Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Human Shields....and Swords


Amidst the endless talk on social media and the mainstream media on the Parkland shooting, another policy position is being espoused by the Left (aside from the predictable hysteria about gun control)—enfranchising high schoolers.  Soon after the shooting, the MSM enlisted a number of them as spokesteens for their anti-gun agenda.  Most notably, student David Hogg immediately emerged as a media darling.  He came off as poised and well-spoken, and the media flocked to him—so much so that his articulateness raised suspicions that he was being coached and had pre-prepared talking points.  

Hogg, (along with a few others), has been elevated to rock star status and has now become the reigning authority and point person on gun policy in the U.S.  He has been omnipresent in the media, blathering on and on, blaming the NRA, NRA supporter Dana Loesch, and the governor of Florida for the shooting while exonerating the people whose job it is to protect children—the F.B.I. and the Broward County Sheriff’s office, urging boycotts of the State of Florida and companies that have ties to the NRA.  He has refused to return to school until gun restriction legislation is passed.  Liberal Democrats haven’t had such a marquee spokesperson since Sandra Fluke was hawking free birth control a few years ago.  The cynic in me is inclined to believe that young Mr. Hogg and a few of his other classmates are perfectly comfortable standing on the dead bodies of their fallen classmates to propel their future media careers. 

Some on the Left are proposing to take this further and are now calling for the enfranchisement of these teens.  Harvard professor Laurence Tribe and Bloomberg contributor Jonathan Bernstein vociferously advocated lowering the voting age to 16, and even lower, if possible.  Tribe asserted “This #ChildrensCrusade will transform America” and that “Teens between 14 and 18 have far better BS detectors, on average than ‘adults’ 18 and older.  Wouldn’t it be great if the voting age were lowed to 16?”   Joshua Douglas at CNN similarly threw in for the kiddie vote, “The real adults in the room are the youth from Parkland Florida who are speaking out about the need for meaningful gun control laws.”  Bernstein argued that it will increase voter participation by getting in the habit of voting early in life and said the voting age might be lowered to as young as 13.

What’s puzzling about this sudden push by the Left to grant children a political voice and full participatory rights in our republic is that until the Parkland shooting, the Left was actively extending childhood.  Obamacare permitted them to stay on Mommy and Daddy’s health insurance until age 26.  Our higher education system had infantilized them and even left leaning Salon and the New York Times voiced concern about delaying adulthood (see, e.g. Judith Shulevitz’s article from a few years ago https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html).  Colleges coddled them in  “safe spaces” and mandated “trigger warnings” to protect them from ideas that might hurt their feelings.  They passed out coloring books, crayons, teddy bears to help COLLEGE students cope with the results of our electoral process.  Likewise, it was only a few short weeks ago that the New York legislature was considering passing regulations forcing P&G to make Tide Pods less appetizing because teens were harming themselves by eating detergent pods.  But now the Left has done an abrupt about face and is clamoring to grant full voting rights to individuals that have not earned their first paycheck yet and whose mommies still pack their lunches and do their laundry for them. 

What gives?

The Left is following the Rahm Emanual dictum, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”  Never mind that the Parkland shooting represents a total breakdown at all levels of government in its duty to protect us.   That tragedy is being seized on to advance a pet objective of the Left—to either erase or water down the 2nd Amendment so much that it becomes meaningless as to its primary purpose, which is to underpin the social compact (But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security- Declaration of Independence).   Some sort of package restricting guns, ammo or the ages at which they will be permitted will now almost certainly pass.  With untouchable children serving as both shields and swords, some erosion of the 2nd Amendment is now inevitable.  

But should children be granted the right to vote?  Absolutely not.

While it is entirely appropriate to permit the survivors to emote and express themselves over what happened, it does not follow that it entitles the kids to a full ticket to our political system.  The first clue lies in the CNN “Town Hall” meeting.   The disrespect shown Rubio and Loesch by the “Town Hall” itself is a compelling argument for why children should not be voting members of our society.  It was a one sided affair in which the NRA was labelled “child murderers,” Loersch was accused of being “owned” by the NRA and Rubio was charged with not caring about children.   Adolescents make adolescent arguments that are devoid of fact and analysis and that was on full display last week.
The abdication of government to protect these children ---to be the parent permits the children to try to assume that role.  In a household that is run by a drunk or a drug addict, children often try to pick up the slack and assume responsibilities they are not ready to handle, often with disastrous results. 

That is, in part, what is happening here.  Young Mr. Hogg is being lauded as “courageous” by the MSM.  Meanwhile the highly trained paid state actor armed with a weapon stood outside and did nothing as children were slaughtered.   Children should not be given a vote because the adults in our society have, in some cases, abdicated their responsibility.

The advocacy of enfranchising children arises out of desperation by the Left.  The Coastal Elite had assumed that the election of Hillary Clinton, and another four or eight years of regulatory growth and increased influence over the judiciary would cement its grip on political power for generations.  The election of Donald Trump smashed those progressive dreams.   The Left’s initial reaction was to label Trump’s election as “illegitimate” and they began by attacking the electoral college.   While certain attempts are still ongoing, eliminating the electoral college and electing a president via a straight popular vote will not be an easy thing to pull off.  The other attempt at increasing political power of the Democrats was to eventually enfranchise illegal immigrants.   Trump dangled out the prospect of a one-time enfranchisement as bait but with lots and lots of strings attached and so far, the Democratic leadership isn’t biting.  

Floating the idea of enfranchising children is simply another attempt at creating another pool of voters for the Left.   Contrary to Mr. Tribe’s assertion, high school kids do NOT have a superior BS detector—they actually swallow lots of BS, and sometimes with Tide Pods along with it.   They most often have uncontrolled emotions, their pre-adult brains have been scientifically shown to underappreciate risk, and they are usually some years off from contributing to our society.  But under the aegis and indoctrination of progressive school boards, the energy, malleability and quixotic idealism would make high schoolers a perfect voting bloc for Democrats if you could possibly get them enfranchised.

The enfranchisement of children will not happen.  The Left and MSM will be content to let them carry their water over gun control.  But over time, the Left will keep chipping away at the 2nd Amendment and taking it apart in pieces until one day we will wake up and it just won’t be there anymore.

The Parkland atrocity and its aftermath is yet another instance in which the West has failed to protect its children, every bit as much as it failed last spring in the U.K. when an Islamic terrorist bombed the rock concert in Manchester.   Our government failed to protect these kids from being slaughtered and to make matters worse, the political Left is exploiting them to advance their agenda and hoping to enfranchise them to increase their political strength, shamelessly using them.  Sadly, our divided politics and partisan media won’t even let children grieve.  We should let them grow up before tossing them into the political fray.


No comments:

Post a Comment