YOUTH AND POLITICS

“With a few exceptions... when youth get involved in politics in large numbers, it is not a good thing... Having been a young person [in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s] and having watched as my university (Columbia) had its classrooms taken over and teaching interrupted by fellow students; having watched the sexualization of society that followed the ‘Make Love Not War’ generation; having watched America become obsessed with youth rather than wisdom as a result of the ‘Never Trust Anyone Over 30’ mantra of the ‘60s young people; having seen the myriad speech codes that arose, ironically, out of the ‘Free Speech’ movement at Berkeley and elsewhere; having watched pacifist-like doctrines decimate America’s moral compass; having witnessed a selfish preoccupation with an ever increasing number of inherent ‘rights,’ with a commensurate devaluing of inherent moral obligations, I, among many others, am not enamored of the ‘60s and ‘70s youth movement... [and] am not encouraged by the ecstatic reaction of young people to Barack Obama. The track record of politically excited youth movements in modern Western history is not a good one. And I see no reason why this will prove to be the first major exception.”

—Dennis Prager