the evil Galactic Empire. And as Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist, notes, the young hero’s close bond with a wise elder is essential to his ultimate success... 
Starting at a young age, Americans need to learn the basics of Austrian Economics and appreciate how it restores economic health. But government schools do not teach Austrian economics or the concomitant Jeffersonian vision of individual liberty. These subjects make a compelling case for limited government and are thus politically incorrect. The primary role of government schools, where 90 percent of U.S. children are educated, is to inculcate, in the words of John Calvin, "the duty of obedience to rulers." Government-employed bureaucratic officials determine what political and economic ideas children are to be taught. Compulsory government schooling has become a zero-tolerance, one-size-fits-all, dumbed-down operation that focuses on social engineering rather than on learning and individual achievement. James Ostrowski, in Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids, puts it this way: "[The government school] produces barely literate, historically ignorant, uncultured lovers of big government." Sadly, public schools have evolved into prison-like indoctrination centers that children and adolescents in the Y Generation currently endure – six and seven hours a day for thirteen years. For a sobering assessment of what our nation’s public schools have turned into, watch the online documentary on tagtele.com titled "War on Kids," available HERE. 
 Nevertheless, there is reason for hope...
Mais