Conservatives don't indoctrinate. American conservationism is based in the belief in individual liberty, and ensuring that choices are available. Those who believe in liberty present people with choices and freedom.
No, it was definitely indoctrination. My parents not only disagreed with liberals but openly hated them, and everything they told me about politics implied that liberal ideas were not even worth considering.
I remember my parents both telling me when I was five that poor people were all lazy and stupid, and that I would one day make tons of money because I was super brilliant. My mom told us to be patient with her only poor friend because he was "too stupid to graduate college," when none of us had graduated elementary school. Meanwhile, my dad would scream and throw stuff at fast-food workers when they got his order wrong, telling them that he was a
lawyer and they were "drug users" who would one day be replaced by machines. He used to complain about black women who birthed huge litters of children to get a larger and larger welfare check from
our tax dollars, and he told me many times that poor people should be sterilized so they couldn't "pollute the gene pool" (which he
still says, by the way). Every time he heard about a poor person who recently died (usually on the news), he'd remark that it was "Darwin in action," then grumble that they "probably already had kids." It happened enough that to this day, whenever I hear that someone has died, my brain automatically asks whether their death was likely to hurt or improve the world's genotypic intelligence.
When I was nine, and America's first gay marriage happened in Massachusetts, my dad told me (along with my two triplet brothers and my seven-year-old sister) that it was "sick" and "disgusting" and "unnatural." Then he had to explain what gay people were—which kinda confused us, because we had no idea what sex was.
My mom made sure we went to church every week, and read the Bible to us every day until we were old enough to read it ourselves. We were never encouraged to question a word of it, not even the story that Jonah lived inside a whale or everyone came from Noah's family. She assured us that any doubts we may have were caused by Satan putting them into our brains (a belief which terrified my brother until he became an atheist). That's not "indoctrination"?
Starting when I was, I dunno, nine, both my parents would tell us that most scientists didn't accept global warming, that the whole theory was a giant hoax perpetrated by the media and fringe scientists to push left-wing economic policies, and that global warming was the only reason we weren't in an ice age. I remember trying to point out the obvious inconsistency and getting yelled at for my "anti-American Marxist-Leninism."
My mom home-schooled us from second grade onward to stop us from being influenced by the "liberal education system." She kept us home-schooled by saying if we ever went back to public school, the other kids would laugh at us for being ignorant and socially awkward and we'd make no friends.
Before I went to kindergarten, my dad would sing patriotic songs to me every night (most of which glorified war), and tell me that America was the richest, best country in the world with the smartest scientists and the strongest military. In his mind, America never did anything wrong except occasionally indulge in too much empathy: we'd "civilized" the Native American "savages," enslaved and segregated blacks who "couldn't handle" equality (he's black himself, but never mind), avenged "the Muslims" for 9/11 by invading Iraq, and mercifully bombed "the enemy" in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII ("the Japs" were lucky we hadn't killed every single Japanese man, woman, and child like they deserved). Anyone who doubted American supremacy was either a jealous foreigner or an "America-hating liberal."
I can go on and on if you want.
Describing parenting by conservative parents as 'indoctrination' is indicative of the authoritarianism of the left, which sneers at anyone with a different point of view.
No, it's indicative of me understanding my own upbringing better than you do.
I don't even buy the idea that most conservative parents don't indoctrinate. Look at the number of conservatives who want schools to indoctrinate
other people's children into being loyal patriotic Christians who reflexively respect authority.
73% of Republicans say schools should teach patriotism over critical thinking.
