My son is a freshman in high school, and his Geography teacher is having them engage in a little bit of Civics by having them write an essay about who they support for President and why, as well as engage with other classmates in an online forum about the same topic.
I live in a pretty conservative neighborhood. My neighbors are really nice people, so I can only imagine that they are conservative because they know nothing else. i keep my political affiliations to myself because a) they don't really come up and b) I just don't see the point in engaging them.
The children, however, well that's a different story (you must now picture me wringing my hands in an evil gesture and speaking like the witch from The Wizard of Oz). I don't seek out these kids, I swear I don't. I think they are truly looking for other points of view besides their parents, because I find myself engaged in conversations with my son's friends fairly frequently where they are flat out asking my point of view on various political and social topics. Sometimes I have to actually shut the conversations down because I know I could get myself into trouble. (There was a young Mormon boy who seemed very eager to discuss gay rights and young sexuality since his parents wouldn't talk to him about it. I told him how I felt about it in as neutral a way as possible and changed the subject).
Another of my son's friends came over to ask for help in arguing with a conservo-nutjob classmate about the right to choose. She was going on and on about how people wanted to kill the babies, literally talking like someone was going into hospitals and murdering newborns. His mom is quite conservative and no help to him, so I gave him a few pointers and sent him on his merry way.
I do not feel badly about undermining these parents. I had one a-hole in another neighborhood we lived in in California during the Prop H8 fiasco telling my son about how "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," and I had to refrain from going over there and hitting him over the head with a frying pan. I frequently have people asking me if they can take my kids to Church or Bible study groups ("No, thank you!!"), so I feel like turnabout is fair play.
My daughter told me this morning that she literally is the only kid in her class who doesn't attend regular church services. She said, "Mama, when are we going to move someplace where not everyone goes to church?"
I do think longingly of moving back to New England, but then who would I subversively indoctrinate? That would be no fun at all.