Children of the West

 

Of all the disquieting events that are unfolding,  what  we are doing to our children disturbs me most.

It occurred to me that the biggest difference between the left and right is how we treat and regard our children.   And it says a great deal about how we view the future.  The contrast is unmistakable and stark.  Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac has supplanted Michelle Obama as the nation’s #1 female bellyacher.  Nicks complained that COVID is stealing her “last youthful years” (as if the rest of us plebians are not also affected).   Last week, Nicks asserted that if she had not had an abortion “there would have been no Fleetwood Mac.”   I’m not sure whether that statement is a self-rationalization or an attempt to get support from her adoring fans and justify the snuffing out of the life of her unborn child.  But it’s clear that in her mind, the tradeoff was worth it (although perhaps she could have done both,  but refuses to consider that third option).   Likewise, Michelle Obama asserted that she “gave up her dreams to have children.”  Sorry Malia and Sasha.  You seem like bright, attractive kids.  Too bad mommy carries so much resentment over you.  Contrast this with the position of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who has 7… count ‘em 7 (and had room in her life for two that are not hers, and one of her children has Downs)  to look after and still has managed to have a respectable career.  Living what must be an exhausting life, Barrett called her children “her greatest joy.” 

We are seeing the contrast played out in real time.   And our left leaning society is sending a strong message about children and our future.

In the current COVID crisis, the mortality rate among young people is practically negligible.   Yes, occasionally, you get an outlier in their 20’s that succumbs to this dreadful virus, but the reality is that it is rarely fatal in young people.  Yet, we are inflicting the burden of COVID19 on them in multiple ways.  Despite the low hospitalization and mortality rate among children and teens, we are condemning them to “remote learning.”  Remote learning is fairly ineffective and, among kids with special needs, simply unworkable.   In certain subjects, like math, kids may never catch up.  The social and mental health costs are beginning to pile up on these kids. I can tell you from my own experience that after about a half an hour or so during webinars and Zoom calls, my attention starts to drift.  I can’t imagine what it’s like for a teenage boy.  Yet, in the effort to try to protect the health of older citizens, we are shifting the costs to our children to bear.  I cannot speak for all adults, but I would happily accept a greater risk of sickness and, yes, even death to make sure that our younger generation is prepared for the challenges that are in front of them.  As a society, we have always done this---we bare costs and risks so our children don’t have to.  We sacrifice to pave the way for our children.  But our politicians have chosen otherwise.  

I have also written numerous posts concerning our inability to protect our children against violence.  I wrote an impassioned post following the Birmingham terrorist bombing and our failure to protect young girls against Islamic terror and “grooming” in Europe.  Last fall, I wrote about the heinous murders of four young schoolgirls of different races in separate incidents (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2019/12/bloody-fall.html).   In bloody Chicago, children are being gunned down nearly every weekend.   Yet, we hear little or nothing from Governor Pritzker or Mayor Lightfoot on specific step being taken to curtail this assault on our children by savage gang members.  These politicians are willing to virtually shut down the economy of the entire state for a virus that rarely causes death among young people, are willing to threaten people for violating the “rules” and have weekly press conferences to discuss where we stand, but every weekend the body count on the streets of Chicago piles up among children, and they have grown to accept it as “part and parcel” of urban life just as London mayor Sadiq Khan has accepted Islamic terrorism in his city.

Along with the violence that is perpetrated on children, sexual exploitation and sexualization of children  has become endemic in our society.    It is appearing in a myriad of places and the mainstream media is behind normalizing it.    This is an issue that is also tied to immigration, as human traffickers regularly work to bring children over the border for the sex trade (the Trump administration recently has done a superb job of finding these kids and rescuing them).   As horrible as the scandal in the Catholic Church was, it is hardly the only institution that has protected the pedophiles, not the children.  The Chicago Public School System and the Boy Scouts were fertile ground for the sexual exploitation of young people.  Sex abuse in athletics shocked the world with the Penn State case, the U.S. Gymnastics case and the long and sordid career of Larry Nassar case at Michigan State, where a large part of the school’s administration was involved in the cover up.  We have seen pedophilia surface in our political class with Anthony Weiner,  probably with Senator Menendez and Bill Clinton and now with Hunter Biden.   Our children are not being protected but rather exploited to satisfy the twisted sexual desires of these despicable people.

And now, the leftist media has been hard at work normalizing pedophilia.    “Drag Queen Story Hour” an innocent sounding event infected our libraries across the nation—an event aimed at children 3 to 8 where drag queens read stories to little children and let them crawl on their laps, clearly a thinly veiled grooming practice.  And if you write objecting, as I have, you get a polite response back suggesting you are a bigot.    The dust up at Netflix over the show Cuties, which featured little girls twerking and touching themselves was dismissed as “storytelling” by the president of Netflix.   The New York Times has been periodically running op-eds arguing that pedophilia should not be criminalized but rather is a psychological condition.  And they are attempting to change the language, ridding us of the word “pedophile” and instead substituting the more innocuous sounding “minor attracted persons” as the pedophiles have attempted to latch on to the LGBT movement to garner legitimacy.

Long term, the debt we are heaping on our children is most troublesome.   And we are burying them in debt at every level, ensuring that they will become virtual future slaves to our current voracious appetites to consume.   Our national debt now stands at a staggering $23.2 trillion with no end in sight.  While the proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) rationalize this intergenerational robbery, there is no doubt this debt load will eventually have a crushing effect on their futures.  Here in  Illinois, our debt loads are rated near junk status.   The City of Chicago and State of Illinois are now trying to push through whopping tax increases to deal with it.   A young man or woman starting out their careers that wish to buy a modest condo in the city will need to peddle harder and faster so some 55 year old city retiree can be comfortably fishing off a dock in the Florida Keys.  We are robbing them of their ability to save and have some cushion so boomers can enjoy a protected, safe retirement.  

The sanctimonious world of academia (which also had a hand in the sexual exploitation of children) is doing its part to darken the futures of our young people.   Student debt stands at a staggering $1.7 trillion as college costs have outstripped inflation over the past few decades (as universities layered on administrative staff and added degrees guaranteeing no employable skills like gender and ethnic studies).   Condemning our children to near slavery, working substantially for the people that hold the debt instruments of the federal government and their student loan providers, especially as our economy is staggering after COVID19 is morally reprehensible.

Finally, there is abortion.  While the numbers continue to decline (862,000/year), states like Illinois and New York now permit abortion up to birth for any reason.   Safe, legal and rare has turned into virtual infanticide.   It sickened me to see the New York legislature cheer when the measure passed to permit unfettered late term abortion.   At one time, I was among those “uncomfortably pro-choice” (as Megan McArdle put it) people until I saw the dark place they were dragging us to.

We burned cities and kicked off hundreds of corporate and institutional initiatives because one ex-felon and meth user died at the hands of the police.  But we look the other way when it comes to the care and nurturing of our children.  I would gladly cut the EPA budget in half and establish the Child Protection Agency instead.   There must be a sense of urgency about what we are doing to make sure the next generation have a bright future.