Cowards, Cultists and the Close-minded.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I was told that the beauty of America was that ANYONE could grow up to be President. We were encouraged, even in that more sheltered time, to explore ideas and situations, to find out all we could.
And now? Now I look around me, ear to the wind, and see a significant portion of America howling that their child should not be “exposed” to a speech by the President of the United States of America.
I understand not agreeing with the President. I understand not liking President Obama’s ideas, ideals, goals and methods. I understand not wanting one’s children to think like the sitting President. I understand, and would defend to the death, the ability and right of people to feel this way.
I do NOT understand anyone who is so insecure, as incomplete as a person, so singularly unevolved as a thinker that they would stand against their child hearing what the President has to say. I can think of very few people who could speak in such a way that a child should not hear them.
Assuming these children are in schools with history lessons they will be exposed to the words of Hitler, a mass murderer and racist and genocidal maniac. They will be exposed to the words of slave-owners, pagans, heathens, witch-burners, conquerors, the deluded and insane. Shall the schools have to ask parental permission to expose their children to history? How about to the genocides, rapists and murderers of the bible?
As we move through the twenty first century we wish to show the world who we are. As Americans we are constantly watched and judged. Are we attempting to show the world’s despots, terrorist and war-mongers that we are this cowardly? This country was built on the backs and in the minds of men and women who were raised exposed to the harshness of the wilderness, the ravages of war, the vagaries of disease and the realities of disparate ideas. Are we raising citizens or marshmallows? Are we going to continue to play the words of Osama Bin Laden on every TV screen and hide from the words of our own elected President?
If you wish for a barometer of any society’s trajectory I would point you towards the level of fear they have towards ideas. Ideas and words. Are we rearing the generation that will leave the nest only to recoil at the hideous discovery that there are people in the world, well meaning people, who disagree with mommy and daddy? Are we prepared for our children, on their own and moving as adults to collapse under the weight of disagreement the moment they leave the protective measure of their childhood homes?
For shame. For shame America for letting this situation ever arise. When did the failure come that allowed a fear of a simple idea or speech to be so dangerous as to crush their values?