Forget those touch-feely children's books about teaching kids to be nice to each other and listen to their parents - now you can start on their political indoctrination early!
There is disturbing evidence out there that becoming an adult doesn't ensure maturity. Political elections drive home this unfortunate reality. If adult partisan politics, name calling, narrow-mindedness and the repetition of empty messages aren't strong enough for you, then we can ensure it will get worse by raising our children to do the same.
One of the many books from such authors is the God-fearing, liberal-smearing Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under my Bed! written by the former co-captain of South Carolina's Security Moms for Bush, Katharine DeBrecht.
The book illuminates the old saying that people should never discuss religion or politics if they want to keep the conversation civil. Apparently, we should be indoctrinating our children to put thoughtfulness and tolerance aside, and instead distrust other people and other ideas based on labels. The book is disheartening, especially for someone who realizes they are going to be getting old and needing care when the children having these books read to them at night are coming into political power.
(Next week: Equally fair and unbalanced criticism of another irresponsible book, Why Mommy is a Democrat.)
The story is about two young boys who want a swing set, but their parents are making them work for it because "having everything given to them would not make them feel good about themselves." Thanks to the boys' entrepreneurial spirits, they decide to take life's lemons (there is a tree in their backyard that was provided by God) and start a lemonade stand.
Early on, the book seems fairly benign, other than a huge picture of President Reagan hanging on the wall in the boys' home. The book is idyllic, as most children's books are, where mom is attractive and sweet and the boys play baseball, say their prayers at night and never fight. The boys even decide to save some of their profits for shoeless children.
The story changes when the brothers dream about an adventure to "Liberaland." The drawing is striking, full of businesses called K-Marx, Spend-Bucks Coffee, It Takes a Village Daycare and Duey Taxim & Howe LLP. The boys work hard in Liberaland to set up their lemonade business.
"And then one day, a liberal appeared." Like Midas and gold, everything a liberal touches (in the book) goes to rot.
From there, the book becomes blatantly bigoted, railing against taxes and regulation. Senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton make cameos as town rulers who are there to tax the boys' profits, take down the photo of Jesus they put on their lemonade stand, harangue them for not following the law that children must eat their vegetables and pass a law that limits the sugar content of the lemonade, thereby ruining it.
In the end, the liberals declare that the boys are charging too much and pass a law (which is named rather obviously after several prominent democratic leaders) that makes the lemonade stand the property of the town. The liberals buy dustpans for the shoeless children, hang a photo of a big toe (which never made sense) where the photo of Jesus was and charge an inflated price for the lemonade.
At the very end, the liberal characters are profiled. For example, Mayor Leach (who looks just like Ted Kennedy), was said to have earned his millions the old-fashioned way, by marrying into it (a stab at John Kerry). His three children attend the Elite Academy for Special People and he takes half of everyone's money to build roads and bridges named after him.
The world in this book is black and white, painting all liberals as tax-mongering, Jesus-hating people who want to legislate businesses into the ground. The not-so subtle subtleties in the drawings are even more telling than the actual story. There is often someone sitting on the bench by the lemonade stand reading a newspaper with a ridiculous headline such as, "Sneeze and Gas Tax Enacted." The liberals are all unattractive, and at one point make the boys cry.
The book was written in 2005, but it reminds us how election season brings out inflamed passions, which often lead to irrationality. There is nothing for a child to learn from the story but the ignorance, intolerance and pettiness of some adults.
For more, see the Washington Post's "Raising a Political Bigot."
Definitions of Liberal, from the American Heritage College Dictionary:
(You should read it, because this took a long time to copy out of my dictionary!)
1a. Not limited to or by traditional, orthodox or authoritarian attitudes or dogmas; free from bigotyry. 1b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behaviors of others; broad-minded. 1c. Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism. 1d. Of, being, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism.
2a. Tending to give freely; generous. 2b. Generous in amount; ample.
3. Not strict or literal; loose or approximate.
4. Related to or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum.
5a. (Archaic) Befitting a lady or gentleman. 5b. (Obsolete) Morally unrestrained.
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