In an excellent article titled “Joonas Turunen vs Paavo Arhinmäki” from this month’s 6-Degrees magazine, two student leaders debate Tuula Haatainen’s (Minister of Education, SDP) suggestion to increase the duration of compulsory education. Currently, a student can end their schooling career at age 16, the minister wants to require students to remain in school until they are 18.

Joonas Turunen, the President of the Finnish League for the Upper Secondary School, disagrees with the minister’s proposed plan while unsurprisingly, Paavo Arhinmäki, the President of the Left Youth of Finland, agrees with the proposal. The two duke it out on 6-Degrees magazine, but there’s no real need to read Paavo Arhinmäki’s rhetoric because he sums up his and the left-wing’s ideology perfectly at the very end…

I’d prefer a society that interferes rather than a society that doesn’t care for its people. This is the fundamental question –

…exactly, the left wants to interfere in other people’s lives against their own free will. They want to force people into their own beliefs rather than allow individuals and families to make their own decision.

Like Paavo said, “This is the fundamental question” – It’s the classic case of force vs. freedom. The left always wants to use force. They feel people and families are too stupid/lazy/ignorant/incompetent/whatever to make decisions for themselves, so they (the social elite) must make those decisions for all “the common folk”.

I know another person who would rather interfere in society than not care for them – George W. Bush – Instead of not caring for the Iraqi people and letting them rot under Saddam Hussein, he wanted to interfere. I think the left and him have more in common than most people think.