Why are Democrats obsessed about slavery?

A Tennessee school district apologized Thursday after a homework assignment asked students to pretend their "family owns slaves."

Actually, it was a pretty good assignment. I don't think Dr. Mike Looney, director of Williamson County schools, should have apologized. It was a thoughtful assignment and would likely have benefited the students, their families and even critics. The students were eighth-graders, and were asked, "Imagine that their family owns slaves and then 'create a list of expectations' for those slaves."

Besides, which slaves in that school district were offended?

Dr. Looney's real problem wasn't that he touched the slavery-rail of "I'm offended politics"; it was that he asked students in his district to think. You see, thinking about things means you might arrive at the wrong conclusion.

Yes, it's a harsh and brutal world outside the protected halls of the academy. Almost everything has been "thought through" by someone, who has arrived at the conclusion that benefits him or her most. To protect yourself, you must set up an advocacy group to yell and scream the loudest for your position – because your friends and neighbors need to be protected from thinking and coming to a wrong conclusion. Wrong conclusions are ones the advocacy group founder disagrees with.

Little academia was once thought to be preparation for big academia. Since thinking usually makes use of facts and experience, the focus began on facts (kindergartners have so few), then added experiences, and certainly by the eighth grade had moved toward thinking for oneself.

Now that big academia has ruled that thinking is no longer allowed – everyone must share the same dogma to graduate – little academia has had to fall in line. Thoughtful exercises that might lead someone into personal growth must be eliminated.

But why is it the radical left, the Democrats, are the ones so obsessed with thought – or more correctly, thought crimes? Well, I have some thoughts on that.

First, having the wrong thoughts does nothing to advance the party's objective. Since obtaining political power (owning the power of the state to compel behavior) is the Democratic Party's objective, everything else they say is their platform.

Second, Democrats have constructed their utopian socialist dreamland almost entirely from things that just aren't so. The party muckymucks know this. But their core belief that humanity is infinitely malleable tells them it doesn't matter. If only they can obtain power, they can then force compliance. It can be made to work. Obamacare says it all in this regard.

Third, the Democrat Party has historically been the last to give up slavery. Why? The Southern states needed slavery to make their economy work. The more industrialized Northern states had already moved past that into hiring people to do the work.

But I wonder, has the Democratic Party really moved past their reliance on slavery? In a very real sense, it seems as though someone who is dependent upon government for his livelihood is in fact involved in a master-slave relationship. That relationship is intrinsically unequal: The government makes the rules, and the benefit recipient complies or loses benefits.

It really doesn't matter what government program it is. Food aid. Housing aid. Income aid. It all comes with strings attached. The more people government can attach such strings to, the more people government can control.

The more people government controls, the more people are held in modern-day slavery. They become easy electoral pickings. When a political candidate decides to run for political office, there is already a big, unified base that will be happy to vote for expanded or enriched benefits.

The more the family decays, the more dependent children the "government family" gains. The more difficult it is to find a job, the fewer people will be working. Their goal becomes government benefits, if only to hang on until better times.

The Democratic Party's exploitation of this hope for "better times" is really unconscionable. More government control. More dependency. Less personal responsibility. And fewer citizens willing to tell the government to go bleep itself. That really is why the Constitution exists, you know. The powers of the government were carefully enumerated. Those not specifically mentioned were left to the people. When the government obtains all the power – by hook or by crook – what will be left to the people?