MSNBC Host Elaborates on Her Claim That Children Don't Belong to Their Parents

MSNBC

Melissa Harris-Perry says she has received "hateful, personal attacks" in response to an MSNBC promotional video that featured the host talking about the need to "break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities." 

In a blog post on MSNBC.com titled "Why caring for children is not just a parent's job," Harris-Perry fleshed out her thesis and scolded her critics for overreacting taking her at her word: 

I have no intention of apologizing for saying that our children, all of our children, are part of more than our households, they are part of our communities and deserve to have the care, attention, resources, respect and opportunities of those communities.

When the flood of vitriolic responses to the ad began, my first reaction was relief. I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade! But of course, that is a ridiculous notion. As a teacher, I have unique responsibilities to the students in my classroom at Tulane University, and I embrace those responsibilities. It is why I love my job.

Then I started asking myself where did I learn this lesson about our collective responsibility to children. So many answers quickly became evident.

I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of day care centers that served under-resourced children.

I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached boys' basketball teams in our town.

I learned it from my third-grade public school teacher, who gave me creative extra work and opened up her classroom to me after school so that I wouldn't get bored and get in trouble.

It goes on like that for a while. Watch the original video: 

H/T Reason contributor Matt Hurtt 

Comments

[Lord Humungus]

I learned from a bottle of whiskey that I shouldn't be talking to myself.

[LTC(ret) John]

That is not what my last bottle of Glenmorangie told me!?

[Copernicus]

"I learned it from my mother... father... teacher... etc."

Which implies that the adults of the community "belong" to the children, not the other way around.

[MJGreen]

Melissa Harris-Perry says he has received

Ooh, BURN!

[Mike Riggs]

Fixed!

[fish]

Should have left it.

[Loki]

I just assumed it was Freudian slip. S/he does have a pretty bad case of man face.

"That's not a woman, that's a man, baby!"

[Enough About Palin]

It's Bu not Ma.

[Enough About Palin]

"break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities."

So your 5-year-old daughter is coming to my "sleepover"? No, then how about a "play date" then?

All your children are belong to us.

[Zeb]

No, you miss the point entirely. By "whole communities" she means the government.

[gaijin]

Exactly. And she even goes on to rationalize where she learned this notion of 'community' ownership by relaying how her mom and dad volunteered to coach kids/be on boards. It's like she doesn't even understand the example she brings up.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I learned from Melissa Harris-Perry that she had really shitty influences in her young years.

[VG Zaytsev]

On another of her promos she says that her father would sign off by saying the struggle continues instead of saying Love Dad

[Xlotl]

Messy divorce?

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Perpetual victimhood.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I think her father was also a professor of victimology.

[Whahappan?]

To clarify, he would sign BIRTHDAY CARDS like that!

[fish]

The best part about mask slipping is covering up the mask slipping.

[Episiarch]

But even better than that is when covering up mask slipping causes more mask slipping.

[fish]

I'd suggest she use staples but I'm old school that way!

[T]

Pop rivets. It won't ever slip again.

[Episiarch]

I'd suggest using a MIG welder.

[fish]

I forgot the smell of burning flesh turns you on.

[PapayaSF]

It's important to note that the MSNBC promo was not some off-the-cuff remark. It was certainly approved by all involved, and probably carefully scripted. She really meant it.

Now she's trying to claim that "belong to" means "part of," which is obvious bullshit. If she really doesn't understand the plain meaning of the words, she shouldn't be grading anybody's papers.

[Zeb]

Well, to be fair, "belong to" can mean part of. But she says that children don't belong to their parents and that makes it pretty clear that she is talking ownership, not membership.

[Pro Libertate]

It takes a village to steal stuff from just one guy, because the one guy might be able to fend off just a handful of people.

[PapayaSF]

I should have phrased that better. It's clear that in her original statement, she did not mean "belong to" in the sense of "part of."

[JW]

Yeah, I'm not seeing a whole lot of clearing up on her part.

Just more word salad bingo obfuscation.

[Marla Singer]

Yeah, when she rephrases it in the response as "children are part of our communities" and all that, it seems pretty unobjectionable. And yet...I can't escape the nagging feeling that that isn't all she means.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

If she had originally said what she is now retroactively claiming she meant, no one would have gotten riled up. But her original statement was a far cry from "Parents are not the only formative influence in a child's life."

[MJGreen]

When the flood of vitriolic responses to the ad began, my first reaction was relief. I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade!

It is your responsibility because you get paid to do that, you idiot. You're obligated to grade papers because that's part of your job; you're not obligated because of some nebulous social contract requiring you to help other people's children.

[pmains]

Indeed. Why aren't the parents and the local townsfolk helping her to grade the papers?

[fish]

If her response to the original video is any indication they are gathering pitchforks and lighting torches. I would too if I had to pay Tulane tuition to Ms Harris_Perry.

[Heroic Mulatto]

University students are children (chronologically) in her eyes?

There is nothing wrong with Harris-Perry that a axe-blade to the nape of her neck couldn't fix.

[MJGreen]

They're children until they turn 26, duh.

[Bardas Phocas]

They belong to all of us.
Those skinny coeds - they are here for all of us ... until they put on beer gut - then they're on their own.

[fish]

... until they put on beer gut - then they're on their own.

Nahh....there's a niche for these gals...I'm sure they'll do fine.

[DesigNate]

Paging John, we have some coeds for you.

[KDN]

I was a university student at 16. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she has a classroom full of genius gingers like me. Especially because that would horrify her on so many levels.

[Loki]

^THIS^

If she or anyone else wants to volunteer their free time to help children then fine, more power to them, but that's not what she's advocating for in the MSNBC spot. She was advocating for the government spending more on education (despite all evidence that increased spending does not correlate to better education outcomes), and more government involvement in raising people's children for them.

Like all socialist crap weasels she conflates "society" with "government".

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Came here to say just that. What a fucking tard.

[Skip]

Also she gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

My first reaction as well

[Mr Whipple]

Nuh uh. Teacher's aides and grad students grade papers.

[Paul.]

I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade!

What the fuck does that even mean? Sure, let's get the government out of the education business, stop spending 60 cents on every dollar on "education" and then let me decide how and where my child will get educated! What's that? "Whoops," you say, that's not what you meant? Yeah, didn't think you wanted to give up that phat guaranteed pension, good pay, and benefits.

As a teacher, I have unique responsibilities to the students in my classroom at Tulane University, and I embrace those responsibilities. It is why I love my job.

Yes, it's a job you're well compensated for. This idea that you're there working for free for the "community" is... bullshit.

[Xenocles]

Even better, it's a private university.

[Mr Whipple]

Don't grad students with fellowship grants generally grade papers?

[JW]

She may be full of fancy book learnin', but she's not all that bright, is she?

[generic Brand]

I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of day care centers that served under-resourced children.

I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached boys' basketball teams in our town.

I learned it from my third-grade public school teacher, who gave me creative extra work and opened up her classroom to me after school so that I wouldn't get bored and get in trouble.

[emphasis mine]

Hmmm, three people voluntarily offering their services above and beyond their duties. That's where she learned that everyone should be forced to care for everyone else's children.

Fuck off, slaver!

[fish]

More libertarian nonsense...nobody ever volunteers. Even when they do.

[MJGreen]

Not just that, but how do you get from "People volunteer to help children" to "Children are all of our responsibility/'belong' to all of us?"

She's reasoning backwards. Maybe she and her parents did what they do because they believe it is their responsibility to help all of the children in their community. That does not mean such a responsibility is grounded in anything other than their personal fancy, or that everyone else volunteers out of the same belief, or that (turning it backwards again) children 'belong' to the community (rather than adults 'owing' children their support, which is what her examples suggest).

So, at least two non sequiturs to reach a stupid point. "Fuck you, that's why!" has better logical footing.

[gaijin]

^^yes. Like she doesn't understand her own examples.

[Marshall Gill]

she doesn't understand

She is an "educator" what did you expect?

[Zeb]

Holy shit, is she really that stupid?

First of all, students at Tulane are mostly adults, aren't they?

And grading their papers is her responsibility because they (or their parents) are paying her to grade their papers.

[generic Brand]

Holy shit, is she really that stupid?

Have you seen her show or her appearances on Bill Maher's show? Even aside from her god-awful lisp, she is stupider than that stupid.

[Zeb]

No. I almost never see anything on TV.

[Capt Ace Rimmer]

Seen both. She is dumb as shit.

[VG Zaytsev]

MHP is a reprehensible race-baiting peice of shit.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

When the flood of vitriolic responses to the ad began, my first reaction was relief. I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade! But of course, that is a ridiculous notion. As a teacher, I have unique responsibilities to the students in my classroom at Tulane University, and I embrace those responsibilities. It is why I love my job.

Then I started asking myself where did I learn this lesson about our collective responsibility to children. So many answers quickly became evident.

Bitch, you get paid to grade those papers. You aren't fulfilling a "collective responsibility," you're doing your job. And if you're grading papers at a university, they weren't written by children, but by adults who hired you to do exactly that.

So many things wrong with this I could vomit.

[Auric Demonocles]

And if you're grading papers at a university, they weren't written by children, but by adults

But they're under 26!

[MJGreen]

Jonx.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I really don't want collective responsibility for a bunch of 25-year-olds. Wait, aren't you that young? Does that mean I can force you to make me lunch? If so, I may reconsider.

