DO YOUNG PEOPLE REALLY BELIEVE GOVERNMENT LIES?

"The border is secure," say both the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as thousands of illegal aliens swarm across it.
 
The seemingly endless wave of illegals is an "opportunity," not a crisis, says House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as swamped border communities fear outbreaks of infectious disease.

The effect of this "opportunity" on south Texas is like Hurricane Katrina, says the executive director of the Texas Border Sheriffs’ Coalition. "The border is on fire, and Washington is sending us gasoline," says Arizona rancher Fred Davis.

Barack Hussein Obama is "absolutely" the most transparent president in history, claims White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, as the administration was flying illegals to secret locations without informing the governors of the states or the mayors of the communities in which they would be housed.

Prominent journalists sent a letter accusing the White House of  "politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies."

As Syria, Iraq and Libya all fall into chaos; Russians blow commercial airliners out of the sky in Ukraine; full war breaks out between Israel and Hamas; Egypt and Saudi Arabia turn away from the U.S.; and intelligence officials warn al Qaida is stronger than ever, Press Secretary Earnest said President Obama has "substantially improved the tranquility of the global community." 

We understand why politicians stretch, trim, hedge, massage or ignore the truth when it’s difficult for us to learn it. But why do they lie so blatantly when the truth is smacking us in the face? Do they think we’re so stupid we’ll believe them, rather than our lying eyes?

Evidently, many of us are. The Reason Foundation completed recently a survey of "Millennials" (18 to 29 year olds). The pollsters found, among other things, that 42 percent of Millenials prefer socialism to capitalism — but only 16 percent know what socialism is. (Presumably the others think being a socialist means going to parties, having lots of friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter.)

About 20 percent of Millennials are college grads; 40 percent are in college, which indicates how little they learn about economics in school. Or political science. They don’t know much history, civics, geography, mathematics, chemistry or physics, either.

"If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," said Thomas Jefferson. We’re reaping now the consequences of the maleducation of a generation.

Millennials have learned little at enormous expense chiefly because our public schools, colleges and universities are run the way the Veterans Administration is — for the benefit of the service providers, to the detriment of those they pretend to serve.

For Democrats, the ignorance of the Millennials is bliss, other parts of the survey indicate.

*When tax rates aren’t mentioned, 54 percent of Millennials favor "larger government with more services." When they are, 57 percent prefer "smaller government with fewer services."

*When Millennials learn they may not get back from Social Security as much as they pay in, 51 percent support private retirement accounts – even if Mom and Dad’s pensions have to be cut to establish them.

*Millennials who pay for their own health insurance oppose, 59 percent to 39 percent, paying more to subsidize the uninsured. Millennials still covered by their parents’ policies support higher premiums, 57 percent to 42 percent.

Their massive ignorance of the things they ought to know is mostly the fault of their teachers, who have emphasized the Politically Correct at the expense of the factually correct.

But here’s the big but:

Considering all the propaganda to which they’ve been subjected, Millennials are less liberal than you’d think. The more they learn, the less liberal they become.

Millennials gave overwhelming support to Barack Hussein Obama in 2008, but are less likely now than older generations to call themselves Democrats. They distrust both parties, which indicates that even if they don’t know much, their judgment is sound.

Evidently the years spent in their parents’ basement after learning from employers the value of that degree in gender studies has had an impact. There is no teacher like Experience.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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