The next generation of Democratic voters???
I asked in the last post where the Democratic Party will get its supporters, assuming (as I do) that they continue their heedless march leftward.
Here's my take on it...
People in recent months have speculated about the so-called "Roe effect" - the theory that pro-abortion Democrats are in essence killing off their future base by aborting their own children. I think this theory is nonsense. Its underlying assumption is that pro-abortion parents are more likely to raise pro-abortion children. But this ignores the ugly reality that, over the past thirty years, a huge percentage of pro-life parents have raised pro-abortion children. How did that happen?
The answer to that question is also the answer to where the ultra-Left Democrats are going to get their future base. They don't need to have their own children. Because they have yours.
They control the media, they control the entertainment business, and, most significantly, they control the content of the government schools and most colleges and universities where you are sending your children to learn.
Let me be clear who I am speaking about here. I am not talking about your local Democrat state representative, senator or precinct committee chair. I am not talking about your garden-variety schoolteacher or administrator. And I am certainly not talking about the average American who votes Democratic. I am speaking about the elite, the privileged few, the self-appointed "visionaries" behind the scenes.
These "visionaries" of the Left are not worried about the party losing this or that election. Nor are they in a lather to "pull Right." They believe - and I think they are right - that the real battleground for hearts and minds is NOT in the polling booths, but in the books your children read, the music they listen to, the actors and singers they idolize, and in what they learn in school.
And the messages they want your children to be taught are crystal clear: Belief in God is anti-intellectual. There are few rules (except for the ones they make up from time to time). There is no such thing as truth. All morality is relative. Sex should be easy, casual, devoid of emotional commitment and divorced from its consequences. Everybody's doing it. The worst sin is to be "judgmental." Disapproving of anyone's conduct on moral grounds is discriminatory, ignorant, bigoted, and possibly even criminal. Killing your children is, alternately, a civil right, a blithe choice, an unfortunate necessity, a way to be cool, a joke (read the lyrics to one of popular singer Usher's latest songs), or even a sacred ritual.
According to their view, America is not a bastion of freedom and opportunity, a country whose sons and daughters have been willing to fight and die to liberate others, but an evil oppressor of the poor, and an exploiter of other countries. Freedom and opportunity are illusions. Tolerance for diversity is the only universal value (as long as it is not a conservative or traditional viewpoint that is being tolerated). Corporations are not the greatest distributors of wealth in the history of human civilization, but the root of all evil. Entrepreneurs and innovators are not creative people who have raised the standard of human living all over the globe, but are greedy, selfish robber barons. Private property and ownership should be regulated, heavily taxed, minimized, or abolished. Big government is the answer to all human problems. And they, of course, should control the government. (As you might have noticed after Election Day, Left-wing intellectuals are all in favor of "the people" deciding, except when "the people" decide differently than they would have them do.)
These leftist ideologues, like many revolutionaries, are patient. They know that they do not have to change their views to appeal to those of us who see their lies for what they are. We will grow old and die. In the meantime, they have enormous control and influence over what our children believe. Those are tomorrow's voters. And they have tomorrow's voters in the palms of their hands.
Many have complained over the past few decades that movies and music have become insipid, profane, excessively violent, and sexually depraved. And that schools have abandoned the real work of education, and replaced it with brainwashing, intimidation and indoctrination. Do you think this is an accident?
So - Election 2004 is over. Now what? For those of us with children, the stakes have never been higher. Here are my suggestions. Some are doable for everyone, some are not. But everyone with an interest in their children's future should be able to do something.
1. First and foremost, take control of your children's education. This means doing your homework. As follows:
(a) Know everything you can about the programs and activities sponsored at your children's school, the texts used, the classes taught. Don't be fooled by bland names like, "Safety training" or "health education," which can be masks for social or moral indoctrination with which you don't agree. Ask to preview texts to be distributed, or insist that the school have screenings of new educational films for parents in advance.
(b) Read your children's textbooks when you help them with their homework. Be on the lookout for fallacies, specious arguments, unprovable assertions (especially social and political ones) and subtle - or even overt - attempts to politicize the class content. Point out bias and falsity to your child. (It is a good thing for children to learn to question what they read, in any case.)
(c) Become an active member of your PTA/PTO.
(d) Run for the school board.
(e) If you can't do that, then at least involve yourself in the election and operation of the school board. Know every single issue that comes before the board each year. Attend as many school board meetings as you can. Many parents who attend school board meetings are shocked to discover the policies that are being considered and implemented.
(f) Push for charter schools and for vouchers in your state. These allow lower-income parents to choose better public schools or even private schools for their children.