[Auric Demonocles]

No, you're a woman. So you have to make me a sandwich. Also bring me a sippy cup full of IPA.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Ut oh - tantrum brewing, nicole!

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Now you're just asking for CPS to take you away.

[Auric Demonocles]

Now you're just asking for CPS to take you away.

Good. I hope they do. You never give me good beers. It's always just some Pabst or something, like we're poor. You just don't get me! I wish I'd never had my community responsibility assigned to you!

*runs off, sobbing, trips over tricycle*

[prolefeed]

I'm guessing that sippy cup might be emptied onto your head, using that kind of bitch slap language.

[jesse.in.mb]

Nicole, I think you do want collective responsibility/ownership for those under 26. The only concern here is that they might get used up more quickly than they can be replaced as a tragedy of the commons.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I don't know what you're doing with 25-year-olds, jesse, but I haven't yet used one up.

[Auric Demonocles]

You aren't banging enough, clearly.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

You aren't banging enough, clearly.

That is not exactly what I call my role.

[Auric Demonocles]

It's everyone role now.

[jesse.in.mb]

No, but you're currently operating on a private ownership model. Groups will burn through 25-year-olds like locusts through crops.

[T]

I'm old. I think the 25 year olds will burn through me. But what a way to go...

[Auric Demonocles]

It's your collective responsibility to... educate them.

[AuH20]

jesse, are you saying you'd abandon your libertarianism in return for a stream of nubile young men in your bedroom for the rest of time?

[jesse.in.mb]

Maybe? If I'm going to live in a totalitarian state, I'd rather have it funneling nubile young men my way, than say forcing me to build the pyramids.

[Cavpitalist]

I don't see why these have to be mutually exclusive.

[Heroic Mulatto]

So many things wrong with this I could vomit.

Indeed. I am filled with rage just by imagining her vapid, cow-like expression filled with confusion that a large portion of the population doesn't accept the "it-takes-a-village" paradigm as a given.

[Episiarch]

I have to say that the one positive thing that has come out of both 1) the ability of anyone to say anything on the internet and 2) the fact that Obama is in charge, is that people like her are finally exposing what they really think, and it's fucking chilling.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I hope (I know, ridiculous) one of her students reads this drivel and has the sense to tell Prof Harris-Perry that he or she is in fact a grown-ass man or woman and to learn some respect or kindly fuck off.

[Episiarch]

But then she'll just fail them.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Still worth it.

[Loki]

And then the student will get an F in her class because "Fuck You, That's Why." I'm sure she probably teaches some kind of bullshit humanities or social science class with a made up grading scheme that can be easily manipulated to justify failing any student who she doesn't like.

I had a couple of humanities profs like that even at my college, which was a highly technical university with a lot of engineering students. One was a full on 60's hippy Marxist shitstack. The more left wing you were the better your grade, and God help you if you were in ROTC.

[BlogimiDei]

My humanities teacher hated me. The purpose of that class was to teach students that they NEEDED to serve the community in someway.
I was a returning student, having just seperated from the Navy after 11 years of "SERVICE"
She did not like my attitude, because I was under the impression that had already give some SERVICE to my home/community/country.

[Rasilio]

Even better, report her to the campus diversity police for age discrimination because her claim that you were a child made you feel uncomfortable and demeaned

[Emmerson Biggins]

oooh, oooh, don't forget "micro-aggressed"

[Auric Demonocles]

Mike, please elaborates on your claim that alt-text doesn't belong in Reason articles.

Is it because you think the commetariat is full of children?

[Old Man With Candy]

Professor of some bullshit "academic" area. Hyphenated. OK, you know everything you need to know.

[Xlotl]

What does she teach? (I refuse to give MSNBC or herself a click.)

[Heroic Mulatto]

Political Science. She's also the head of some Race-Gender-Something Institute.

[Xlotl]

thx

[Old Man With Candy]

Like I said, everything you need to know before she even starts yelping out of her piehole.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

The funny thing about these Race-Gender-Institutes is; do they really help people? I mean, has a Black Woman ever become the CEO of a company specifically because of the Race-Gender-Institute? My wife is a Black Woman, she's an accountant, and her career is going nicely. She never got assistance from an Institute. She went to college, got good grades, and got a job in a Big Four accounting firm. All by herself. And the thing is, I know some other Black Women who did the same thing. They don't buy in to the Race-Gender Institute bullshit. They went to college and got accounting/finance degrees and have decent careers at high profile firms. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? What can a fucking Institute do for an individual? Can this institute point to a specific success story, based on the Institute's involvement? I hate this shit. And frankly, I think most of it is counter-productive.

[Heroic Mulatto]

What can a fucking Institute do for an individual?

Well, for an individual like Harris-Perry, about six figures a year.

[BakedPenguin]

Are you saying that convincing someone they are a perpetual victim - in every area of their lives isn't a productive strategy in the long run?

Hmm. Better not tell the feminists.

[Old Man With Candy]

It provides a more than ample supply of race hustlers to work at other institutes or be token brown faces to hit race/gender checkmarks for large companies who hire them as "Vice President for Diversity" or "Director of Community Outreach" or similar non-productive bullshit. They also get hired by large corporations to do mandatory "diversity training" of unwilling employees. I just went through one of those- my boss, who is a so-called racial minority (but a terrific and capable businessman/engineer), kept kicking me under the table when he thought I would speak up, just so we could get out of there as quickly as possible.

[Zeb]

They help people who want to work for Race-Gender Institutes.

[Loki]

She never got assistance from an Institute. She went to college, got good grades, and got a job in a Big Four accounting firm. All by herself. And the thing is, I know some other Black Women who did the same thing. They don't buy in to the Race-Gender Institute bullshit.

Then your wife and these other women are all race and gender traitors. Double traitors in fact. Sorry to break it to you.

[Enough About Palin]

So you're saying your wife acts white?

[Zeb]

I'm entirely convinced at this point that nothing is more harmful to race relations than people who spend a lot of time worrying about hidden racism.
I'm all for calling out racist idiots, but going around looking for every little bit of racism in society just gives idiots and racists more power.

Just imagine if, for example, people stopped worrying about who should or should not use the word "nigger". It's the people who are horrified by that word that give it so much power, not idiot racists who would use it to insult someone.

[wareagle]

Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

in a sane world, where people view themselves as people with skills employers might find attractive, yes. But in the world of griefers and identity politics, where this woman lives, not no but hell no.

These folks look at women like your wife as traitors to the cause, doubly so with your wife since she's both a woman and black. All that potential for claiming victim status that she is wasting.

[GILMORE]

EDG reppin' LBC|4.9.13 @ 2:40PM|#

The funny thing about these Race-Gender-Institutes is; do they really help people?

Of course they do!!

Where else are gender-studies grad students supposed to work???

[a better weapon]

Haha! I had the same initial concern when I saw my Intro to Ethics professor's hyphenated name. The suspense was short lived as it took about 3 minutes for her to be unmistakably pegged for a PC, feminist, state fellatiator. She was a white woman who wore eccentric clothing and married a black guy. I've never seen him or a picture of him, I just know this because she was very quick to bring it up.

[Irish]

Wait, she was very quick to bring up that she married a black guy? How did that go?

"Good morning students! Sorry I'm late, my black husband was giving it to me good and hard! If any of you white bread suburbanites have a problem with that, you can just get out, right now!"

[a better weapon]

No, but if I ever get the ability to time travel and push my thoughts onto others, this will be one of the first things I go back and have re-enacted.

As an example, she'd throw it out there when describing what the Kantian 'Veil of Ignorance' was.

"Under this veil, I wouldn't know my position in the world, that I was white, or female. My husband wouldn't know he is African-American."

It was always shoe-horned in at least weekly.

[jesse.in.mb]

Wait, who is this professor, I want to judge.

[#]

"describing what the Kantian 'Veil of Ignorance' was."

Rawls, not Kant.

[a better weapon]

Well that explains the B- then.

Sorry Jess, I'm can't remember her name for the life of me. I checked the faculty website and their is only one woman's name in the Philosophy dept and its not hers. It'll come to me...

[jesse.in.mb]

My intro to ethics professor was completely crazy and awesome, but she was an adjunct, so I only got to take one other course with her.

[GILMORE]

"..jesse.in.mb|4.9.13 @ 3:44PM|#

My intro to ethics professor was completely crazy and awesome.."

mine too. he was famous for his classroom antics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lachs

Basis for the character in Dead Poets Society. Couple of his lectures are up on youtube

[Somalian Road Corporation]

This makes me think of the vegans who are apparently required to verbally assert their moral superiority within 30 seconds of contact.

[Loki]

What is it with Ethics professors? I had to take Values and Ethics as a required Humanities course to get my aerospace engineering degree. The prof was a hippy Marxist (he admitted to the fact freely - points for honesty I guess). I thought since the class was required for engineernig that it would be a series of case studies of various engineering disasters and the shitty unethical decisions that lead to them, but no.

Instead we would pick a divisive hot button social topic (one week it was abortion, another the death penalty, another gun control, etc.) and split the room into "for" and "against" camps and discuss the issue for an hour. Then we had to write a journal about our feelings concerning the issue of the week. How the hell do you get a grade for that, you ask? Easy: the more consistently lib-tard you were the higher your grade. And minus two letter grades if you were in ROTC.

