<p>I believe Critical Thinking is all important and necessary for a democracy to thrive, especially in a world where there are so many attempts to manipulate the masses with gobbledygook and one liners. Example: Liberal = Bad, Opponents to the Iraqi War = Unpatriotic, Obama = muslim born in Kenya. The effect of a person’s lack of ability to think critically is evident in many of the posts on College Confidential. How many people give opinions as if they are truisms without any data to support them? How about the rankings of colleges themselves. Should people just buy into the rankings as some sort of gospel? I know my daughters can read. I read to them at an early age (bythe way, my oldest is a Harry Potter fanatic, so I’ll have to send her to that website), and they have done well on their standardized tests. BUT I want to make sure they can not only digest information, but analyze it for what it is, and have a sound basis for accepting or rejecting that information coming their way. It is very frustrating on my end meeting people who simply buy into all of the propoganda they hear or read about in the media or on the web. Sometimes I go out of my way to challenge peoples thoughts, but really that’s not very polite to do in most circumstances.</p>