We were doing an exercise in my debate class this evening, and these four mild mannered middle-school girls were turning into the most blatent populists and nationalists imaginable.
I was having them develop hypothetical presidential campaign platforms (for president of Korea, of course, although I also talked about the neverending campaign taking off in the US this year). They proposed everything from eliminating SAT tests (pandering to students) to providing free massage-chairs to everyone over 60 (pandering to the elderly). They suggested war with North Korea as well as Japan (just for old times' sake, I guess). One girl proposed building a protective dome over the country first, which I thought was clever, but it made me think of Newt Gingrich's moon colony for some reason. Another girl wanted to execute all prisoners. I said… even non-murderer criminals? Oh yes… prisons are expensive. Hmm.
Well, next week, I'll give them a chance to try to come up with rebuttals to some of these outlandish proposals. And I hope I can lead them to some degree of thoughtfulness about these things.