[Zeb]

I stayed well away from ethics as a philosophy major. I could see pretty quickly that it was mostly just an opportunity for people to come up with clever justifications for what they already think about the world.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of day care centers that served under-resourced children

Served on a non-profit board =/= collective responsibility to children. It is a responsibility to effectively guide a non-profit day care center.

I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached boys' basketball teams in our town.

Coached basketball teams =/= collective responsibility to children. It is a responsibility to teach basketball skills to kids and give them an opportunity to win basketball games.

This lady is fucking delusional.

[mad libertarian guy]

This lady is fucking delusional.

Yes. And it's why she's on MSNBC rather than, well, any other network or cable channel.

[a better weapon]

I might actually watch. I have the stomach to watch the Ed Show pretty regularly, but since he's on his way out, MHP might get a call from the dugout.

Tried Maddow once or twice, but she's just smug and way too sure of herself in an unflattering way. The way Ed does it makes for some fun television. I usually do this while drinking a 24oz Milwaukee's Best and pretend to be in solidarity with some union schmuck for a half hour or so.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

... and pretend to be in solidarity with some union schmuck for a half hour or so.

Why do you do this to yourself? You're sick, dude. 😉

[jesse.in.mb]

Did you enjoy intro to psych with Chuck Hill too?

Actually beer would've made that class much more tolerable.

[a better weapon]

You're one of the few people that didn't regularly bring drinks to his class. I bet you sat in the front row too!

[jesse.in.mb]

Actually I rarely went to his class. He was a complete bastard on 9/11 (it was my freshman year and we were informed in no uncertain terms that we were still to attend classes), and I just couldn't stomach being there. There was a creepy guy who had a crush on me so I studied independently using his notes and just showed up for tests and projects.

[Voros McCracken]

MHP is violating the first rule of holes.

[BlogimiDei]

holes or "ho's"

[Andrew S.]

I really need to stay away from Reason. I think this place, and these kinds of articles especially, is part of the reason I'm constantly angry all the time.

[Heroic Mulatto]

"I've never thought of myself as biracial," Harris-Perry says. "I'm black.

Fuck you and your One-Dropism, Melissa. I hope you die a long, slow, and agonizingly painful death from ovarian cancer.

[WTF]

I guess that means she doesn't consider her mother and her mother's relatives to be a part of her heritage, background, ancestry, etc.

[Heroic Mulatto]

she doesn't consider her mother and her mother's relatives to be a part of her heritage, background, ancestry, etc.

EXACTLY! And Harris-Perry sold her mother out so she could land a sweet gig as a Race-Huckster.

Makes me so mad I could spit!

[WTF]

Yeah, as someone with a multi-racial family myself, that shit really bugs me. How can you just dismiss half of your relatives as non-entities simply because you think it might make things a little easier for you?

[a better weapon]

Because that half has been taught by those who paved the way for MHP to hate themselves and feel unforgivable guilt for relatives at least 2 generations removed who had a racist paradigm we can't even pretend to imagine today.

Assuming her family only partially as steeped in progressive BS as she is, I bet that half of her family cheers that shit on.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Her black father, William M. Harris Sr., was dean of Afro-American affairs at the University of Virginia,

Can you imagine a whole marriage based on hate-fucking?

[phandaal]

Ah, she grew up at least partially in Charlottesville. That explains a lot.

[Marshall Gill]

Unfortunately, yes.

[Calidissident]

Historically, you can't ignore the fact that mixed race people were just considered "black" by most white people, and even today most people have no problem calling someone half-black and half-white "black" but would never just call them "white." That obviously plays a role in why mixed race kids may identify more with their African ancestry

[GILMORE]

What, has Oreo gone out of favor?

[jesse.in.mb]

Umm, I think oreo is a term for someone who is black, but behaves white. Carlton on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would be a prime example.

[AuH20]

Cali, the counter example would be Blake Griffin and Jason Kidd. They have both been described as white but they both have black dads.

[Calidissident]

That's because both of them look predominately white (although in my experience most people don't refer to either guy as just white, unless they're unaware of Kidd's black parentage). And as a good number of AA's have significant European admixture (and almost all have some), they're not 50/50 genetically. We have made progress, as back in the day, both of those guys would just be considered black. But if you take someone who is 50 percent black genetically and 50 percent white, you could almost always call them just "black" and no one would think it odd, but most people would find it strange if you just called them "white" (like Obama for example).

[Juice]

What happened to "high yellow"?

(I learned the yellow thing from TV and then looked it up.)

[Greg]

Whenever I hear "high yellow" I think of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5hJzjwn5NY

Hahahaha I haven't seen that entire movie in forever, so funny

[Bobarian]

Sickle cell would be more appropriate.

[Enough About Palin]

I have no intention of apologizing for saying that our children, all of our children, are part of more than our households, they are part of our Catholic parishes and deserve to have the care, attention, resources, respect and opportunities of those churches.

When the flood of vitriolic responses to the ad began, my first reaction was relief. I had spent the entire day grading Sunday school papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade! But of course, that is a ridiculous notion. As a Sunday school teacher, I have unique responsibilities to the students in my Sunday school class at Our Lady of the Perpetual Guilting, and I embrace those responsibilities. It is why I love my job.

Then I started asking myself where did I learn this lesson about our collective responsibility to children. So many answers quickly became evident.

I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of Catholic daycare centers that served under-resourced children.

I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached our parish's boys' basketball teams in our town.

I learned it from my third-grade Sunday school teacher, who gave me creative extra work and opened up her classroom to me after Sunday school, so that I wouldn't get bored and get in trouble.

[Enough About Palin]

FIFY, BITCH!

[Pro Libertate]

Religion's bad, m'kay?

[Teaching Student]

If children don't "belong to their parents" but instead the community, where does that end? Are children suddenly free when they turn 18? Bad question I guess, since she considers her University Level Students to be children, and Obamacare extends Dependent Benefits to 26... But in all reality, if family ties are destroyed and a child is seen as belonging to the community than you must say that all adults belong to the community. We lose our free choice, we lose our right to live for our own goals. I don't even have a word to define what this is, is it Marxism? It's not Communalism.

Damn, I can't even keep a straight train of though on this it's so batty. Of course she has no problem with Top Down dictates, because someone has to define and enforce the Social Good. This is just so far out of my thinking... It's one of those statements you can't respond to, just stare back in utter disbelief.

[Enough About Palin]

"If children don't "belong to their parents" but instead the community, where does that end?"

Your child? You didn't birth it. Someone else made that happen.

But of course what difference, at this point, does it make?

[Shmurphy]

This is a stupid, stupid woman. I don't even know what else to say.

[Emmerson Biggins]

I disagree. I think she is evil.

[Shmurphy]

I don't think she's clever enough to be evil. Anyone who thinks that the fact that people had volunteered for something means that those things should be MANDATORY is not bright enough to come up with a solid evil plan.

Seriously, I think that MSNBC should have a big, South Park-style, incredulous "THIS IS WHAT PROGRESSIVES ACTUALLY BELIEVE" caption on screen at all times.

[Emmerson Biggins]

but she knows that what she is saying now isn't what she said before. She just assumes, that for the most part, she can bullshit her way out of it, because so far she has always been allowed to. So she doesn't need to be clever. Just how I see it.

[derpules]

I'd hit it

[Old Man With Candy]

So would I, but in a literal sense.

[Auric Demonocles]

I learned it from my third-grade public school teacher, who gave me creative extra work and opened up her classroom to me after school so that I wouldn't get bored

Yeah, teachers were really sooooo concerned with me not being bored. That's why I didn't have to take algebra after I already passed an online college pre-calc class. And why I got to skip several grades instead of repeating stuff I already knew, thus earning an extra 2 years of salary over the course of my life. And why I was allowed to take multiple AP Science classes.

Oh wait... I did have to take that class, and the next 2 that covered the material I already proved I knew? And skipping grades wasn't allowed? And the AP Science classes were all scheduled at the same time, specifically so that people couldn't take multiple ones in a year?

Well, I guess that actually teachers don't care about students being bored. Maybe Melissa was getting extra work and staying after school because she was a different kind of "special".

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

They were just fulfilling their collective responsibility to help you socialize with people of your age regardless of ability.

[Auric Demonocles]

But nicoooooooole, people my age are laaaaaame. I don't want to go to school. I want to stay home and drink today.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Since I take my responsibility as a collective-parent seriously, I will not only allow but encourage that behavior. And I'll homeschool you, too, if you know what I mean.

[Restoras]

Is there room in this homeschool class for one more "student"?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I guess that's up to the collective.

[Auric Demonocles]

He'll have to bring his own supplies. Nicole hasn't done her collective duty to teach me to share yet.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Hmm, someone else might have to cover that lesson. Or we could skip it. I mean, we are libertarians, are we not?

[jesse.in.mb]

And now Nicole is bogarting the youths. This is typical anti-social behavior. The youths must be spread around equally!

[Xlotl]

Just when I think Ayn Rand was exaggerating the threats to individualism, someone like this comes along and reminds me how clearly she saw things.

[a better weapon]

Its really getting hard to argue that those characters were straw men, isn't it.

If I didn't know any better, these people read snippets of Rand and thought of it as a manual instead of a warning.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade! But of course, that is a ridiculous notion.

