Especially on the Left. They often need to be hit between the eyes with a two-by-four to get their attention. But then, the Left is so monomaniacal, and so blind to unintended consequences, that they often willfully ignore even blatant evidence that their maneuvers are rebounding against them. Consider this “little” story from the Epoch Times:
Four times a week, 16-year-old Olivia Rife flicks on the lights of her bakery at 7 a.m., on the second floor of a grey, plain brick building in Richlands, and begins preparing to bake today’s sweet goods.
Usually, that means cupcakes, assorted squares and brownies, fondue strawberries, Oreo cake pops, and her specialty: the giant chocolate chip cookies she and her clients have come to love so much.
Olivia, a native Virginian, has been at it—running her own bakery in a commercial location on Grayson Avenue—for over a month. Impressive for an 11th-grader.
Impressive already, isn’t it? But what made it possible for Miss Rife to embark on a particularly yummy entrepreneurship at her age?
Making it more than just a hobby, the real springboard for Olivia to launch her bakery business, Liv-Y-Licious, was boredom. The COVID lockdowns left Olivia missing her friends and classmates.
That’s just Exhibit One, Gentle Reader. To continue:
Olivia tries to strike a “perfect balance” by hanging out with friends on weekends and handling her homeschool work in the evenings. The bakery is open four days a week, she says, though business usually eats up five or six.
Ahem! So the young lady is homeschooled, is she? Did the embrace of a task that many parents would dismiss as “too challenging” and “leave it to the professionals” inspire her? The story doesn’t say, but it’s certainly possible. Of course, the flexibility of write-your-own-schedule homeschooling also contributed to Olivia’s opportunity. But the insistence of teachers’ unions on closing the schools and keeping them closed, despite the infinitesimal risk the virus poses to young people, surely factors in as well.
The current government-mandated system of mandatory education has often been called the “twelve-year sentence.” There’s a lot of resonance in that. What opportunities are denied to young, energetic Americans by their involuntary incarceration in classrooms – classrooms where they must endure a pace and a difficulty level set by the dullest and most sluggish of their coevals – when they could actually be learning something?
Apprenticeships and internships have been making a comeback, especially in the trades: plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, construction, and so forth. This rediscovery of the old method by which young people entered such trades was set back by two major influences: mandatory schooling, and the emphasis on “white-collar” careers. Mandatory classroom schooling took a body blow from teachers’ unions greed. For several reasons, white-collar occupations no longer look quite as attractive as they did twenty years back. The consequences are steadily being flapped in their faces.
But don’t bet on any open remorse from the Left. They’re still straining to find a rationale under which they can blame the Right for the COVID disaster – a many-faceted jewel they chose, purchased, and gift-wrapped specially for us. The bill has yet to come due in full.