(g) While we're on the subject, don't assume that because the school you've chosen is private that your children are receiving an education that is consistent with your values. Your chances may be better, but there is no guarantee. The major difference is that if you challenge a practice, text, course or program in a private school, you are not being forced to take on the state government, and so you have a much better chance of making your case successfully.
(h) If you're considering a private school for your children, Don't be afraid to check out schools with a religious affiliation that is different from your own. I have (for example) many Protestant and Jewish friends who are quite comfortable sending their children to Catholic schools. They simply do not participate in the religious instruction.
(i) Then of course, for the most ambitious among us, there is always the option of homeschooling your children. But whether you choose this option or not, support homeschooling in your town or city however you can.
(j) Finally, rigorously screen any college or university that your child is interested in attending. Do not assume that because it is highly ranked, the education your child will receive there will be excellent. At most highly-ranked colleges and universities, an excellent education (and by that I mean challenging, rigorous, and devoid of vapid sociopolitical indoctrination) is still possible, but it will depend on the major, unit, or program in which your child ultimately enrolls. Engineering may be outstanding, while sociology is a joke. Determine what your child's academic interests are. Get information about the school's programs in that area. Read the course descriptions. (You'd be surprised how much you can determine just from the title of the courses.
2. Second, you need to protect your children from the all-out media assault on your values that permeates our culture.
(a) Listen to the CDs they want before you allow them to purchase them. (You can usually do this at most record stores and bookstores that sell CDs.) You can also look up the lyrics on the internet.
(b) Don't let your children see R-rated movies. Go to PG-13 rated movies before they do, or read reviews in reputable media outlets.
(c) Limit your children's exposure to TV. Ideally? Throw out your television. Prime-time television has virtually nothing to offer children and adolescents. And while there are some wonderful channels on cable, a lot of it is garbage. Have family book, game or puzzle night instead.
(d) And while we're on the subject of cable television, call your U.S. senator or Congressman and ask him or her to sponsor a bill that would allow consumers to purchase only the cable channels they want. Can you imagine what control this would give parents over their children's exposure to unwanted content?
(e) Treat TV, music and computers in other people's homes the way you treat guns in other people's homes. Call the parents of your childrens' friends and ask - do their children have a TV in their room? Cable? Or a computer? Ask what controls they have on their computer, or how they monitor their childrens' channel surfing or computer use. If the answer is that they don't, or they don't know, or they're otherwise vague, or defensive, or for any reason you're not satisfied with their answers, then insist that the children play at your house, or else they don't play together at all.
All of this takes work, admittedly. But the question is not whether your children will learn their values, but what values they will learn, and when, and how, and in what context, and from whom?
Will your children learn the truth? Or falsehoods? Will they get their values from you? Or from someone else? Will the left-wing ideologues be able to make your children easy prey for their lies, deceit, manipulations and distortions?
Will they be able to create the next generation of angry, dissolute, profane, amoral slobs who vote the way they're brainwashed to? Or are you going to do something about it?
Here's my take on it...
People in recent months have speculated about the so-called "Roe effect" - the theory that pro-abortion Democrats are in essence killing off their future base by aborting their own children. I think this theory is nonsense. Its underlying assumption is that pro-abortion parents are more likely to raise pro-abortion children. But this ignores the ugly reality that, over the past thirty years, a huge percentage of pro-life parents have raised pro-abortion children. How did that happen?
The answer to that question is also the answer to where the ultra-Left Democrats are going to get their future base. They don't need to have their own children. Because they have yours.
They control the media, they control the entertainment business, and, most significantly, they control the content of the government schools and most colleges and universities where you are sending your children to learn.
Let me be clear who I am speaking about here. I am not talking about your local Democrat state representative, senator or precinct committee chair. I am not talking about your garden-variety schoolteacher or administrator. And I am certainly not talking about the average American who votes Democratic. I am speaking about the elite, the privileged few, the self-appointed "visionaries" behind the scenes.
These "visionaries" of the Left are not worried about the party losing this or that election. Nor are they in a lather to "pull Right." They believe - and I think they are right - that the real battleground for hearts and minds is NOT in the polling booths, but in the books your children read, the music they listen to, the actors and singers they idolize, and in what they learn in school.
And the messages they want your children to be taught are crystal clear: Belief in God is anti-intellectual. There are few rules (except for the ones they make up from time to time). There is no such thing as truth. All morality is relative. Sex should be easy, casual, devoid of emotional commitment and divorced from its consequences. Everybody's doing it. The worst sin is to be "judgmental." Disapproving of anyone's conduct on moral grounds is discriminatory, ignorant, bigoted, and possibly even criminal. Killing your children is, alternately, a civil right, a blithe choice, an unfortunate necessity, a way to be cool, a joke (read the lyrics to one of popular singer Usher's latest songs), or even a sacred ritual.
