Jonah Goldberg Takes The Oddly Unpopular Stance Of Beating Young Adults.

Jonah Goldberg, pictured above, is a writer for the National Review as well as the author of "Liberal Facism."  I don't know if anyone remembers, but he was on "The Daily Show" on 1/16/08 to promote said book.  Jon Stewart promptly tore him a new asshole.  I remember the day quite fondly, because it was when I personally fell in love with Stewart's ability to crush subhuman amoebas like Goldberg in any debate.

More to the point, it's now four years later, and I had completely forgotten about him.  Imagine my surprise when I see his face on ThinkProgress, attached to this headline: "National Review Writer: Conservatives Should 'Beat' Young People Who 'Think Socialism Is Better Than Capitalism'." 

I was a bit skeptical.  Don't get me wrong, I love ThinkProgress and AddictingInfo, but both tend to sensationalize almost as much as other media outlets do in order to get their points across.  Did he really say that Conservatives should beat young people? 

GOLDBERG: Personally, I think the voting age should be much, higher, not lower. I think it was a mistake to lower it to 18, to be brutally honest….[I]t is a simple fact of science that nothing correlates more with ignorance and stupidity than youth. We’re all born idiots, and we only get over that condition as we get less young. And yet there’s this thing in this culture where, ‘Oh, young people are for it so it must be special.’ No, the reason young people are for it because they don’t know better. That’s why we call them young people. [...]

The fact that young people think socialism is better than capitalism. That’s proof of what social scientists call their stupidity and their ignorance. And that’s something that conservatives have to beat out of them. Either literally or figuratively as far as I’m concerned.

You want to know who I think is an idiot?  Jonah Goldberg.  Ignorant eighteen year old individuals do not vote because they find it to be a waste of time.  The only young adults that vote are those that are aware and those that actually care about our political system.  I was one of those individuals - I voted for the first time in the 2008 election for President Obama.  I was informed on both Obama's platform and McCain's.  I made a decision based off of that information, and then voted appropriately.
And, just to be a know-it-all fuck, I have to shoot down Goldberg's "simple fact of science."  What correlates more with ignorance and stupidity than youth are two things: Conservatism and adherence to religion.

The last two sentences of his statement really irritate me.  Who gave Goldberg, let alone Conservatives as a group, the authority to beat anyone?  And another thing: who the fuck does Jonah Goldberg think he is passing down some heavenly mandate to beat ideas out of young people?  The entire scenario makes me think of the end of "1984."  I mean, let's face it, there are only two ways to figuratively beat an idea out of a person's mind: through education or through brain-washing.  And as education and Conservatism/Capitalism tend to conflict in just about every way possible, I'd say Goldberg would have to settle on the latter. 

To be honest, Goldberg better hire some muscle if he plans on physically beating young people.  As it stands, it looks like the only thing he can kick the shit out of is a box of Twinkies.