Can you at least sit him down and deprogram him? Explain that the limited data he had available was misleading and not representative of the truth. Even though the assignment is over, it’s not too late to help him research the pertinent facts, for his own benefit. His core beliefs are being formed now.
He knows. Tom’s a good FReeper kid, and his core beliefs are small-government. He started out with an “anti-” position on the topic, but then he wasn’t finding data to back it up. Cato Institute didn’t have a statistical paper on the topic. In the 48-hour time frame, we had to go with mass-media, which means pro-regulation, sources.