What Have We Been Teaching Our Children?

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On Tuesday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about the reaction to the killing of the CEO or UnitedHealthcare.

The article includes the following chart:

The article reports:

  • Most voters (68%) think the actions of the killer against Thompson were unacceptable, while 17% found them acceptable, an Emerson College poll out this week found.
  • Young voters were far more split: 41% found the killer’s actions acceptable, while 40% found them unacceptable, per the poll. About 24% found them “somewhat acceptable” and 17% “completely acceptable.” ….
  • Even before Mangione was arrested, posters hailed him as a folk hero and posted jokes and memes celebrating the suspect and his purported cause, Axios’ Ivana Saric reported.
  • TikTok, a top social media app for young people, was awash with comedy over the killing.
  • Online storefronts also began selling merchandise, including sweatshirts, wine tumblers and hats emblazoned with words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” — industry parlance found on shell casings at the crime scene….
  • 22% of Democrats found the killer’s actions acceptable, while 59% found them unacceptable. Among Republicans, 12% found the actions acceptable while 16% of independents said the same.
  • Men (19%) found the killer’s actions slightly more acceptable than women (14%).

This is frightening.

The article quotes an interview with William A. Jacobson, who wrote the article:

And so I think that’s what you’re seeing is a destruction of the values in the younger generation via the education system on the rule of law, of the notion that you just don’t get to kill people you don’t like. And so I think that’s a problem, I think, that this should be the reaction from the younger generation to this assassination, this premeditated assassination, which has resulted in a very rare first degree murder charge in New York State, because it’s an act, was an act considered an act of terrorism, which pushes it up from second degree murder to first degree murder. You’re seeing that reaction is something that is very frightening for our society, and I think you may see play out in other cases that people think it’s okay to kill somebody you disagree with or you think has a bad capitalist job.

If we continue to teach our young adults that capitalism is evil, where will the next generation of entrepreneurs come from?