Sunday Audition: Is Our Childrens Learning?

The other day I sat in at a "kegger".  Keggers are social events hosted by college students, where ideas are traded back and forth amongst the attendees, usually accompanied with food and drink.  They are lively events and provide a great window into the lives of the newest members of our adult society.

Polls indicate that this section of the population is the most deranged amongst any demographic with the highest percentages self-reporting as Democrats and with the highest approval levels for Barack Hussein Obama.  This cohort continually polls well to the left of society in general, and so I was expecting the conversation to be dominated by socialists, anarchists and terrorist sympathizers.  Imagine my surprise when I was greeted at the door with a ten dollar "keg fee" - a beautiful example of free market principles as to how the invisible hand will find its way around arcane and convoluted liquor licensing regulations.

Another surprise was that even though I was surrounded by social elites (fully half of the people I spoke with had at least some college education) there wasn't a single sign of the condescending and judgemental pretentious-ness that all coastal ivory tower elites are all saddled with.  There was no organic arugula or Eurpoean mustard, but instead those staples of Western civilization - pizza and chicken wings.  Indeed, the conversations I had with these folks was the opposite of what I was expecting in that they seemed more concerned about the upcoming Iron Man movie or the final season of Lost than the writings of Proust or Shakespeare.

Being confronted with these unexpected twists made me question my assumptions.  Was it possible that highly educated persons other than conservative pundits could be in touch with mainstream concepts and ideals?  Could a supporter of Barack Obama be a genuinely engaging human being? One that I wouldn't want to see suffer from easily treatable health conditions until they worsened into emergency situations? Indeed, as the night wore on I found that I harboured no ill will towards any of the people there, even that one loud guy who sang along with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing".  I felt nothing but love towards all the other kegger participants and informed each of them that.

But as it turns out, all of this does already fit my world-view.  America is a centre-right nation, so it should have been no surprise to encounter centre-right behaviour.  And even though this age demographic is more liberal than any other, it's also very clear that it's the youth that are the future of the conservative movement.  This kegger was clearly an example of the rise of the right and the strong future it has considerng the support of society's youngest voters.  I am now convinced more than ever of the rightness of my views and positions.

Yes, even though my assumptions told me to expect the exact opposite of what I encountered, I can think of no greater supporting justification of those assumptions.