Notice the lazy strawman she erects here. What pissed people off wasn't her contention that parents were trying to horn in on her worthless job, it was her fucking cultural marxism and her implication that parents should subsume their responsibilities to the state.

And why shouldn't she believe things should be like that? She's African-American, a demographic with a 70% rate of out-of-wedlock births, one whose men are incarcerated at higher rates than any other. No wonder she thinks that parents are incapable of taking care of their kids without the gentle kiss of authoritarian Top.Men.

[Zeb]

She's just as European as she is African (probably a little more so).

[Red Rocks Rockin]

That's why I said African-American.

[Zeb]

Sorry, usually people say that when the mean "black".

[Zeb]

I think people should just go back to using "negro". It really isn't offensive and it annoys all of the right people.

[Loki]

Nah, Porch Monkey.

I'm taking it back.

[Greg]

Yeah I remember being confused after reading something saying that Val James was the first African-American in the NHL, then it occurred to me that all of the black players before him were Canadian and so therefore they weren't "African-American"

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The SWPL status-signaling she employs gives the latter part away.

[H. ReardEn]

Having parents grade the papers would be the collectivization of what is her personal responsibility for which she is well paid. Her argument doesn't even make sense.

[Loki]

I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade!

The sad thing is she probably thinks this was a great "gotcha" line. As in "Aha!!! I gottcha you crazy wild eyed libertarians! If 'all your children are NOT belong to us' then you can grade their papers yourselves! What do you think of that, huh?!"

Uhm, no, you stupid socialist shitstain, it's your job, that you're well compensated for I might add, to grade those papers. Sure, you may "love your job" and the fact that you get to teach brainwash impressionable young adults all day, but the bottom line is you still get paid to do it. I doubt you'd grade all those papers for free, you stupid hack. In fact the line about being "relieved" that you didn't have to is kind of a giveaway that that's one aspect of your job you clearly don't like.

So hows about instead of bloviating on MSNBC about how "it takes a village" or some such bullshit you go back to doing your job: indoctrinating rich college kids with Marxist bullshit.

[Heroic Mulatto]

So those of you who were alarmed by the ad can relax. I have no designs on taking your children. Please keep your kids! But I understand the fear.

We do live in a nation where slaveholders took the infants from the arms of my foremothers and sold them for their own profit.

We do live in a nation where the government snatched American Indian children from their families and "re-educated" them by forbidding them to speak their language and practice their traditions.

But that is not what I was talking about, and you know it.

Right. I know that whom you were talking about was taking away the children of the bitter clinger rednecks you so despise and reeducating them to your own "culture war" curricular standards, just out of spite.

[Rock Action]

She's talking her moment and running with it.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

She's the Sandra Fluke of the 2014 cycle, book it.

[Rock Action]

Nothing's that fluky

[The Heresiarch]

Excellent use of the objective case. Maybe if we didn't have public schools people would not mix up nominative/objective in their relative pronouns so damn often.

[Fist of Etiquette]

College students aren't children.

[Irish]

We are all the children of the state.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Chris Rock FTL

[Tim]

We are all children of the State, praise It.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

A few slutwalks should disabuse you of that notion.

[Paul.]

So, I don't watch Bill Maher, why is she a regular pundit? What does she do (besides grade papers) that makes her a national celebrity?

[A Serious Man]

So, I don't watch Bill Maher, why is she a regular pundit?

Stupid people find strength in numbers.

[Skip]

She is a pundit because MSNBC was tired of conservatives making fun of their all white news channel so they hired the dumbest, most socialist black chick they could find.

[Warty]

Hilarious. Also, she's funny-lookin'.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yeah. Instead of getting the "Heroic" gene, she got the "Goofy" gene.

We're kind of like the 7 Dwarves in that way. Or Power Rangers.

[Warty]

Mulattos look best when they don't have too many of the worthless cracker genes. Her dick must be tiny.

[BakedPenguin]

Her face is the same shape as a guitar pick. An ugly guitar pick.

[Enough About Palin]

"Hilarious. Also, she's funny-lookin'."

Alt text:

"ET phone home."

[Trespassers W]

Melissa Harris-Perry says she has received "hateful, personal attacks"

Faith in humanity partially restored.

[Tim]

That's like saint hood for the PC crowd.

[earthandweather]

If we didn't have an "education system" we might not have to be so concerned about "it" failing our children. This is part of that "Government is the only thing we all belong to" crap that has been going around for years. Parents entrust their children to those they trust; whether those people are paid to care for children or not. What does she have in mind?

[Warty]

One thing that always fascinates me is the othering you see from the left on issues like this. If you don't support the goverment running *insert activity name*, not only do you not want *insert activity name* done at all, but you're an amoral monster, motivated by pure evil, and probably not even a human. See MHP's fans in the comments.

Veronica4000 commented 52 minutes ago

#11

Human beings are social animals. We are hard-wired to care for our children communally. In order to raise well-rounded, compassionate kids, they need to know that their community cares about them, and therefore they should care about their community. It's common sense... something that many on the right seem to lack!

[Irish]

We're social animals in that we get to choose who we socialize with. If someone threatens to beat you with a hose if you don't socialize with them, that's a slightly different situation.

[Tim]

"...but you're an amoral monster..."

But you ARE an amoral monster.

[Irish]

Warty has morals, they are simply not comprehensible to humans.

[AlmightyJB]

Everyone has morals

[$park?]

And no two are exactly the same.

[BuSab Agent]

Warty's morals are non-Euclidean.

[Warty]

Shut the fuck up or I'll rape you to death. AGAIN.

[Tim]

I NEVER JUDGED YOU.

[John]

I think it was Bastiat who pointed that out first. Socialists, since they see the entire world as encompassed by the state, think that anyone who objects to the state doing something must by definition object to it being done at all or something to that effect more eloquently put.

[Warty]

That's what I was referring to. The comment's inference that we're monsters is what I find interesting.

[John]

It is just common sense to give your children up to the community. Didn't you know that Warty?

[Tim]

Makes it easy for them to have us rounded up and liquidated once the revolution is achieved.

[Warty]

Sounds that way, doesn't it?

[Tim]

All the utopias of the 20th century required millions of lives to be shed in order for the consolidation of power to occur. Why would a hypothetical American strain be any different?

[An0nB0t]

It's uncanny how many progressive arguments can be completely destroyed by quoting a single paragraph from the Law.

[Voros McCracken]

I'm guessing Bastiat isn't on the curriculum in her class.

[The Heresiarch]

The Carthaginians could teach us a thing or two about how children belong to the community. Now, that's a people who understood sacrifice. Tanit/Ba'al Hammon 2016.

[Trespassers W]

"As a producer, I have unique responsibilities to the consumers to whom I sell my products or services, and I embrace those responsibilities."

Huh. It almost sounds vapid when I put it that way.

[John]

What is this "my product" stuff? If the collective owns the children, who told her she owns her products?

[Trespassers W]

More to the point, she belongs to me just as much as my child belongs to her. After all, who does she think she is, some rugged individualist living on a desert island? I'm sure a lot of people have unique responsibilities to her--her doctor, her accountant, her psychiatrist, her crack dealer (apparently)--so she belongs to them.

[John]

A black woman belongs to you?

RACIST!!!

It is funny how the collective own our children but it doesn't own us too? Really?

[John]

What is the "our children" shit? I don't have children. But if I am lucky enough to have one, fuck you Melissa. Stay the hell away from them. Unless you are my wife/baby mamma or whatever the kids are calling it today, they are most certainly not "our children". Stupid bitch.

[Tim]

"It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which The Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak ? 'child hero' was the phrase generally used ? had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police."

[John]

They really do learn nothing from that book.

[Irish]

Don't you guys know anything? Orwell was a socialist. This means that when progressives act exactly like his villains, he actually would have been in favor of the way they're behaving, since he agreed with them about one thing.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I really wish Murrikan were smarter about his argumentation -- that way, he could invoke Orwell in the same way that leftists do, but about his racist views.

Would be amusing.

[Irish]

George Orwell wasn't really that racist.

His essay "Shooting an Elephant" had some stuff in it that sounded a bit racist but was fair for the time, and he was really opposed to imperialism.

Plus, everyone comes off horribly in Orwell's essays. The man was a bit of a misanthrope.

He did have a tendency to refer to Asians as 'coolies' but I don't know if that was actually considered a slur at the time.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Well, he wasn't all that socialist either.

The Lion and the Unicorn makes his version of socialism sound more like a moral stance than any kind of developed political system -- if anything, my reading of him is as something of a Dickensian.

[Warty]

He was a socialist, sure, but of an anarcho-syndicalist sort. He'd hate the modern totalitarian left as much or more than we do.

[jesse.in.mb]

He fell in with the anarchos (and was nearly killed by state socialists for it) before Animal Farm and 1984.

Homage to Catalonia covers the transition and is a great read.

Also he flirts with some Spanish guy in the first fucking chapter but isn't self-aware enough to realize that's what's happening. It's glorious.

[Irish]

I bought a book of his essays a few months ago. I'd never read any of them before, and he is really a great writer.

'Politics and the English Language' should be required reading. He absolutely obliterates a Communist Pamphlet and explains how Communist word usage is designed to make the reader incapable of thought.

Really, really god.

[Warty]

I used to quote that constantly here. I should start that again.

