Where were these students in years past? With their head in the same place as Americans that didn't feel the cost of paying for war: because it was all paid with debt, not current revenue. These students are behaving exactly the way most of America is behavior right now. We would like to think that people that are educated enough to be at Berkeley would have preempted the problem, but time and time again, the most base human behavior prevails.
Busy with their high school and without the right to vote? This is the first time those people can say anything officially and be taken seriously. If they don't like what's happening, then I think they're doing pretty well - started to get involved as early as they could.
For a bunch of kids fresh out of high school making their first serious political statement, "the state should give me more free government services" is a rather short-sighted, self-serving expression to make.
I'm quite OKw ith paying some taxes to subsidize their education as long as the colleges are run with sufficient fiscal discipline. The more well-educated people we have the more California's economy is likely to grow. This is why education was so heavily subsidized in California to begin with, and part of the reason (in addition to our copious natural resources) for the state's long-time leadership in science and technology.
to turn you statement around, for a bunch of kids fresh out of high school getting their first dose of political reality, "you are going to be about $50k in debt when you graduate because your elders and betters have screwed up the economy so badly" is a pretty poor payoff for the last several years of academic effort.
Someone who is barely scraping by is a) the least likely to get hit with more tax, b)most likely to derive benefit over the long term from an economy wide rising tide, and c) most in need to subsidized education that could improve their earning power.
I have extensive first-hand experience of barely scraping by, and reject your analogy of 'pointing a gun at someone'. For things like education and healthcare (which liberals like myself believe to be worth public funding), some compare it to sticking up the weakest and poorest and taxing them farther into poverty, whereas the reality is that those services, which are almost essential for economic security and advancement, are stuck behind a big paywall and those who object to the existence of this wall have guns pointed at them. Yesterday, literally so, in the form of riot guns.
High school graduates have the lowest earning power and the highest rate of unemployment. I don't see the social good in saddling them with tens of thousand in debt so that when they graduate they are forced towards the most lucrative offer. That's how we ended up with a shortage of scientists and engineers and a surplus of quantitative analysts on Wall Street.
I am not fresh out of high school, but I still think the state should give them more free government services. I have a lot more use for educated fellow citizens than I have for, say, roads. (It's not socialism when the government builds roads that are free for everyone to use, but it is when we talk about educating people or helping them not die from some disease. I think that is pretty funny...)
I believe he was anticipating the socialism argument from someone, and he was trying to nip it in the bud. You are in the set of "someone" but you are not the only element in that set. Don't take it so personally.
