by Jacob G. Hornberger

September 23, 2026

An article in today’s New York Times entitled “U.S. Suicide Rate Drops, but Remains ‘Stubbornly High’” states in part:

“…. new survey data from 2025 indicates that teenagers surveyed at high schools across the country are experiencing improvements in several key measures, including persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, serious thoughts of suicide and attempting suicide in the last year. But 33 percent of the high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the last 12 months. Fourteen percent reported that they had seriously considered attempting suicide…. Dying by suicide remains among the top causes of death in younger people….”

Of course, things like a bad home life, sexual abuse, and other things must always be considered possible factors when it comes to suicide among young people.

But what no mainstream press reporter or commentator will ever acknowledge is another potential factor in teenage suicide — the fact that government officials indoctrinate young people into living lives based on lies and delusions. The fact that most young people are unaware of the false reality that they are living makes their situation significantly worse.

I’ve recently written two articles about America’s so-called capitalist system. The first article was entitled “It’s No Surprise that Young People Are Going for Socialism.” The second article, entitled “A Great Review and a Great Show,” detailed how Ron Paul and Dan McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute expanded the point I was making in their daily show The Liberty Report.

My point is a simple one: Since young people are falsely indoctrinated with the notion that they are living in a “capitalist” system — one that comes with a massive government killing machine, a gigantic welfare state, state-sponsored assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, a drug-war police state, an immigration police state, a government debt of more than $40 trillion, tariffs, huge income taxation, the IRS, paper-money and Federal Reserve debasement of people’s money, wars of aggression, bombing sprees, conscription, and other statist (i.e., non-capitalist) programs — it is easy to understand why young people would say, “I want nothing to do with capitalism. I’m moving to socialism.”

I hold that the same principle applies to suicides among young people. Rather than move to socialism, however, they choose to simply move to the next life.

The indoctrination that young people receive in the public (i.e., government) schools to which their parents are forced to send them is that they are living not just in a “capitalist” society but, more important, in a free society. As with capitalism, it’s just a lie and a delusion. There is no way that anyone who lives under a brutal, harsh, cruel, tyrannical, and oppressive regime with omnipotent powers, including the powers of assassination, torture, and surveillance, can be considered to be free.

But that’s precisely what young people are indoctrinated into believing — that they live in a free society. That’s what the Pledge of Allegiance is all about. It’s what they are taught about “patriotism” — that is, expressing thanks for having the privilege of living in a free country and, of course, supporting the troops and profusely thanking them for their “service.” And merrily singing, “Thank God I’m an American because at least I know I’m free.”

I submit that a life of genuine freedom would be very exciting and fulfilling. It would give everyone the widest ambit to discover who they are and why they were born and to develop their full potential as human beings.

But the reality is that we don’t live in a free society, no matter how much people might be convinced we do. People who live in an unfree society are relegated to carving out as much personal happiness as they can as they travel from birth to death as serfs, slaves, or servants of the state.

One can easily imagine a young indoctrinated person saying to himself, “Wow! So this is what freedom is all about — killing, torture, dole dependency, sanctions, embargoes, invasions, occupations, death, impoverishment, mandatory charity, deportations, assassinations of defenseless people in little boats based on secret information, the IRS, the DEA, ICE, TSA, Homeland Security, and the like. This is the best there is? Well, I think ‘freedom’ sucks. I’m checking out of life early and moving on to a better life.”

What happens if a student in some public (i.e., government) school instinctively rejects the indoctrination, along with the regimentation, conformity, and obedience to orders that come with the government’s educational system? Oftentimes, he is diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder. They put him on Ritalin, Adderall, or some other drug in order to “cure” him of his obvious mental disorder.

But the truth is that there isn’t anything wrong with questioning this dysfunctional system. It’s actually quite healthy,  What’s wrong is the army-lite system of state regimentation, conformity, and indoctrination to which he is being subjected. The student is right to reject it; and parents are wrong to support the state’s drugging of their children in an effort to “cure” them.

Sometimes a student will achieve a breakthrough and realize the dysfunctional nature of the state’s educational system and its program of indoctrination. That student will most likely survive the 12-year ordeal and come out in a fairly healthy condition. Not so, however, with the student who remains indoctrinated. The false reality to which his mind continues to adhere can undoubtedly end up with psychological consequences arising from a denial of reality. Since most mainstream therapists believe in public schooling and falsely believe that they themselves are living in a free society, they are incapable of helping young people break free of the destructive army-lite indoctrination to which they are being subjected.

The best thing Americans could do for their children and other young people is to free them from this highly destructive system of state indoctrination. That means getting the state out of education entirely, just as our American ancestors succeeded in getting the state out of religion.