Speaking of Ronald Reagan (and propaganda), the first Interex conference
that I attended was in Washington DC during the Reagan era (1985 I think).

I was a bit surprised to find that across the road from the White House
there was a wall of protest signs that were taken down every night and
re-erected every morning. I was also surprised at the number of homeless
people sleeping in the parks. Apparently the economy hadn't trickled down to
them yet.

It was a very hot week, and one of the items on the news was about school
teachers who were disciplining unruly grade 4 students by locking them in a
plywood box in the schoolyard, like something out of Cool Hand Luke.
(Chewing gum in class Billy? That's 2 days in the box). In Canada, this
would have resulted in a Royal Commission looking into the school system. In
Washington, some of the parents were complaining that this shouldn't be done
when the temperature gets above 85. The teachers were defending the practice
as long as they followed proper guidelines which included a time limit on
how long the kids were left in the box. Some parents were also defending the
practice with comments like, "My little Billy used to be a real hand full,
but after a couple of sessions in the box, now he's as good as gold.

Another item was about a group of university students who were noting cases
where professors were teaching things which the student group deemed to be
pro-communist or socialist, and trying to get them thrown off the faculty.

After reading some of the comments in this thread about the proper way to
deal with prisoners, the dangers of being soft on crime, the left-bias in
the media, and how all of the other countries in the world are against the
US because of our socialist leanings, it seems like not much has changed
since the glory days of Ronald Reagan.

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