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High school kids can surprise you with their intelligence, their insight and their determination.  Sometimes.  Other times, they act like we often expect high school kids to act: heavy on the emotionalism and passion, light on the logic and sound reasoning.  It's why it's kind of an historic axiom that younger people tend to be more liberal and why liberalism flourishes on college campuses.  Idealism of youth, while admirable, doesn't translate consistently into realism.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum should know that, but if he didn't, he learned it all over again at a New Hampshire townhall full of college and high school aged kids who were full of nearly as much crap as they were of themselves.

For an added dose of humor, check out the way NPR reported on the exchange between Santorum and the prima donnas:

If you predicted that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum would tone down his made-for-Iowa religious-based message when he hit the ground in much-more secular New Hampshire, his appearance in Concord, N.H., on Thursday provided ample evidence that he plans no such thing.

 

Santorum, who finished a close second in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, had a spirited back-and-forth with 17-year-old Rhiannon Pyle, a senior from Newburyport High School in Massachusetts. He responded aggressively when she asked Santorum about his opposition to same-sex marriage; the college-aged crowed cheered the question.

 

Pyle: "How about the right that all men are created equal?"

 

Here's Santorum, who in the past has been accused of comparing same-sex marriage with bestiality:

 

"So, anyone can marry anybody else? So, anybody can marry several people?"

 

And so it went.

First, let's start with NPR.  Don't you love how they throw in the taxpayer-financed, clearly objective and not biased comment about Santorum, "who in the past has been accused of comparing same-sex marriage with bestiality" line?  Sure, NPR, he's "been accused" of such...by radical homosexual activists.  Tell me, how many NPR stories report on, "Barack Obama, who in the past has been linked to domestic terrorists, socialists and communists?"  Because that's true.  Why does NPR not do that?  Hmmm.  Odd, isn't it?

Now, as for the substance of what the 17 year old genius was saying, it's a difficult spot for Santorum.  If he patronizes her and talks down to her, or dismisses her stupidity...if he rolls his eyes and tells her to go take a logic class and then come back and talk to him, he's going to be hammered as insensitive.  So instead he attempts to engage this 17 year old who clearly thinks she's come up with something powerful here.

And that's the problem.  This girl is arguing pure emotion and is arguing from a non-existent rational logic.  So trying to reason with her or walk her through an argument isn't going to work.  And when people are not just ignorant, but are actually proud of their ignorance, it's nearly impossible to come away having delivered an effective or productive exchange.  That's why you typically want to avoid forums like this if you're a thinking conservative. 

Because look, her point could easily be demolished.  Just look and say, "Of course I believe all men are created equal.  Do you know what that phrase means?  It references the equal worth and dignity of all human life.  It doesn't mean that we must condone every whim and sexual urge that a person has - and if we don't, we are somehow violating a principle of equality.  I'm guessing you don't condone of certain sexual behaviors - and in fact, I'm guessing you would condemn some sexual behaviors and seek to legislate against them.  When you do so, are you violating the equality rights of another human being?  Of course not.  Neither am I."

And she would have come back with something like, "Oh so what, you want to pray away the gay?"  Or, "Who would Jesus hate?"  You know, real deep stuff.  And that's my point.  She's not ready, she's not equipped, she's not been trained to think rationally.

If you don't believe me, watch what happened:

Santorum: "If every person has a right to be happy, so you're not happy if you're not married to five people, is that OK?"

 

Pyle: "I'm not asking that."

 

Some in the crowd called out for him to answer Pyle's question; others that his line of argument was irrelevant.

 

Pyle: "How do you justify your belief based on these high morals you have about 'all men being created equal,' when two men want to marry..."

 

Santorum, interrupting: "What about three men?"

 

Pyle: "That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about giving them the basic right you give you and another woman."

 

Santorum: "It's important if we're going to have a discussion based on rational reasoned thought that we employ reason. Reason says that if you think it's OK for two, you have to differentiate with me why it's not OK for three."

See what I mean?  Santorum just undermined her entire line of argument and exposed its faulty base.  She's suggesting that it's all about what makes a person happy.  So Santorum just took her position to its logical conclusion and you see what ended up happening.  She says, "I'm not talking about that."  Well great, Rhiannon, but ideas have consequences.  You pull up the moral stakes for one group of people to "not be discriminated against," how do you throw them back down and discriminate against others.  If the basis for your definition of marriage is "whatever people want to do," how do you plan on changing it back when other people start to do things that you don't want them to do?  And when you attempt to do that, how are you not every bit the close-minded bigot that you accuse conservatives like Santorum of being? 

But she couldn't even process the point.  That's the state of the liberal mind: totally oblivious to rational debate and logic.  And since most adult liberals think the exact same way - they've never matured in their thinking past the high school/college depth - it's an increasingly difficult battle to win.

I remember watching a movie a few years ago called "Idiocracy."  The plot was that all the smart people stopped having kids and the dumb social rejects kept having kids to the point where we were so dumbed down as a society that rational thought was a thing of the past.  As I watch exchanges like this, and then listen to adult liberals prate about how Santorum was "owned" by a high schooler, I realize that movie might not be fictional as much as prophetic.