Our Kids Deserve a Free-Range Country

Sen. Mike Lee's addition to the Every Child Achieves Act is a start.

Dreamstime

As I reported last week, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) worked to ensure that a Free-Range Kids section made it into the Senate's final version of the Every Child Achieves Act—an important bill that would tweak major federal education laws. Thanks to Lee, the bill would also provide legal cover for kids who walk to school.

In a recent piece for Politico, I explain why it's so important for kids to have the freedom to explore the outside world (just like their parents did when they were kids):

Can you imagine a country full of people who have been listening to Mozart since they were in the womb, but have no idea how to organize a neighborhood ballgame? My friend was recently telling a high school-age cousin about how he used to play pick-up basketball in the park, and the cousin couldn't understand how this was possible without supervision. "What happened if someone decided to cheat and fouled all the time?" the kid asked. "We just wouldn't play with him anymore," my friend replied. Said the cousin: "That's exclusion!" and that, he added, was a "form of" bullying.

Agghh! We are crippling kids by convincing them they can't solve any issues on their own. And as depressing as all this is, now there's another barrier to free play: The government.

Read the full thing here.

Comments

[WTF]

"What happened if someone decided to cheat and fouled all the time?" the kid asked. "We just wouldn't play with him anymore," my friend replied. Said the cousin: "That's exclusion!" and that, he added, was a "form of" bullying.

I weep for the death of a once-great nation.

[R C Dean]

"Hey, kid, in this world, there's people who just need bullyin'. When you run into on, you best make sure you bully him first."

[squints from under battered cowboy hat, bites off tip of cigarillo, tosses serape over one shoulder]

[Restor-woodchipper-as]

OT: the scrubbing of Thomas Jefferson from history begins.
http://www.ctpost.com/news/art.....400544.php

[Rufus J. Firefly]

This is sad.

Fuck the NAACP and the Democrats.

Here's the thing. I'm starting to believe the Democrat party is committing suicide by doing shit like this.

[Heroic Mulatto]

It has less to do with slavery and more to do with Jefferson's vision of a classically liberal republic of gentlemen farmers. I figure next year is when the Democrats finally go full-socialist and their founding fathers will be the lineup known in China as "The History of Shaving".

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The irony is liberals always fight to claim Jefferson as their own.

This is an example, to me, of just how far the Democrats party has degenerated into a cess pool of emptiness and ignorance.

This has nothing to do with history or justice. It's just historical genocide and we all know how much the left loves its purges in whatever form.

[R C Dean]

Its part of every psychopathic utopian's agenda, to erase history and start again from Year Zero.

That our proggy friends continue to follow the path of psychopathic utopians should surprise no one.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

When you're an ignorant dumb ass it's very easy to follow such paths.

[Tonio]

Prelapsarian aggrandizement, RC. The belief in a mythical golden age, garden of eden, whatever, when things were oh so peachy.

[SusanM]

He's unpopular with a lot of people: "Texas BOE Removes Jefferson From History Standard"

http://scienceblogs.com/dispat.....ferson-fr/

9:45 ? Here's the amendment Dunbar changed: "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present." Here's Dunbar's replacement standard, which passed: "explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone." Not only does Dunbar's amendment completely change the thrust of the standard. It also appalling drops one of the most influential political philosophers in American history ? Thomas Jefferson.

[juris imprudent]

ALL DEAD WHITE MEN - WHERE"S THE DIVERSITY!!!!!!!

/prog-derp

[Red Rocks Rockin]

"You can't change history, but you don't have to honor it," Baletto said

These sad, broken people. If the Democrat party's history is exemplified by slaveholders and Indian-killers, what the fuck are they even doing holding on to the name? Why not just re-brand themselves the Communist-Socialist Party with a tapeworm as their emblem and be done with it?

[Libertarian]

"Sen. Mike Lee's addition to the Every Child Achieves Act is a start."

That's what I'm afraid of. Must we now have a law for everything that explicitly allows us to do what free people are allowed to do? Will I have to keep my bicycle in the garage until the government writes a law that allows me to ride it?

[WTF]

Everything that's not required is prohibited.

[BearOdinson]

"Every Child Achieves Act"

No, every fucking child doesn't achieve.
I guess according to the feds logic our goal is to have 100% of children score above the median!

Let's face it, some kids will end up designing rockets and performing brain surgery, and other kids will push brooms and work for the US Government.

When I used to teach AP Physics, I had a "demotivational" poster. It had the word "POTENTIAL" along with a picture of a carton of french fries. The caption said "Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut".

[WTF]

"America, where every child is above average."

[pan fried wylie]

POTENTIAL

These frenchfries could have been powering a clock instead.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Can you imagine a country full of people who have been listening to Mozart since they were in the womb, but have no idea how to organize a neighborhood ballgame?

Sure, Austria.

[grrizzly]

Who needs a ballgame if you can always ski down the Alps?

[pan fried wylie]

Ok, but how do you organize skiing?

[lap83]

Those Austrians know how to organize other things though

[BearOdinson]

You know what other Austrian organized things?

[BearOdinson]

Sorry, way too easy, but it was a 75 mph curve that just hung right out over the plate!

[Heroic Mulatto]

You should have at least let a brotha post "The Governator?"

[Tonio]

No, no, that's how the Godwin-Troll game is played. You ask a question to which the most obvious, best answer is "Hitler," but the actual winner is the person who comes up with the best non-Hitler answer. Have some respect for our traditions, man.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Hayek let everyone else organize things.

[R C Dean]

I thought they generally outsourced that to the Germans.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

In the [Godwin edit] era, those two categories got a bit blurred.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"In fact, Penny Wilson, a thought leader on play in Britain, calls fun the "orgasm" of play."

OK, Penny, just take a seat over there in the corner.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

a thought leader on play in Britain

What the fuck does that mean?!?! Do you get paid to be a "thought leader on play" or is that a volunteer gig?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I don't know what it means, but would you hire her as a babysitter?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Note to Penny's attorneys: I'm just messing with you, ha ha.

[juris imprudent]

Mayyyyyybe. Does she like photography eh? nudge, nudge

[R C Dean]

I have to say, that's a fine looking pack of orphans in the picture. Any idea what they are asking for them?

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

Do you have your Frequent Monocle card? We're running a special today. If you buy 3, we'll throw in the fourth one free! These orphans have been together since birth, so they are primed to be able to do hard manual labor with increased efficiency! Let me just get a cardboard box, and you can be on your way in a few minutes.

[pan fried wylie]

Let me just get a cardboard box

To keep them occupied on the ride home, right?

[juris imprudent]

Lenore, Lenore, Lenore - can we please leave the pass this act to send a message shit to the retards of the left and right? Please?