The Life on the Right

Being a teenager and also being on the right of the political spectrum isn’t as easy as being on the left. Oh, how easy it would be to insert a “Bush is stupid” reference into a conversation, get a few laughs, and then get no backlash. How easy it would be to insert quick anti-war line into a conversation, and get no rebuttal. But that’s not the case for me. This is my life in a St. Louis public school.

In moving through my high school years, many more of my classes came into contact with politics. But one example in particular came when taking World History. I guess I should have known what I was getting into in “World” History. I knew it wouldn’t focus on America, but I didn’t expect it to be so anti-American. For an entire semester all I heard was about the evils America. Be it when we were opening trade relations with Japan, or saying that Reagan didn’t win the cold war, Carter had it going on the right track. Even out of the clear blue to start class, my teacher inconspicuously walked over to the then opened door, let it close and just when the latch shut, “Let’s talk about Iraq.” You could almost predict what’s was next.

Then moving on to this year, in studying documentaries, the first example of a documentary was Michael Moore’s, Sicko. I politely pointed out that a documentary had to be associated with facts, but the student insisted that Cubans get better healthcare than we do. Again I pointed out that Cuba was, you know, Communist!!! The next example was Fahrenheit 9/11. Again facts weren’t associated with it. Then a film on the nuclear attacks on Japan prompted a student (a smart one at that) to point out how barbaric we were and how dare we drop those bombs. Again, politely, trying to keep from screaming, I pointed out that if the bombs were not dropped, then the allies would have had to invade Japan by ground which would have dragged the war on for about ten more years and cost many millions of lives on both sides. This prompted a large class argument and I realized that even the smartest people can still be so ignorant.

These examples keep coming up almost every day. They are at least a subtle jab at President Bush or U.S. troops, or at most, like above, trying to straighten out little Demo-bots. I’m sure these “wonders” will never cease as I move through high school and, oh my gosh, then college (that should be fun). After having to deal with that for a week, you would be glad to get three days off too.