I recently reread Alex’s piece from 2007 about that old show Kid Nation (which I wrote about a few months later), and how, before the show ever aired, adults got all up in arms about “oh noes, this show is abusive toward those kids and forcing them to take care of themselves, exploitation!” Something they seem to only ever say when the kids shown are competent and independent, and something they are quiet about when the kids are being abused and actually exploited.

Movie called “Dolphin Tale” came out this past year. I haven’t seen it, but I just gathered it’s based on a true story. My supervisor told me she was going to see it in theaters, and mentioned that, even though it’s based on a true story, she doubts the 12-year-old boy depicted in the film really played at any part in it.

Why would she say this? Well, her son is 12. Maybe she believes him to be incapable of anything great and certainly unable to make independent decisions. Maybe she likes it that way.

Similarly, I’ve actually seen complaints about, of all things, Dora the Explorer! Oh noes! How dare the show depict a 5-year-old girl wandering around… without adult supervision?!

And, of course, let’s not forget… Home Alone. Eight-year-old Kevin is accidentally left home when his family leaves the country, and during this time he must protect his house from burglars. Then later in the sequel he’s in New York City by himself and again managing himself just fine, and ends up rescuing a toy store and a children’s charity from the same burglars. Even though these two movies (I don’t consider any later “Home Alone” movies to exist, it’s not Home Alone without Macaulay Culkin!) are beloved classics now, sure enough, you’ll find no shortage of people who feel personally offended that these films depict a prepubescent child successfully taking care of himself and fending off two burglars without adults around to oversee and take care of him, save for the old man with the shovel and the bird lady who come to the rescue when the burglars do have him cornered. Even where movies with adult heroes are significantly less realistic, Home Alone will get picked apart, because how dare John Hughes suggest a heroic independent child?!

And there’s the people who are even offended that Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson are smarter than their parents.

The list goes on. And it’s not even just fictional characters, as even real youth who show courage and independence or great skill are often derided, and assumed to be neglected or abused.

But if these people are so disturbed by this? Good! Let’s keep disturbing them!

YOU SUCK!!!!

Jell-O. And they’re little Temptations pudding advertising. See, the idea is that it’s not like their other desserts (somehow). I mean, it probably still contains the exact same ingredients. But somehow this one isn’t for kids. They’re not only saying so. They’re forbidding kids from getting free samples of it through fancy machines!

The current offer is for Temptations by Jell-O, the brand’s first product designed specifically for adults. The machine is equipped with technology to determine the age of the person requesting a sample. If the machine senses a child, a panel lights up with the words, “Sorry, kid. You’re too young to experience indulgence like this. Please step away so the adults can get their free treat.”

You’re too young to experience indulgence like this? Even if I weren’t outraged on youth rights grounds, I’d want to smack the person who came up with this. Are they actually implying eating this particular pudding constitutes sex?

We’ve been discussing this a bit on the NYRA board e-mail list, and Eric Goldstein suggested the restriction could be for liability purposes. And he’s probably right. Except if that were all it is, you’d think they could at least try to be respectful about it. Having a machine say the equivalent of “ha ha, you can’t have this!” pretty much shows there’s more to it than that.

Unless it’s 50% vodka, there’s nothing “adult” about Temptations, no matter how much Kraft tries to implicitly sexualize it. No, they are very obviously taking the alcohol and cigarette tactic of using age restrictions to boost youth desire for the product. To make them want to be “adult”. As well as making adults want to use the product because it’s not for kids, so they can quench their adult insecurity by indulging in what might be usually pegged a kids’ dessert but not feel young doing it because kids can’t have it.

We see this with so many products, that kids can’t have or can’t have fully usually under the guise of safety. But that’s an excuse. I’ll bet more adults support the drinking age not so much becase of desire to keep youth healthy, but because they see youth as “other”, as inferior, and that they have some right to be superior to them and to have things those inferior others can’t have. And this makes them feel good and triumphant, that they’ve won over those evil youth, who’ve committed the horrible sin of existing when they haven’t existed long enough. Hell, I’ve seen ads for parental controls on things that promote it not to keep kids safe but to be able to block them and say/think “haha, you’re blocked, you stupid kid!” It’s a dangerous combination to set something where one group can feel super privileged and superior over the other, all with the excuse of “safety”. Safety, my ass!

And youth aren’t the only ones victim to this method, though they fall victim to it perhaps most severely. Dr Pepper Ten ads are promoting themselves explicitly that “It’s Not For Women!” Why? Because the idea is men don’t want to drink Diet Dr Pepper because “oh noes, diet soda is for women!” So they have this product that’s pretty much identical, just with added sweetener and caffeine, that’s not only marketed to men but supposedly only men. Because nothing kills manliness like using the same product women use. Men can’t be women!

