What happens when College kids grow up

When I was an undergrad a professor told me one difference between a Democrat and a Republican, and I watched it play out in class yesterday. The saying goes something like this, “If you are in college and are not a Democrat then you do not have a heart, once you are out of college and are not a Republican then you do not have a brain.” In college you have young people that want to take on the wrongs of society, which is great, and they see the Democrats taking on what they see as injustices. I think this is noble, where would the Civil Rights movement have been without the 1965 freedom summer, when thousands of do good college students from the North came down south to try to make a difference. They did a lot of positive work in states like Mississippi and Alabama (unfortunately their greatest good was two of them dying, and the murder of two white kids finally brought in the FBI). But the rest of the saying goes as well. In one of my classes I have a very interesting young lady. She looks like college age, maybe a bit older. She is the kind that my first impression was that she was a bit weird. She is covered in ink with kind of wild hair. I like her because she talks in class, even if I do not always agree with her, she is a young crazy liberal college student. It turns out that she also owns her own store, I do not know exactly what it is, but some type of adult themed, many of her shirts have old fashion burlesque stripers on them. Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, Obama was on campus Friday, getting all the kids crazy, Obama fever is rampant here now. Since we spend much of our time discussing political history, I started class with a discussion of the Obama rally. I asked if he persuaded anyone to vote for him who had not already decided, to which I got a few (of coarse then I asked a follow up on which issues were they most impressed with, which they did not have any answers, his speech touched very few issues, less money for college mainly, focusing instead on the need for change). Then I asked if his speech changed anyone’s mind that had planned on voting for him. The girl raised her hand. I was very surprised to see her hand raised and so asked why. She said she could no longer vote for the Democratic party, Obama mentioned that he wanted to raise minimum wage. She owns a small business and is struggling to pay her employees now, and said if the Democrats get their way, she will be out of business. A perfect example of a liberal college student switching sides when they get into the real world. Unfortunately too many college students are too indoctrinated by the time they get out of college, and do not have professors like me to push them to think about politics but instead just swallow the propaganda they are feeding them, too many never realize that Democratic ideas are not in their best interest when they leave the confounds of the University (if you are interested I never talk like this to my students, I expect them to make up their own mind and not be influenced by my opinions). We all want to help people, its just how we help that we differ. Hopefully conservatism can have a comeback they way it did in the 80s, when wild haired college girls find it ok to vote Republican and people realize conservatism can help not just the rich but small business as well.