{"id":1888,"date":"2013-04-08T22:11:11","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T03:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2015-04-17T21:46:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-18T02:46:09","slug":"it-doesnt-take-a-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/it-doesnt-take-a-village\/","title":{"rendered":"It Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Take A Village"},"content":{"rendered":"

She looks harmless, but listen to what she has to say about your kids.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

This is Melissa Harris-Perry, a professor of political science and spokesweasel for MSNBC, telling us that your kids are not your kids – they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kids.<\/p>\n

And she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not alone.<\/p>\n

We’ve\u00c2\u00a0been hammered with the slogan, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It takes a village to raise a child\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ever since Hillary Clinton hired someone to ghost-write\u00c2\u00a0her book. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an African saying that might make sense for people living in a culture composed primarily of tribes of extended families, but in the context of our society, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s both stupid and frightening. It\u00c2\u00a0doesn’t\u00c2\u00a0take a village; it takes parents, preferably two. An extended family helps too. But Harris-Perry wants the government to have the primary say in how you raise your kids. Considering how well government does everything else, that should strike a deep black fear into the heart of very mother and father in the US.<\/p>\n

She does this after complaining that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spend enough on public education. The fact is, adjusted for inflation,\u00c2\u00a0we’ve\u00c2\u00a0tripled our spending per student<\/a> since 1960, and the results have been appalling. For instance, it produces academics like Ms. Harris-Perry.<\/p>\n

There are a thousand different ways to raise kids, and only about a dozen of them are wrong. Unless someone is actively hurting their children, they should be left alone to do what they think is best for them.<\/p>\n

What about hard-core fundamentalists whose homeschooling curriculum consists of coloring books featuring Jesus riding dinosaurs, lessons on hating gay people, and believing that the world is going to end next week? Leave them alone. I think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re foolish, and I know they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wrong, but I support their right to raise their kids their way. I say this as a hard-core atheist and despite being raised in a fundy household and hating every minute of it. It sucked in every way imaginable, but if Big Brother came in and tried to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fix\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it, it would have been even worse.<\/p>\n

I raised my kids to be critical, thinking people who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take things at face value. I taught them to love liberty and be wary of the numerous people, organizations and governments that will try to take it from them. I\u00c2\u00a0didn’t\u00c2\u00a0consciously try to steer them toward being atheists, but that’s how they turned out. (Surprise!) I think all kids should be raised that way. So why would I support the right of parents to teach their kids wrong, stupid, and downright harmful things?<\/p>\n

Several reasons. The first, and most important, is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s none of my damn business. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not my kids. Nor are the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d property. The second is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only way to support the rights of everyone else, including skeptics and atheists, to raise their children the way we\u00c2\u00a0want. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t demand that right for one group and deny it for another because you disagree with them. And finally, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the best way to raise your kids. I got my one chance to raise mine, and they turned about great, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not presumptuous enough to insist my way is best, and not not evil enough to force others to use it.<\/p>\n

Ms. Harris-Perry, however, is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More Information:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For a more detailed breakdown of this vile creature, check out William Grigg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article<\/a>. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just added his blog to my intentionally short blogroll. (I disagree with his position on abortion, but not much else.) I read it regularly, and so should you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She looks harmless, but listen to what she has to say about your kids. This is Melissa Harris-Perry, a professor of political science and spokesweasel for MSNBC, telling us that your kids are not your kids – they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kids. And she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not alone. We’ve\u00c2\u00a0been hammered with the slogan, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It takes a village to raise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2120,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/2120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}