I watched part of Shapiro’s circular firing squad debate with the children the other night. I was reminded that unless you start from some common precepts taught to you when you were a child the debate can’t go anywhere, instead, it truly is a circle of spurious nonsensical ideological arguments about opinion straying far from facts. Some of the principles you begin with are: The Constitution is the way our government is supposed to run Electoral College and all. We are all Americans first and not groups of groups or tribes with our own separate and distinct representation as called for by some of the children. Children don’t get to run things, adults do that. We don’t agree to lying, cheating, stealing or killing outside of war or conflict in any way. We uphold the Ten Commandments. We uphold the Golden Rule. Too many have never been taught these things. Too many have parented without adhering to the idea of Proverbs 22:6. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
I’m not familiar with what you watched, but what you wrote makes sense. We do need to understand the core principles of how our government is set up to work as well as how to behave ethically. If one of those is askew, our society is not going to function properly.
I like how Steve Bannon said he taught a civics class while in prison. I’ll bet a lot of those guys were never taught in a meaningful way how the government is supposed to work.