Remember the Whitney Houston song “The Greatest Love Of All”? The sappy 80s cover of the 70s George Benson hit starts:
I believe the children are our are future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be
It was cheesy and typical of pop songs at the time, as most of the music that came out of the 80s was. Now it’s the basis for how liberals view unalienable rights explicitly protected in the Constitution.
The idea that we should “listen to the children” is a variation on a popular liberal mantra that whatever big government program they’re pushing is “for the children!” History is littered with the shards of the liberty we used to enjoy that were chipped away in the name of “the children.”
But now the left has gone a step further and are insisting absolute moral authority be instilled in children and legislative action be taken to limit, yet again, the Second Amendment rights of innocent Americans because a monster did something awful at a school in Florida. It’s insane, but not surprising.
It’s an emotional play by the left (pretty much every left-wing activist group and media outlet is involved now) to prevent people from thinking logically about why anyone but the guilty should be punished for the actions of someone not them. People overwhelmed by emotions rarely, if ever, think or act logically.
It’s to be expected from children, their whole lives have been spent being insulated from the need to think rationally and haven’t developed the skills yet to do so. But they’re saying the “correct” things, which means they’re saying the liberal things, so their voices are being amplified to drown out the other students at the same school, who went through the same trauma, who have spoken out against gun control. They get a fraction of the face time on CNN or MSNBC, if any, because what they say does not match the dreams of the activists with media credentials who decide what the narrative should be.
This column, for deadline purposes, is being written before one of the most disgusting cases of child exploitation in recent memory – the CNN town hall featuring students from the Parkville school where this evil occurred. Since it hasn’t happened yet (though it would have happened last night by the time you read this), I can only go off CNN’s past and assume the audience was carefully screened and participants chosen based on what they’ll say. There will likely be one or two opposing speakers, for a quick minute, and no challenging of the anti-Second Amendment orthodoxy prevalent among Democrats.
And, if it’s like similar town halls in the past, breaks will be taken and ads will be sold. CNN gets to be seen “caring” and make a tidy profit to boot.
CNN claims they were approached to do this by “members of the community.” Who they were we can only guess, but it doesn’t really matter. They knew to approach CNN because it’s CNN. They’re on board, they’re in.
I don’t know (and can’t, right now) what was said there, but I don’t care. I’m sure there was crying and recountings of those horrible minutes last week, which is not what I’m talking about when I say I don’t care. What I don’t care about is what will be pushed as the “answer” to future acts of evil.
I don’t care not just because it’s the typical left-wing gun-grabbing talking points, I don’t care because it’s coming from children who are traumatized and acting out of emotion. It’s understandable they’d be that way, they just went through hell. But going through hell does not give anyone insight into a complex issue, nor does it imbue someone with the right to be above criticism or to infringe upon the rights of people who had nothing to do with the hell they went through.
They’re kids; they’re angry, they’re scared – all of which is understandable – but they’re still just kids. I’m glad they’re talking, they should be talking, but to professional therapists not liberal reporters. And they certainly should not be taken seriously when it comes to anyone else’s fundamental freedoms.
Yet we have adults singing their praises as if the horror they went through gave them clairvoyance on how to prevent what they survived. No such moral authority was granted the families of people murdered by illegal aliens, they aren’t getting dedicated town halls on cable networks or having their wishes for immigration reform or border security championed by the media; they’re barely mentioned. How is their hell any different?
Now liberals are calling for “action” based on the emotions of teenagers and some have even called for the voting age to be lowered to 16 because of it. Liberals will exploit anything – if they can’t win elections with the current crop of American voters they’ll push to legalize millions of illegal aliens to get their votes. It’s shameless.
Someone should, at the appropriate time, educate these kids, and all kids, about the concept of fundamental, unalienable rights and the fact that the Constitution does not grant rights, it protects rights with which we were born from government infringement. That we punish individuals for their actions, not everyone else because someone did something evil. That government has very specific powers, not rights, that rights are reserved for individuals. If it were otherwise, any right they do like could be taken away by people like the very politicians they now wrongfully blame for the horrors they went through.
These children have every right to speak, and they should, but the exploitation that always accompanies liberalism is already circling them. Left-wing activists are not their friends and journalists will only care about them as long as they’re deemed useful (see how they dropped Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war movement like a bad habit once Obama was elected). Just because adults with microphones and cameras are telling them their every word should be treated as gospel does not mean it will, or that it should. And they should be educated as to why.
Yes, I believe that children are our future…but it’s now, not the future.