According to their view, America is not a bastion of freedom and opportunity, a country whose sons and daughters have been willing to fight and die to liberate others, but an evil oppressor of the poor, and an exploiter of other countries. Freedom and opportunity are illusions. Tolerance for diversity is the only universal value (as long as it is not a conservative or traditional viewpoint that is being tolerated). Corporations are not the greatest distributors of wealth in the history of human civilization, but the root of all evil. Entrepreneurs and innovators are not creative people who have raised the standard of human living all over the globe, but are greedy, selfish robber barons. Private property and ownership should be regulated, heavily taxed, minimized, or abolished. Big government is the answer to all human problems. And they, of course, should control the government. (As you might have noticed after Election Day, Left-wing intellectuals are all in favor of "the people" deciding, except when "the people" decide differently than they would have them do.)
These leftist ideologues, like many revolutionaries, are patient. They know that they do not have to change their views to appeal to those of us who see their lies for what they are. We will grow old and die. In the meantime, they have enormous control and influence over what our children believe. Those are tomorrow's voters. And they have tomorrow's voters in the palms of their hands.
Many have complained over the past few decades that movies and music have become insipid, profane, excessively violent, and sexually depraved. And that schools have abandoned the real work of education, and replaced it with brainwashing, intimidation and indoctrination. Do you think this is an accident?
So - Election 2004 is over. Now what? For those of us with children, the stakes have never been higher. Here are my suggestions. Some are doable for everyone, some are not. But everyone with an interest in their children's future should be able to do something.
1. First and foremost, take control of your children's education. This means doing your homework. As follows:
(a) Know everything you can about the programs and activities sponsored at your children's school, the texts used, the classes taught. Don't be fooled by bland names like, "Safety training" or "health education," which can be masks for social or moral indoctrination with which you don't agree. Ask to preview texts to be distributed, or insist that the school have screenings of new educational films for parents in advance.
(b) Read your children's textbooks when you help them with their homework. Be on the lookout for fallacies, specious arguments, unprovable assertions (especially social and political ones) and subtle - or even overt - attempts to politicize the class content. Point out bias and falsity to your child. (It is a good thing for children to learn to question what they read, in any case.)
(c) Become an active member of your PTA/PTO.
(d) Run for the school board.
(e) If you can't do that, then at least involve yourself in the election and operation of the school board. Know every single issue that comes before the board each year. Attend as many school board meetings as you can. Many parents who attend school board meetings are shocked to discover the policies that are being considered and implemented.
(f) Push for charter schools and for vouchers in your state. These allow lower-income parents to choose better public schools or even private schools for their children.
(g) While we're on the subject, don't assume that because the school you've chosen is private that your children are receiving an education that is consistent with your values. Your chances may be better, but there is no guarantee. The major difference is that if you challenge a practice, text, course or program in a private school, you are not being forced to take on the state government, and so you have a much better chance of making your case successfully.
(h) If you're considering a private school for your children, Don't be afraid to check out schools with a religious affiliation that is different from your own. I have (for example) many Protestant and Jewish friends who are quite comfortable sending their children to Catholic schools. They simply do not participate in the religious instruction.
(i) Then of course, for the most ambitious among us, there is always the option of homeschooling your children. But whether you choose this option or not, support homeschooling in your town or city however you can.
(j) Finally, rigorously screen any college or university that your child is interested in attending. Do not assume that because it is highly ranked, the education your child will receive there will be excellent. At most highly-ranked colleges and universities, an excellent education (and by that I mean challenging, rigorous, and devoid of vapid sociopolitical indoctrination) is still possible, but it will depend on the major, unit, or program in which your child ultimately enrolls. Engineering may be outstanding, while sociology is a joke. Determine what your child's academic interests are. Get information about the school's programs in that area. Read the course descriptions. (You'd be surprised how much you can determine just from the title of the courses.
2. Second, you need to protect your children from the all-out media assault on your values that permeates our culture.
(a) Listen to the CDs they want before you allow them to purchase them. (You can usually do this at most record stores and bookstores that sell CDs.) You can also look up the lyrics on the internet.
(b) Don't let your children see R-rated movies. Go to PG-13 rated movies before they do, or read reviews in reputable media outlets.
(c) Limit your children's exposure to TV. Ideally? Throw out your television. Prime-time television has virtually nothing to offer children and adolescents. And while there are some wonderful channels on cable, a lot of it is garbage. Have family book, game or puzzle night instead.
(d) And while we're on the subject of cable television, call your U.S. senator or Congressman and ask him or her to sponsor a bill that would allow consumers to purchase only the cable channels they want. Can you imagine what control this would give parents over their children's exposure to unwanted content?
