Patti, just to play devil's advocate for a moment:
Many of the leftists from the 60's and 70's are now entrenched at our countries' colleges and poisoning the minds of young people.
As a 'leftist' myself, I could equally complain about all these hard-right conservatives around the place, in universities and business and everywhere, 'poisoning' the minds of young people in favour of right-wing views. It does work both ways.
Whatever you think of communism, and I won't defend it, socialism is not the same thing. It's a perfectly legitimate political philosophy, just as free-market capitalism is, and there are socialist governments in countries not on the US embargo list. Freedom of speech is a right guaranteed in the US constitution, so why shouldn't people with views which diverge from the majority have the right to voice their opinions also?
Wendy