[Irish]

"The word fascism has now no meaning except insofar as it signifies 'something not desirable.' - Orwell, Politics and the English Language

[jesse.in.mb]

I preach the gospel of Politics and the English Language ALL THE TIME irl. I wasn't as enamored by Keep the Aspidistra flying as I have been with most of his writing. I can't recommend Homage to Catalonia enough.

[Warty]

Did anyone else read his War-Time Diary? Fascinating. http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/

[jesse.in.mb]

He was a tough-looking youth of twenty-five or six, with reddish-yellow hair and powerful shoulders. His peaked leather cap was pulled fiercely over one eye. He was standing in profile to me, his chin on his breast, gazing with a puzzled frown at a map which one of the officers had open on the table. Something in his face deeply moved me. It was the face of a man who would commit murder and throw away his life for a friend--the kind efface you would expect in an Anarchist, [...]. There were both candour and ferocity in it; also the pathetic reverence that illiterate people have for their supposed superiors. Obviously he could not make head or tail of the map; [...]. I hardly know why, but I have seldom seen anyone--any man, I mean--to whom I have taken such an immediate liking. While they were talking round the table some remark brought it out that I was a foreigner. The Italian raised his head and said quickly:
'Italiano?'
I answered in my bad Spanish: 'No, Ingles. Y tu?'
'Italiano.'
As we went out he stepped across the room and gripped my hand very hard. Queer, the affection you can feel for a stranger! It was as though his spirit and mine had momentarily succeeded in bridging the gulf of language and tradition and meeting in utter intimacy. I hoped he liked me as well as I liked him. But I also knew that to retain my first impression of him I must not see him again; and needless to say I never did see him again.

[Warty]

Sounds to me like he did realize what was happening, and made sure it didn't lead to any penis-in-butt.

[jesse.in.mb]

Which is a shame. Had that story unfolded the way it should've, Orwell would've been writing some faptastic gay smut.

[Zeb]

I liked Homage to Catalonia a lot. Kind of a skewed look at the Spanish Civil war, but you get a good idea of how he got to where he got to ideologically. And it's good writing.

[H. ReardEn]

They really do learn nothing from that book.

Au contraire. It's their instruction manual.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

How drunk would you have to get to have KHP as a baby-mama?

[A Serious Man]

The sad things is I'm still not convinced she's worse than the likes of Toure. MSNBC has really the set the bar for employing totally shitbrains.

[John]

They don't even try to be a professional organization anymore. They are just the worst of DU and Kos put on live TV.

[Irish]

Toure is several orders of magnitude worse than Harris-Perry.

This is a man that is so up Obama's ass that he is a liberal who is staunchly pro-drone assassination.

This is a man who, after Trevon Martin's death, wrote an article for Time Magazine claiming that all black people should be deeply scared because white people with guns are coming for you.

Toure is in a league of his own.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Is there any indication that KHP isn't pro-drone-assassination?

[Calvin Coolidge]

Those kids belong to us, if our Dear Leader chooses to sacrifice them to the Greater Good, then his will be done...

[Enough About Palin]

"MSNBC has really the set the bar for employing totally shitbrains"

Al. Sharpton. When they hired him, I knew they didn't feel the need to hide it anymore.

[Zeb]

I just wish Sharpton would keep running for president. As much of a buffoon as he was, he was the only thing that made the Democratic primary debates at all debatey.

[dave b.]

I am obligated to post this link every time someone mentions Sharpton.

[AlmightyJB]

I'm getting a little bored with the whole retarded person said something retarded stories. Maybe it's because I'm tired from staying up so late so all those Louisville and Michigan alumni on the west coast could eat dinner and have a few beers before watching the game.

[John]

Moving the the East Coast has damn near killed my sports habit. I haven't watched a world series in years.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Fuck Michigan!

[AlmightyJB]

I'm glad they lost but I wanted them to lose from a soul crushing last second three.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, they do have the extra pain of knowing that if Ware hadn't gone down, they'd likely have lost even bigger. So they looked better because of a tragic accident. They benefited from human suffering. Typical.

[Andrew S.]

I was hoping Michigan would lose either by 20+ points or by a terrible last-second call. Hoped more it would be the latter, to make up for the gifts they got against Syracuse in the last couple of minutes of that game.

Why yes, I am still bitter.

[John]

Instead they lost in a really well played game to a better team. You can't feel too bad if you are Michigan.

[Invisible Finger]

She even outs her parents as incompetent morons. If they would have spent more time with their own kids instead of serving on day care boards and coaching, maybe she wouldn't have these abandonment issues.

[The Late P Brooks]

We need a major cultural change in this nation; a revolution, as it were. The truly enlightened thinkers of our time should distill their wisdom into a compact, readily accessible booklet, bound in a distinctive easily identifiable color like red.

Right, Melissa?

[jesse.in.mb]

Can this book be small enough to carry around in my pocket and occasionally flail in the air?

[Warty]

In college, there was a kid who would carry Mao's little red book around wherever he went. I would see him occasionally reading in the weight room, and I would have to resist the urge to frisbee a 2.5 pound plate at him.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Why bother? You should just pity him for being a pathetic jackass.

[Warty]

Later, he got kicked out of school, or something, for spitting on an ROTC kid and calling him a baby killer. Things sometimes work out.

[John]

Really? Did you go to school in 1969? What a fucking tool. I hope the ROTC kid kicked his ass.

[Warty]

This would have been right around the time of the Iraq invasion, so I mean, it made some sense.

I have a fond memory of disrupting a pitiful little anti-war march he was leading. It was taking up the sidewalk and coming towards me, so I just figured I'd walk through it and see if they'd move. They did.

[John]

That sounds like the Illinois Nazis.

[Irish]

No, the Illinois Nazis jumped out of the way when a car was coming towards them.

These kids jumped out of the way when a FUCKING WARTY was headed right for them.

Much scarier.

[Pro Libertate]

It's just so cool and edgy to carry a mass-murderer's little book around, isn't it?

[General Butt Naked]

"Hey buddy you know what's great about that little book yer readin'?"

"What's that, man?"

"With no energy expended on my part I can, in an instant, tell that everything you think, do, and believe is less than worthless. Here catch."

*throws kettle*

[Cyrano]

I'm glad lots of people are angry about her comments, but why aren't the same people angry about the public education monopoly? They're giving their children's minds up to the state, and they're not outraged about that?

[Andrew S.]

I'm going to assume you're new here.

[DesigNate]

I don't think he was meaning "our" comments.

[Ranter]

Christ. She CAN'T BE THIS STUPID, CAN SHE?

Apparently, they hand out MSNBC hosting gigs to any facile, mouth-breathing lefty moron who can demonstrate a repeated ability to not see obvious facts or salient points.
CHRIST.
I wish Milton Friedman were alive for an hour just to mentally decimate this peabrain in a debate.

It's not worth the effort to create an account on MSNBC just to chime in and tell her what an empty whistling hole her brain must be... I'm willing to bet they're actively scrubbing any "non-agreement" comments on the post, so it's nothing but adoring, ethno-gender-lefty acolytes showering with plaudits for her "bravery" in demonstrating what a yammering Commie asshole really sounds like.

[Almanian!]

So - you partially agree with her arguments, then....

[Shmurphy]

Children: You didn't build that!

[John]

The jokes about this really write themselves. If the community owns all the children, well there are a lot of top shelf white families that want children but can't have them and think little black babies are adorable. Why shouldn't the community just go into black communities and take those kids and give the white parents? Wouldn't they have a better chance at life growing up white and middle class? If the community owns the and has the obligation to do what is best for them, how can the community not do this?

[sarcasmic]

You may think of that as a joke, but I can assure you that there are many who would take your questions seriously. Many with power who are just itching for an excuse to wield it.

[John]

You are not kidding. We are what 50 years removed from it being totally acceptable to say that interracial marriage is wrong?

[Pro Libertate]

There's a flaw in your argument. The affluent white family's desire or lack thereof to have kids is irrelevant. In fact, they should be forced to adopt children and should be forcibly sterilized, to boot. Not like we need more whitey.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

If the community owns all the children, well there are a lot of top shelf white families that want children but can't have them and think little black babies are adorable.

That would explain why there are so many black kids in orphanages and foster care?

[John]

That just means there are more black kids out there than families. All the more reason to encourage it. And yes there are plenty of black or interracial kids who are adopted by white families.

[sarcasmic]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hypothetical

hth

[Zeb]

so many black kids in orphanages and foster care

Those kids are used. The top shelf white families want new ones, still in the original packaging.

[Ken Shultz]

"I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of day care centers that served under-resourced children.

I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached boys' basketball teams in our town."

I bet they did that out of some sense of Christianity!

Here's the most under-reported and important story going:

Just becasue people have become ostensibly more atheistic, that doesn't mean they've become less religious in their instincts. And the instincts that religion used to scratch, a lot of people have found a substitute for that in progressive politics.

Progressive ideas have always had a religious inertia behind them--progressive causes have always been a quasi-religious crusade. And the problem is that, unlike middle-of-the-road religious people, progressives are not even slightly reluctant to force their values on other people--because they don't recognize their values as being essentially religious.

Progressivism could almost be defined as the use of government to force one's values on others. They're just like the bible-thumpers in a lot of ways--except their list of values is sometimes different--but their faith in government and politicians isn't much different from the fundamentalists' faith in God.

And the fundamentalists want to raise your children for you, too.

[Libertymike]

"Progressivism could almost be defined as the use of government to force one's values on others."

