Corrupting the youth

We’ve just come out of the midterm election with surprising results: The “Red Wave,” the expected sweeping victory by the opposing political party, didn’t happen. Instead, a “red dribble” produced a small majority for the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. Republicans managed to come away with a majority so small their candidate for Speaker of the House, having prevailed in the California 20th due to gerrymandering, may not be able to overcome the opposition of radical right-wingers in his own party. Irony is best served cold. (Porterville was excluded, while the territory on both sides of our fair city was included, because the relatively educated and Hispanic population of Porterville generally don’t vote Republican, for both reasons).

I’ve spent the last two years exposing lies used by the Republican Party to enrage and frighten low-information voters to get them to the polls on time. I’ve exposed Republican attempts to suppress voting, based on the generally accepted view larger turnouts favor the Democrats. I’ve taken apart speeches given by Republican candidates and shown with documented facts every single statement was untrue. I thought I’d convince at least a few. Nope.

But — speaking of irony - a single decision by a Supreme Court packed with right-wing ideologues by Donald Trump determined the outcome of the mid-terms. After testifying they would let Roe v Wade stand, the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court voted to remove federal protection for the right to an abortion.

Imposing a Christian fundamentalist belief on the entire population made a lot of Christian fundamentalists happy; fortunately, it made everyone else unhappy. Those unhappy people turned out to vote in unprecedented numbers, and that’s what killed the Red Wave.

Those unhappy people were, by and large, sexually active (read YOUNG) people. Whereas only 20 percent of people between 18 and 30 voted in 2020, in the midterms, 30 percent of that demographic voted, and they voted for their own freedom. In doing so, they saved us from having to see the clock turned back even further, which is what would doubtless have happened if the Republicans had taken over both Houses of Congress.

One morning at a Starbucks, I overheard a couple of guys with hair the color of mine lamenting the deleterious effects of college on young people. “You send them to college, and they come back Democrats.” “No,” I thought, “they don’t; they come back EDUCATED.” What happens then is predetermined: Educated, intelligent people don’t fall for campaign lies. And that means they vote for Democrats. There are precious few Republican candidates who aren’t willing to prostitute themselves in order to win a cushy job with a guaranteed pension and medical benefits for life. Educated, intelligent voters don’t fall for that, regardless of their age.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Socrates was compelled to commit suicide by drinking an infusion of hemlock, after being convicted of “corrupting the youth.” What had he done? He taught young people to think, to doubt the unquestioned beliefs of the society around them, and to instead seek the truth.

If you go to Porterville College, you probably grew up here. And you probably grew up being fed a steady diet of beliefs that are common in these parts, but which fall apart when viewed under a microscope. The notion “someone said it, so it must be true” is beneath the dignity of educated people. That’s what college is for.

I don’t know how many students at PC read my column, but I wish they would. Maybe a member of the political science faculty at PC could point out page 4 of the Porterville Recorder talks frequently about issues students should look into. Don’t tell them what to think; just ask them to investigate, and to engage in their own Socratic dialog which will lead inexorably to the same conclusions, as facts always do.

I’d like to set a goal for our students at PC: It would be nice if 100 percent of our students at PC voted in the next election. I don’t need to ask how they’d vote: Educated, intelligent people all vote for the truth. But if our political science faculty would like to give out extra credit — say, a letter grade — for anyone who comes back with a validated “I voted” sticker, we could at least estimate the turnout. Get other colleges in California to do the same thing, and our young people might get behind it. Roberto and Teresa de la Rosa (central@ Olaraza.com), the local experts in organizing, would like to see 100 percent student participation, and could probably offer some useful tips.

I might get accused of corrupting the youth, like Socrates was. I hope so. Because what I’m doing is that important. And it’s worth all the misspelled hate mail I get.

I’m not trying to make people mad; I’m trying to make them THINK.

Les Pinter is a contributing columnist and a Springville resident. His column appears weekly in The Recorder. Pinter’s book, HTTPV: How a Grocery Shopping Website Can Save America, is available in both Kindle and hardcopy formats on Amazon.com.contact him at lespinter@earthlink.net