Conservatives are freaking out because President Obama wants to tell kids to stay in school, obviously a part of the socialist marxist liberal Democratic agenda. Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer, who apparently stayed in school but didn’t learn anything, had the following to say:

“The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans … is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.”

Of course, President Obama justifying his plans for America’s youth to work hard and succeed has no place in the classroom. Not only that, his life story of being a poor mixed-race child in a single parent home and through hard work and education becoming the first black President of the United States is far too relevant and inspirational, and would likely create “a cult of personality.”

Conservatives, members of Ronald Reagan’s personality cult, should ask themselves “What Would Reagan Do?”
Actually, we know what he would do, because he did it on November 14, 1988 to junior high students. The difference is that Reagan actually did give a speech that conservative criticism seems to describe perfectly.

Let’s take a look (all emphasis mine):

We also find that more countries than ever before are following America’s revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes and other economic reforms that they’re using, copying what we have done here in our country. I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom — the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state — was central to the American Revolution when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes, and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party — have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where, because of a tax, they went down and dumped the tea in the harbor? Well, that was America’s original tax revolt. And it was the fruits of our labor — belonged to us, and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity.

That seemed a lot like President Reagan justifying his agenda and telling kids that taxes are bad and everyone in the world knows it. And of course there is a tea party reference.

The basic values of faith and family will be just as true when people are living on distant planets as they are today. So, for America to gain greatest benefit from all the exciting new technologies that lie ahead, we will also need to reaffirm our traditional moral values, because these values are the foundation on which everything we do is built. So, yes, I would encourage you to study the math and science that are at the basis of the new technologies. But in a world of change you also need to pay attention to the moral and spiritual values that will stay with you, unchanged, throughout a long lifetime.

Traditional moral and spiritual values? That doesn’t sound like a conservative platform plank or anything.

And, again, I would say that the most important thing you can do is to ground yourself in the ideas and values of the American Revolution. And that is a vision that goes beyond economics and politics. It’s also a moral vision, grounded in the reverence and faith of those who believed that with God’s help they could create a free and democratic nation. They designed a system of limited government that, in John Adams’ words, was suited only to a religious people such as ours. Our Founding Fathers were the descendents of the Pilgrims — men and women who came to America seeking freedom of worship — who prospered here and offered a prayer of thanksgiving, something we’ve continued to do each year, and so that we’ll do it again on Thursday of next week.

And children, remember that we are a Christian nation and the only reason our democracy works is because we are so Christian. Jesus wants us to have a limited government.

This speech is encompasses everything that conservatives are accusing President Obama of doing, yet President Obama is only speaking about staying in school and working hard, something President George H.W. Bush did in 1991.

The Republican Party over the last decade has attempted to declare a monopoly on patriotism, yet take actions that are as unpatriotic as anything seen in a generation. It’s time to stop being afraid of Republicans and conservatives and actually start to do those things Democrats were elected to do.