You get an A- on your definition.

Better bet:

"Progressivism [is] defined as the use of government to force one's values on others".

[Ken Shultz]

It's just that other non-progressive movements want to do that, too. Specifically, look at the fundamentalists.

Fundies want to use the government to force their values on others, too, but they aren't progressives. Its' just that their list of values is different from the progressives.

[Libertymike]

Generally, do you find fundies wanting to control every aspect of your life like the progressives?

[Ken Shultz]

The fundamentalists haven't been as successful because the establishment side of the First Amendment protects us from some of their abuse. Because the progressives don't couch their abuse in explicitly religious terms, they're more successful in inflicting their values on the rest of us.

Talk with Tony about why he believes anything he believes about how the economy works, and, real quick, it'll sound like talking to fundamentalists about why they believe in creationism. It's just not called religion explicitly--so they get away with a lot more than they would otherwise.

Having said that, we've been following a story here at Reason about the government taking some couple's children away because the father was caught with marijuana in the child's presence. Where I grew up, you couldn't buy alcohol on Sundays.

If the fundies could make children pray in public schools, if they could teach children about creationism there, they absolutely would. They try to force their values on other people by prohibiting things like gay marriage, too. The fundies may not try to control every aspect of our lives, but, yeah, I think they'd like to have their say on everything they care about.

Point is that they're less successful than the progressives because people don't call out the progressives for what they are--a culturally religious bunch of people trying to force their own values on other people.

[Libertymike]

You are right in your assessment of the amount of success the two groups have enjoyed in forcing their views upon us via government.

Still, as you acknowledge, there are not too many fundies who insist banning big gulps and monitoring salt intake.

[sarcasmic]

Progressives worship the collective and the violence it can wield. Their only morality is 'might makes right.' Side with the mighty collective and you're always on the side of right.

[Ken Shultz]

They don't care about anything other than their list of values, that's for sure.

It doesn't matter if the obstacle is the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, what's really in people's best interest, or good sense--anything that gets in the way of their agenda is a bad thing to progressives.

[Libertymike]

Yes, which is why I have told you that things are (from a liberty perspective), in many ways, worse than they were 101 years ago.

[John]

Much worse. Pre world war I America and Europe were free in ways we can only dream of.

[Calidissident]

If you were a white male

[Libertymike]

A black man in circa 1912 Paris enjoyed a whole lot more liberty than a black man in 2012 New York.

[Calidissident]

I wasn't aware we were talking about the 1912 France versus 2012 NY

[Libertymike]

You're right. sarc and I disagree about this to an extent largely along Virginia Posterel lines.

[Tony]

May the best man win.

[Numeromancer]

"We have actually contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical." -- G. K. Chesterton

[Ken Shultz]

"The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical."

I suppose there is nothing new under the sun.

We gotta start emphasizing what the progressives really are, though. They don't have to defend their "religious" beliefs anywhere near as much as they should.

Shoot, if I had to choose between a president who thought that Jesus built the dinosaurs, on the one hand, and, on the other, a president who thought sustainable economic growth came from government spending? I'd pick the bible-thumper every time.

[Calvin Coolidge]

I'm glad to read your take on this issue here, it is one I have been thinking about lately.

Every Progressive argument begins with an assertion of universal morality. Nobody should ever go hungry. Society belongs to the most vulnerable. Children are collectively the responsibility of the State.

Disagree with this assertion, and you are immoral - even subhuman. Everything else you say is to be dismissed.

Next comes Faith. Government will provide. Sure, it failed the last time, but that was due to the influence of Unbelievers. If only they could be rooted out and eliminated, the true faith could finally be implemented.

Government's prophets often fail us, but this is also due to Unbelievers. Once we all believe, we no longer need to worry about these False Politicians.

[Ken Shultz]

In some ways, it reminds me of Auguste Comte's "Religion of Humanity"--just minus the sacraments and rituals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_humanity

The progressives don't realize their beliefs are religious in nature, though, so I think it may be up to us to tell them about that.

I think a lot of what we've been dealing with over the last six years has been about one charismatic individual, too. A lot of these religious movements start to whither once their charismatic leader disappears from the scene, and with Obama's second term coming to an end, I hope that's what will happen here. Although I suspect a lot of people will keep taking their instructions from Obama long after he's out of office.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Obama started some kind of megachurch after he's out of office--although he would never call it that. There'll be a "community of volunteers" or something like that, in Chicago, maybe, or maybe in Washington DC, and he'll come out and talk to them once a week on Sunday. Gotta keep the faithful inspired to do good work--pushing for this issue or against that issue.

It'll be like the Carter Center except with a much higher profile, and instead of working for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, it'll push for progressive legislation. Once he's become a messiah to so many people, what's he supposed to do? The only thing he's ever really done before that was community organizing anyway.

[Almanian!]

Dumb, statist bitch is a dumb statist.

Film at 11!

[Brandon]

This is becoming a pattern: Liberal says something that is objectively horrible. People get angry about horrible thing, some non-liberal media post takedown of horrible thing. Liberal assumes victimhood, claims to have been misunderstood, goes on cheap, non sequitur emotional appeal.

[General Butt Naked]

Don't forget the "hateful" comments they get.

*sobs*

[Brandon]

That's part and parcel of the victimhood assumption.

[sarcasmic]

This is why I will always have dinner with the kid and do more than just pretend to be interested in how the day went. Must minimize opportunities for educators to drive a wedge between parents and children. For that is the ultimate goal for any indoctrinator, isn't it? To have the child trust them more than their own parents?

[Almanian!]

Yep. Despite my many failings as a parent, I'm gratified that our three kids are uniformly anti-state little fuckers. Turns out they learned deeper lessons than I realized...and they're ALWAYS listening and watching what you do!

Go get 'em, kids.

[John]

That is totally their goal. That is why liberals are so in love with universal pre-school even though study after study shows it does no good.

[Libertymike]

John, Mr. Dewey never hid his intentions.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Well, when you think about it it is odd that our labor specialization as a society has never extended to child-rearing. Very few of us grow our own food, make our own clothes, clean up our own excrement, or build our own dwellings anymore, but for some reason the idea of having a pro raise your kids never caught on.

[sarcasmic]

I can tell you're not a parent. Thank goodness.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Notice I never said "turn them over to the state for indoctrination". The state doesn't grow our food but we nonetheless do not irrationally insist on growing it ourselves.

[Libertymike]

Good gosh, thank goodness, indeed.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Considering the cultural/sociopolitical demographics that are having children these days, I would think you'd appreciate some help from my spawn in holding back the statist tide of the future.

[sarcasmic]

If your spawn gobbled cop cock like you, they wouldn't be much help.

[Libertymike]

Well, to be fair, both you and I would be enjoying more liberty if there were more Tulpas than progressives in our midst.

My hunch has always been that Tulpa expresses certain pro popo positions for effect and to sharpen our arguments in support of anarchy.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

I'm unaware of any pro-police positions I've espoused, other than that cops have a right to defend themselves when being smashed over the head with a bag of full liquor bottles, stones thrown at them while trying to make an arrest, and have a duty to remove persons from vehicles blocking traffic by any means necessary.

[John]

Sure it did. You think rich and powerful people ever raised their kids? Most people just don't have the money to hire them. And beyond that, we used to have labor specialization, then feminism came along and women went to work instead.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

I wouldn't call it labor specialization when half the population was designated as child-raisers at birth due not to any special ability but to their abdominal plumbing setup.

[John]

First, we have a hell of a lot of children. So if you are going to raise them a lot of people are going to be involved. Second, designating women to raise them was hardly some random choice. They seem to like doing so and be much more adept at it than men in many cases.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

We have a lot more food than children. You probably eat the equivalent of your children every 20 days. Yet only a few percent of the population is involved in food production.

Once robots are able to raise children you'll see what I mean.

[John]

Now you are just trolling.

[Warty]

You're just now realizing this?

[John]

Turns away sheepishly.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Trolling != voicing a point of view you're not ready to discuss civilly

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I'm with Tulpa here. But then I don't understand family bonding, and I always wished I had been raised by a nanny.

You know in The Sound of Music where the kids are horrified they're going to be sent away to boarding school because their future stepmother doesn't want them? I was like, OMG THEY ARE SO LUCKY I WANT TO GO AWAY FROM MY FAMILY TOO!

[lap83]

Why stop at having trained professional parents? Why not outsource reproduction to trained professionals too? Most people are just not skilled enough to be having sex.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah. The mother/child bond has nothing to do with it.

Holy fuck you're an ignoramus.

[Azathoth!!]

I wouldn't call it labor specialization when half the population was designed as child-raisers at birth due not to any special ability but to their abdominal plumbing setup

FTFY

[Almanian!]

Mrs. Almanian and I did have pros raise our kids.

Too bad your parents weren't do blessed (sad face for tulip) 🙁

[Zeb]

"Mrs. Almanian and I did have pros raise our kids."

You mean prostitutes, right?

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

We're talking raising, not conceiving.

[Zeb]

"Very few of us ... clean up our own excrement"

Are you trying to tell us that you have someone else wipe your ass, Tulpa?

And loads of people have other people raise their kids, to greater or lesser extents. What do you think nannies and boarding schools are?

[Libertymike]

And athletic camps sponsored by non-profits headed by guys who coached at linebacker U.

[Ken Shultz]

What do you think public schools are?