(e) Treat TV, music and computers in other people's homes the way you treat guns in other people's homes. Call the parents of your childrens' friends and ask - do their children have a TV in their room? Cable? Or a computer? Ask what controls they have on their computer, or how they monitor their childrens' channel surfing or computer use. If the answer is that they don't, or they don't know, or they're otherwise vague, or defensive, or for any reason you're not satisfied with their answers, then insist that the children play at your house, or else they don't play together at all.
All of this takes work, admittedly. But the question is not whether your children will learn their values, but what values they will learn, and when, and how, and in what context, and from whom?
Will your children learn the truth? Or falsehoods? Will they get their values from you? Or from someone else? Will the left-wing ideologues be able to make your children easy prey for their lies, deceit, manipulations and distortions?
Will they be able to create the next generation of angry, dissolute, profane, amoral slobs who vote the way they're brainwashed to? Or are you going to do something about it?
posted by Portia Sterling | 11:35 AM
4 Comments:
Do you know that abortion is never mentioned in the Bible? Do you know that by starting an unnecessary war George Bush caused the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis? Or do only unborn lives count? I hate to break it to you, lady, but God is not a Republican.
Good grief- What a silly comment. In the first place, just because something isn't proscribed in the Bible doesn't mean it isn't wrong. And in the second place, the column clearly chastises pro choice Republicans, also. Finally, believers are well aware that God is not a Republican. It is you who seems to be confusing faith with political parties.
Well, in response to the first poster comment, you can certainly start with Psalm 139...
[13] For thou didst form my inward parts,
thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb.
If you can't infer from that that abortion is wrong, then you must be less intelligent than a dumb conservative like me. Also, abortion IS specifically referred in the Didache, a document which has been dated as early as 40 a.d. and was used as a kind of Catechism by the early church, even if it didn't make it into the final canon – the Didache has always been considered doctrinally correct by the church.
As to the initial post...
They control the media, they control the entertainment business, and, most significantly, they control the content of the government schools and most colleges and universities where you are sending your children to learn.Wow, just got to this post…this blog is the closest to the way I’ve thought for a few years now than anything else I’ve come across…you must figured out all of this stuff and given me a Vulcan mind-meld at some point in the past. Absolutely, education is the biggest battle-ground; how can a parent, in the short period of time available each night, provide the antidote for 8-10 hours of secular humanist toxicity a kid gets at school each day? And secular humanism IS a religion; the Supreme Court thinks so; the Manifestos read like the Augsburg Confession of faith. Everyone is religious; many agnostics and atheists are far more religious than many Christians are. The problem is that the liberals have co-opted all the terminology; if abstinence is brought up, the liberals scream “Separation of Church and State!”. OTOH, if passing out condoms like dinner mints at a public school is suggested, it’s a “public health issue” to them. They’ve won the war of terminology. Look, moral teaching CANNOT be separated from the educational process; it’s impossible. Every book read, ever lesson given , will have a moral/ethical basis. Given that it is impossible to separate morality/ethics from the educational process, then it clearly follows that parents should have some say in which moral/ethical/religious environment their kids get educated in – i.e., a nationwide, no holds barred voucher system. It will never happen, it makes too much sense – but the real reason it won’t happen is exactly what you’ve pointed out – public schools are the absolute focal point of the liberals in the culture war. Instead of producing their own offspring, they are determined to pollute ours, as early and thoroughly as possible. I believe that if some wizard took the leading liberals in this country into a private booth, promised them that what happens inside would never leak out, and offered them two alternatives –
1) A USA were all kids would have immediate access to an excellent education, and a promise that this would lead to tremendous increases in educational levels, especially in the inner cities; but it would also mean a proliferation of different kinds of schools, including a number of ”faith based” schools, and
2) The status quo, where most kids in cities like Detroit don’t even graduate from high school, and a “successful” graduate often has an 8th or 9th grade reading level…
I have little doubt the liberals would choose 2). It’s not about education at all; it’s about the liberal indoctrination of kids into the liberals’ own secular humanist religion. As I said in a previous comment, rich white liberals don’t care at all whether kids get educated or not; it’s all about feeling good about themselves; and that requires as many people as possible accepting their immature lifestyles as perfectly acceptable – even laudable.
I could write about this for a long time, but it’s getting late….
A quick additional comment...
Concerning abortion, another Biblical passage you can consider is in Jeremiah 1:
[4] Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
[5] "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
God was talking to Jeremiah specifically here; but it’s not particularly hard to realize from this passage how God looks upon at unborn, innocent human life.
I also said (from memory) that the Didiche was dated as early as 40 A.D. – that’s incorrect – I apologize for the inaccurate info, I was writing from memory. Historians have dated it from as early as 60 a.d., not 40 a.d. It has been found translated into a number of early languages, and was used as an instruction guide for early Christians. It specifically proscribes abortion.
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