BIAS? SCHMIAS!

Why aren’t more teachers Conservatives? Could it be because many contemporary Conservatives want to abolish the minimum wage, Social Security, labor unions, and public schools while endorsing regressive taxation and opposing (with propaganda composed of flat-out lies, I might add) universal health insurance?

Or perhaps teachers realize that historically the United States, if not all of western civilization, has been made better by Liberal initiatives, for if Conservatives had held sway, there would be no Civil Rights Act, no Social Security, no Medicare, no minimum wage, no unemployment compensation, no artificial birth control, no laws preventing lynching, no labor unions, no system of universal public education, no purchase of Alaska or Louisiana territory, no anti-slavery movement, no “all men are created equal,” and no American Revolution. But the Tories were suppressed, adapted, or moved to Canada, and the rest is history.

Moreover, Liberals have given us the modern sciences of astronomy, geology, paleontology and psychology, every step of the way battling Conservatives who denounced liberal thinkers, censored them, imprisoned them and burned them at the stake. Western civilization owes almost everything to Liberal thought, so it is understandable that teachers would want to embrace the Liberal tradition. Even Conservatives now endorse ideas first promoted by Liberals.

Typically people who decry a supposed Liberal bias in the classroom (it’s really a Moderate bias) are selective in their outrage: They don’t seem to mind a Conservative bias in the boardroom. But for the most part, if you love your liberty, thank a Liberal.

—K.J. Walters
Suffern, N.Y.