Isn't that having a pro raise your kids for you?

I guess I'm a little unusual in that I left home for boarding school at 14, and was required to work to support myself...

But then both my parents and my grandparents did the same thing--at the same boarding school. The idea that you would let someone from the government raise your children for you--to all of them--was something like the idea that you would abandon your children in the street. It was just unthinkable.

People have become so habituated to seeing public schools as okay--but then they've come to see abandoning their elderly parents in nursing homes as okay, too. Just because something is commonplace doesn't make it okay.

And just because people may not think of sending their children to public schools as having a pro raise their kids--doesn't mean that isn't exactly what they're doing.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

The schools are not supposed to be child-rearing factories.

[Ken Shultz]

Public schools are!

That's their biggest purpose.

Especially in inner cities.

They're just trying to keep kids off the streets.

[Libertymike]

Its as if Tulpa has never heard of Dewey.

[trshmnstr]

What do you call daycare, preschool, K-12 school, and after school "enrichment programs" if not delegating parenting?

[trshmnstr]

it would help if i refresh my page more than once an hour, so i don't look like a piling-on ass.

[The Late P Brooks]

Go get 'em, kids.

Sailing lessons might be useful.

[Presedinte PL Romania]

"I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade!"

A very useless comeback. I'll grade my son's papers if that means removing him from a system that considers an arbitrary letter a measure of intelligence.

But that's not the point. The point is that this is a non-argument. No one has any clue where she veered off to here or what she was trying to prove. This has nothing to do with kids belonging to a community. As far as I'm concerned, she's trying to make this about herself. It's about the fact that children still get the majority of their education from their parents.

Consider single-parent families, which churn out more delinquents than any other demographic. They send their kids to school. That doesn't seem to stop them from turning out how they do. The one thing that can stop them is a proper education, which is not what they receive (in many cases) within the public school system. I've heard of these beautiful things called charter schools. How about we try those? Me likey.

[JWS]

"We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we have this private notion of children. 'Your kid is yours, and totally your responsibility.' We haven't had a very collective notion of 'these are our children.' [b]So part of it is[/b] to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

"Once it's everybody's responsibility, and not just the household's, then we start making better investments."

This is some of the original text that was in the other REASON post. What I want to know is, if this nonsense is only "part of it", what is the rest of "it"?

[The Late P Brooks]

The mother/child bond has nothing to do with it.

hey, imprinting works with baby geese, why wouldn't it work with huminz?

[Tony]

Sooo is the response A) we should promote public policy that discourage bad parenting (e.g., make divorce harder, force parents to be educated) or B) I got mine, fuck you and your child?

[Irish]

You're so stupid it hurts my head.

[DesigNate]

He is one mendacious little fuck.

What should really scare people, even the people that say don't respond to it, is that he actually represents what liberals like Harris-Perry actually believe.

[Jordan]

Soooo, are you a child molester or a goat fucker?

[Zeb]

How about you go and help someone else's kid if you think it is so important. I will honestly congratulate you for being a decent person. But if other people don't want to give help, or if parents don't want help, that is not your problem or mine.

[Tony]

So B?

[Shmurphy]

"Your answer is not A so you are immediately a terrible person!" Trololololol.

[Tony]

I think both are bad choices.

I prefer a robust public support system for children so that those with terrible parents have a reasonable shot at succeeding in the world. When the playing field is level, then you guys can get on your moral high horse about people's bad choices in life.

[Libertymike]

Tony, if you truly want to level the playing field, do it with your money and the money of those who freely and voluntarily support your objectives.

Are you afraid of challenging the public school mafia?

Don't you think that you could do a better job of giving those with terrible parents a reasonable shot at succeeding in the world?

[Jordan]

Tony's - like all progressives - is just afraid of personal responsibility. To him, compassion is pointing a gun at someone and ordering them to solve a problem.

[Tony]

I just said I want to make "personal responsibility" relevant. If people are largely at the mercy of who their parents happen to be (and how much money their parents have), how do you get off telling people to be personally responsible? Should children of bad parents have to work 10 times harder, only to have you blame them for failing anyway?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

BUT IT'S NOT FAAAAAAIRRR!!!!! BOOO HOOO HOOO!

Fuck off! Seriously, people from poor areas make something of themselves every goddam day. And they're better for having had a struggle to overcome.

[Tony]

That's a stupid hand-waving claim. Clearly if you're born to poverty you are statistically more likely to stay there (and have children born to poverty in turn). (And you are absolutely certain to be morally blamed by libertarians for your situation.)

This will always be the case in a society with an unequal distribution of wealth. At most any liberal is advocating leveling the playing field to a certain reasonable degree so that human productivity and happiness are maximized. You, on the other hand, are saying "I got mine, fuck you."

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

No, we're saying: Life isn't fair. Wear a fucking cup.

[Tony]

Fine. Life isn't fair, stop bitching about taxes.

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

Kiss my ass, you insipid little twat, you boil on the ass of the polity. If you want to spend your money in a futile effort to file all the sharp edges off human existence, have a fucking grand old time, but FUCKING LEAVE ME OUT OF IT.

Your misfortune is not my fucking problem, and does not create any obligation for me to help. Go piss up a rope.

[DesigNate]

But itsnotmeitsyou, there is an unequal distribution of wealth in this country!

I can't believe people still think there's a way to distribute wealth equally, even with all of the shining examples of such economic regimes around the world.

[Ken Shultz]

"Tony's - like all progressives - is just afraid of personal responsibility."

Tony cannot imagine his own work being worth something to somebody.

He's like a parasitic worm attached to the inside of our intestines--he thinks he belongs there and we owe whatever he takes.

He also imagines that the rest of us are all parasites, too.

His attitude is so fucked up, it's probably true that if he ever had to live on what other people would trade him for his efforts, he'd just starve to death. He thinks we'd all starve to death if we weren't parasites, too.

Tony has the mind of a parasite. It would just be extraordinary if he doesn't live his life that way. You don't get that way by supporting yourself. Taking care of yourself doesn't teach you to think like a parasite, that's for sure.

[Tony]

Of course I couldn't, I don't have the resources governments have at my disposal. The basic purpose of government is to mobilize large amounts of resources for the good of the people. Education has long been recognized a basic service of government, one with perhaps the best ROI of any of them.

Saying we shouldn't have that service is the same thing as saying we should be more socially Darwinistic, at which point you have absolutely no right to lecture anyone on personal responsibility, since people's success or failure (as in feudal times) depends almost entirely on who their parents are.

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

Education has long been recognized a basic service of government, one with perhaps the best ROI of any of them.

The entire history of public education is less than 150 years old. Prior to the Prussians establishing public schools for the purpose of building generations of disciplined, incurious factory drudges, education was regarded as entirely the responsibility of family and, perhaps, community.

The idea that public education has "perhaps the best ROI" of any government service is ludicrous, given the vast sums of edu-dollars pissed away on everything BUT actually imparting knowledge to children.

[Tony]

You gotta compare the situation to a counterfactual in which there is no public education. We'd probably still have an agrarian economy, but who can say? You'll get no argument from me that our system needs to be improved. I'm not sure how cutting out millions upon millions of poor children from any access to education does that, however.

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

How about we compare the situation, instead, to reality: that until Horace Mann imported the Prussian model to these shores, visitors to the country marveled at how educated Americans were. Today we have morons like you pretending to be intellectuals.

[Michael S. Langston]

No matter how much you want to believe the only two possibilities are "lose more money to public education" or "f**k em" doesn't mean those are the only two possibilities.

IE - your desires do not make your false dichotomy any less fallacious.

[Jim in Denver]

And that's why you're so often and so horrifically wrong Tony. Government's basic purpose is not redistribution of resources, it's the protection of it's citizen's natural born rights.

Everything you need to exercise your rights you are born with. If a perceived right requires that either you or your government take something from another person to fulfill said right than it's not a right, it's pillage to fulfill a desire.

[Tony]

Blah blah, government is evil, except when we need it to protect the most important things in the world, our rights--which you get to define, and which happen to align with your interests and preferences, and nobody else's interests or preferences are legitimate, because you say so, fuck what the people have to say about it, etc., etc...

[Zeb]

Your words, not mine. I take no such hostile attitude toward other people.

Here's the thing. Having children is optional. Most people who have a hard time paying for all the shit you need to do to raise a child knew that they were going to be in that situation going in. While I do have sympathy for children with parents who can't or won't give them what they need to grow up well, the consequences of not making parents responsible for taking care of their own children as they see fit (with exception of actual abuse) is much worse than letting a few slip through the cracks because their parents couldn't be bothered to be responsible.

IOW, if you can't afford kids, don't fucking have them

[Shmurphy]

Bring out your straw men! Bring out your straw men!

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

c) I didn't bring your goddamn crotch-spawn into the world, and I really couldn't give two shits whether the little bastard lives or dies. Keep your fucking hands out of my pockets, asshole.

[Tony]

(That's the same as B.)

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

B lacked sufficient contempt for the notion that the mere fact that you've brought a child into this world somehow obligates me, a perfect stranger, to help feed, clothe, and rear it, or at least help provide the resources to do so. It's not so much, "Fuck you, I've got mine," as it is, "I didn't get to enjoy the creation of the whelp, so I'm hardly interested in enduring the pain of raising him."

