About a week ago, I noticed a post on a friend’s Facebook profile where she, a mother, was publicly wondering whether or not she she send her children to school on the day when President Barack Obama was to speak to students around the nation to kick off the new school year.

My first reaction was to ask, “Really, seriously?” Such a question just didn’t compute to me. Why would a parent keep their child out of school because the President of the United States was scheduled to speak.

Her answer dumbfounded me even further. She was afraid that President Obama would use the time to indoctrinate her children, and she felt that having him speak to students, without their parents, was just too dangerous.

I quickly found that she wasn’t alone in her opinion. Conservatives like her throughout the nation were acting appalled at the President’s plans to, as WhiteHouse.gov stated, “help get America’s students engaged!” Perhaps no one’s outrage garnered as much attention as Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer. In response to learning about President Obama’s plans to speak to students, he stated that he was, “absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”

In response to the cries of people worried that innocents trapped within the walls of their classroom would be brainwashed into liberal worker bees submissive to the commands of the President, the White House released the text of the speech a day before the speech was scheduled. That text can be found over at WhiteHouse.gov.

When asked what Jim Greer, who previously was “absolutely appalled”, thought of the released speech, he said, “It’s a good speech. It encourages kids to stay in school and the importance of education and I think that’s what a president should do when they’re gonna talk to students across the country.”

It’s unfortunate that the political reality of our nation is that we are highly polarized and partisan. While I could be seen as being partial in making this statement, I’m going to make it anyways: The type of fuel that feeds the fires of outrage, like those against Obama’s speech to students, comes from the same sources as those that fuel the outrage against reforms like health care. The tendency to become “absolutely appalled”, to jump to conclusions, and rage against the perceived socialist machine is what has created the divide we are enduring. Sadly, it could also keep millions of people from being insured and the nation from moving forward in transitioning to a green energy economy. Sadder still is the fact that the people being pushed to be angry and vocal are many of the same people who will suffer if reforms are not made.

There is an apparent desperation among conservatives, and their reaction to Obama’s planned speech is evidence of it. What’s frustrating is that those caught up on this wave of conservative rage won’t connect the reaction of their leaders to this speech with their reaction to reforms like health care. If the outrage was unsubstantiated in one instance, isn’t there a likelihood that it’s unsubstantiated in the other?

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