I must preface the following by noting that I'm not a supporter of President Obama -- that particular puppet is already on strings and needs no additional support from me. I didn't vote for him (although my children did), and he proves every day he has no intention of deviating one iota from the path to hell set by his predecessor.

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Hajji F.H. Minshall is a Shi'a Muslim living in Anchorage. One of his three granddaughters is a straight-A public school student in Arkansas. The others aren't yet old enough to attend school.

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Having said that, I gotta say this: These melanistically challenged dimwits and their current fad of hysterically proclaiming that public education should not be used for political indoctrination are a real hoot! I ask you, when has American public education not included political indoctrination?

Are not children still required to recite the "Pledge of Allegiance"? You may agree with that one, but it's political indoctrination -- no more, no less.

When I was a kid, public school classrooms were venues for inculcating fear and hatred against the Soviet Union, Cuba and the People's Republic of China, as well as support for the Vietnam War and for "Israel" -- all of which were examples of, you guessed it, political indoctrination.

In Missouri, where I attended public school, all middle- and high-school history classes demonized John Brown as a murderous madman. But when I grew older and researched his life from more unbiased historical sources, I came to understand he was a truly great American, indeed, one of the greatest of Christian martyrs.

He sacrificed himself and his family to fight against the slaveholders who had overthrown the democratically elected antislavery government of Missouri by military coup, and who sent hired thugs into neighboring Kansas to murder antislavery German settlers, in hope of dragging that state under the darkness of the plantation system as well. Brown's heroic courtroom speech upon being condemned to hang for the raid on Harper's Ferry brought tears to my eyes the first time I read it.

And those slavers' descendants who ran Missouri public schools when I was young still hated John Brown for his courageous stand. The resulting disparity between what was taught in their schools and historical reality was clearly another example of political indoctrination.

On a lighter note, is there anyone from my generation who doesn't remember the hilarious propaganda film "Reefer Madness" (other than those who expressed their rejection of its message through excessive indulgence)? And do any of us recall even ONE of our public school teachers taking aim at the far more devastating multibillion-dollar American liquor industry as well? Political indoctrination, I say!

Government-run education has always engaged in indoctrination. Dr. Benjamin Rush, an early American proponent of public education and signer of the Declaration of Independence, had this to say: "Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property ... He must be taught to amass wealth, but it must be only to increase his power of contribution to the wants and needs of the state."

It's long been seen that the main problem with born-again bigots -- and their Wahabbi counterparts in my own faith -- is their tendency to confuse unexamined belief with "faith." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Fear of thinking about one's cherished notions (they don't really qualify as genuine "beliefs") is not faith -- it's at best willful ignorance.

Clearly, this tendency has for many bled into their cherished political notions as well. This constitutes real cause for concern, as it indicates that willful ignorance in other arenas of American social life is being elevated to that status formerly reserved for "religion." Such tendency represents a deadly danger to any free society, because there are always demagogues poised to promote, and take advantage of, the lynch-mob mentality.

So all you so-called "conservative" whiners should give the rest of us a break and stop your incessant squealing and wailing because your little darlings might -- gasp! -- hear a speech or two in their classrooms by a politician with whom you disagree. Get over it.

Like it or not, most of you are products of political indoctrination via the public schools.

Can you say "irony," boys and girls?

Hajji F.H. Minshall is a Shi'a Muslim living in Anchorage. One of his three granddaughters is a straight-A public school student in Arkansas. The others aren't yet old enough to attend school.

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