[Tony]

Surely you can see, though, that this does not make for a particularly productive market economy, but more a feudal system of generational privilege and generational poverty? Not to burst your bubble of self-importance, but you didn't get to wherever you are all on your own either. Shall we pull up the ladder and tell the next generation they're on their own? What purpose does that serve? Nobody likes paying taxes but it's for your own good too. Or do you enjoy the thought of starving, ignorant urchins taking the place of healthy, educated future entrepreneurs and productive workers?

[Unindicted Co-conspirator]

If you want to help ensure that the next generation consists of healthy, educated future entrepreneurs and productive workers rather than starving, ignorant street urchins, far be it from me to stick a gun in your face and tell you that you can't.

Extend me the same courtesy. Stop sticking a gun in my face and demanding that I help feed, clothe, educate, house, and rear millions of kids that I didn't make, wouldn't have made, and don't give a bucket of runny shit about.

[heller]

Retard, you have it completely ass-backwards. The only way to break the class system is through a free market.

[Tony]

heller you have to explain claims that are completely counterintuitive.

[DesigNate]

It's only counterintuitive because you are a fucking sock. Get back in the sock drawer and leave the conversation to actual humans.

[Jim in Denver]

Right because prior to 1913 roads were a myth and civilization was almost destroyed by roving bands of starving urchins...

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

Nice way to avoid the real question. Her central point is that children do not belong to their parents, but rather to the "community" (whatever she means by that; I suspect as others here do that she really means "the government").

Where are you on that? You should consider your answer carefully, because it has far deeper implications than just who pays for the education of children.

[The Late P Brooks]

C) FUCK OFF, SLAVER

[Mensan]

Why is she teaching children at a university? I know that some precocious children attend universities before adulthood, but a whole class full of them seems highly unlikely.

[Tony]

Okay fine, or C) other (please explain).

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

C) assume parents will do what's best for their children

IE, assume human nature.

[Tony]

You can assume that till the cows come home but you can't assume that parents will always have the resources to maximize their children's potential.

[DesigNate]

Envious twat is an envious twat. Film at 11.

[Juice]

I'm obligated to help people maximize their children's potential now?

[DesigNate]

It's in the social contract Juice.

Read the fine print, on the back side, after squeezing lemon juice on it.

[Tony]

You're obliged to contribute to paying for the elements of your civilization that you benefit from. Among those is not having most people be ignorant and unproductive and therefore more likely to be sponges on society. I don't intend to commit any crimes, but I'm okay with paying for a criminal justice system I never intend to benefit from directly, but certainly do indirectly. It's basically being a grownup. Or what libertarians resist tooth and nail.

[Sam Grove]

Among those is not having most people be ignorant and unproductive and therefore more likely to be sponges on society

How is that working out?

[DesigNate]

You're a fucking idiot.

[Ken Shultz]

"You're obliged to contribute to paying for the elements of your civilization that you benefit from."

Am I obliged to pay for the elements of my civilization (like public schools) that harm children?

"Among those is not having most people be ignorant and unproductive and therefore more likely to be sponges on society."

Public schools teach children to be sponges on society. It teaches them to be self-entitled sponges on society. The classes are taught by union members--who are sponges on society.

"I don't intend to commit any crimes, but I'm okay with paying for a criminal justice system I never intend to benefit from"

The criminal justice system is there to protect our rights.

The other things you're talking about have nothing to do with that.

[Tony]

People have a right to be educated, your stupid disconnected stereotypes of public schools notwithstanding.

[Cavpitalist]

Among those is not having most people be ignorant

Is this real?

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

or D) welcome the robot day care overlords.

[WomSom]

Sometimes man you jsut have to roll with the punches.

http://www.SurfinPrivacy.tk

[lap83]

Most of the criticisms of this claim have been along the lines of "I don't want to raise your kid" or "My kid! Don't touch!", which are valid, but I think the most important argument is that children NEED a primary caregiver. There's a reason we longer have orphanages in this country. The lack of individualized attention to young children can cause mental illness, developmental problems, even death....something like 1/3 of babies die there.

[lap83]

Although, granted, it must be a lot harder now to find monocle polishers.

[Xlotl]

You shut up! Single-parent families where the parent is out working 10 hours a day do just as good a job -- no! a better job! -- of raising kids than 2-parent families with a stay-at-home spouse!!!

[Brendan]

Even her response is idiotic.

Her job as a teacher confers specific responsibilities onto her.

I also love the idea that Tulane University students are now children.

[Brendan]

I should have read the comments. Point has been well canvassed.

[Brendan]

You'll also notice that the activities her parents engaged in that inspired her were VOLUNTARY.

[Brendan]

I should have read the comments. Point has been well canvassed.

[David Emami]

"break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities."

So, does that mean that the community can decide whether or not a woman can abort one of these community-owned fetuses? After all, if they can tell you that you can't kill a bear in the back yard that you own ( http://reason.com/blog/2013/04.....ing-himsel ), can't they tell a woman that she can't kill one of the community's fetuses in the womb that she owns?

[Eduard van Haalen]

That's totally different because mumble mumble, you SEXIST OPPRESSOR!

[Jim in Denver]

Sounds like someone is confusing altruism with slavery...

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade!

Bwuhaha, what nonsense! She wouldn't be "relieved" if the parents took responsibility for their children's education, she would be so horrified that she'd shit gold bricks. She'd be sure that the children would learn the "wrong" things, like personal responsibility. I'd love to see it really happen.

It's just like those leftists who insist that the Second Amendment is just about state militias. Can you imagine what they'd say if a state really did that, organized a militia that answered only to the state government? "Gaaaa, Neo-Confederates!" And Joe Biden would be dancing around like a little boy who has to pee really bad, yelling "I toldja they were gonna put you back in chains!"

[Sam Grove]

To paraphrase her: It takes a village to raise a child.
Oh wait, somebody already said that.

[wheelock]

"It takes a village to raise a child" is supposed to be an African proverb isnt it? Is it more popular than "It takes a village full of children to cut off the hands of another village's children with a machete"?

Standard not a nazi asshole disclaimer - I am fully aware that africa's problems have nothing to do with the genetics of the people that live there...

[Ken Shultz]

I've lived in some really nasty villages. I'm so glad I didn't have children when I lived there! Last thing I'd want is the village raising my child in that neighborhood...

I could hear gun shots, usually, every other night. And screams after the gun shots. In that neighborhood, it wasn't like in "Boyz n the Hood", where some kids struggle with whether they join a gang. If you live in that neighborhood when you're a kid? You're in that neighborhood's gang--or you're dead. There's no question about it.

You think I want that village raising my child? If I had a child in that village, I'd be doing everything I could to find a way out--so that village could have as little as possible to do with raising MY child.

[Acosmist]

I don't get that disclaimer.

[Ken Shultz]

Some parts of Africa are incredibly brutal places, where the "village" turns children into soulless child soldiers...

Pointing out that you don't want such a village raising your child is enough to inspire charges of racism from certain parties on the left.

Such a disclaimer shouldn't be necessary, but sometimes it is.

[wheelock]

I don't comment often here, but I've noticed a few stormfront types pop up while lurking and since I'm new would rather not be associated. This group is smart enough to know what I meant, but to an opportunistic troll that sort of comment is a great time to pull out the RACIST card...

[Acosmist]

In what place do the genetics of the people have no effect on how they live? That's implausible on its face.

[SAL]

I agree with Melissa Harris-Perry - but then again I find other people's children a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food.

[An0nB0t]

Idiot. Adolescents have far too much economic value as monocle-polishers and chimney sweeps to eat them capriciously.

That's what minority infants are for.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Oh, shut the fuck up already.

The gravy-sweating yokel spouting pseudo-scientific racist shtick has gotten old.

[jesse.in.mb]

so they can have their oh so important careers and have casual sex just like men.

Look, it's not that I want you to be on team gay, because I really don't, but are you some kind of closet case? Women are oh so icky with their casual sex. I'm just going to masturbate to pictures of the virgin Mary, she's the only girl for me.

[MJGreen]

Well I'm glad you're using that username now. At least non-regulars won't think you're espousing a libertarian position.

[Irish]

DON'T TALK TO IT.

[Warty]

Dude, he was just about to incite me and the boys here to lynch you, or something. Now you went and scared him off and we'll never know just what you and the Jews were plotting.

[Heroic Mulatto]

True, but on this topic I don't want any muggles peeking in thinking Merkin is expressing anything we consider to be acceptable.

[Enough About Palin]

The words part, shit-stain.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Are you hitting on Jesse? Don't be shy, now.

...Oh, now you're blushing.

[Irish]

Dammit, I hit on Jesse all the time and no one ever seems to notice.

Why do I have such weak game? Or should I say...gayme.

I'll just let myself out.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

You have to get better at negging, bro.

Also, more squats.

[jesse.in.mb]

I notice, Irish, I notice. 😉

[Brandon]

Fuck off.

[Skip]

Well that makes sense if the white side abandoned her. Did Perry's mom do that?

[Marshall Gill]

Historically the children of miscegenation did not look upon their white parent with very found thoughts

Sure, it was the mixed race children who looked negatively on their parents, not society who looked negatively upon the children?

I pity you.

[Warty]

Definitely squats. They gays love asses.

...Uh, uh, I hear they do, I mean. Whew. That was a close one.

[Calidissident]

Well, he has an honest screen name this time that should tip people off that he's , well, not a libertarian