And so we have Temptations, despite containing nothing uniquely harmful to youth (any more than any other sweet dessert anyway), promoting itself as “just for adults” so adults don’t have to feel degraded by eating the same product kids eat. Men don’t want to be women. Adults don’t want to be children. That’s the idea that is being promoted here to sell products.

Maybe we all need to get over our insecurities, and loudly, and make clear this kind of advertising doesn’t appeal to us. Because you don’t need to tell me a product will make me feel more adult. I don’t need something to do that for me, and I’m not stupid enough to think your product will do that.

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

People who are all like “we’ve got to get kids reading!”

There’s been ads for James Patterson books on TV, and some recent ones start off with “James Patterson gets kids reading!” Because he’s apparently written young adult lit now, so it shows a pre-teen reading from a book about middle school.

Because if there’s anyone who truly knows what middle school is like, it’s authors in their sixties!

But, what, they couldn’t just advertise the book? They have to include some crap about “getting kids reading”?

That takes away the “here’s something you’ll enjoy” factor and turns it into yet another “getting kids to do things adults want them to be doing”. Okay, the implication seems to be “it gets them reading BECAUSE it’s enjoyable”, but it still makes it being enjoyable to the young reader secondary to satisfying some cliched expectation. Because, after all, the world cares nothing for kids’ personal desires and cares entirely for what adults desire for them.

Also, maybe someone should tell these adults that when kids are reading, they’re generally -gasp!- inside and sitting! Oh noes, they’re getting fat! So send them outside to get exercise. Then bitch that they aren’t reading enough.

12:00am, the 16th: Introductory “yay it’s #16tovote on the 16th!” tweet along with link to Top 10 Reasons to Lower the Voting Age

12:02am: tweets some basic voting age point to get things started

12:10am: trying to think of another voting age tweet, comes up with crap

12:15am: finally just tweets link to recent voting age news article, if one’s available

12:30am: facepalms at Max’s “#16tovote or I’ll chop off your dick and shove it down your throat” tweet

1:00am: manages to tweet some good stuff, perhaps a couple tweets and/or retweets from regulars

1:30am: can’t come up with anything else for night but stays up late with it for some reason

2:00am: finally tweets link to NYRA voting age page or something from the downloads section, to get people through night

2:30am: goes to bed, ready to get up and get to work nice and early to resume

9:00am: swears loudly for having overslept, throws on clothes and leaves house

9:30am: gets to work, posts “good morning!” tweet

10:00am: posts some brilliant points that go ignored since no one’s paying attention this time of day

10:30am: retweets stuff posted from the sciville account night before

11:00am: other than Silver Fang retweeting everything, nothing much else, tweeting whatever voting age crap I come up with

12:00pm: midpoint! tweets NYRA-SEFL’s old voting age ad

12:15pm: can’t come up with anything to tweet after the voting age ad

12:30pm: says screw it and tweets that dumb picture where I wrote a #16tovote tweet in Ocean City beach sand

1:00pm: some jerk trolls #16tovote feed or at-replies us with bullshit, is ignored

2:00pm: tweets Usi’s awesome Supreme Court speech video

2:30pm: tweets something about student rights, perhaps how lower voting age would eliminate school paddling

2:35pm: some asshole pipes up saying school paddling is sometimes needed, is ignored

3:00pm: “Thanks, everyone! Once again, Top 10 Reasons to Lower the Voting Age!” a la SNL announcing second performance of musical guest

3:15pm: Alexander Cohen tweets same six #16tovote tweets he does every month

4:00pm: some more regulars start coming in

5:00pm: think about heading home, yet still tweet some more

5:30pm: get stuck on points about consent of the governed

5:45pm: head home

6:00pm: get inside house and to computer, tweet again NYRA-SEFL’s voting age ad, a la SNL announcing second performance of musical guest

6:30pm: Alex remembers it’s the 16th, over 18 hours into it, and only then (if at all) posts about it on Facebook

7:00pm: posts Alex’s famous Huffington Post article refuting Ann Coulter’s asshattery

8:00pm: thanks people for participation, says it’s been great, maybe posts link to voting age page again

8:45pm: realizes hasn’t tweeted in 45 minutes, tries to come up with something, comes up with crap that somehow winds up widely retweeted

9:00pm: reposts Usi’s Supreme Court speech, a la SNL announcing second performance of musical guest

9:30pm: tweeting slows, tweets sarcastic bullshit from sciville account

9:45pm: someone tweets stupid question about a #16tovote tweet, not bothering to see answer to it was tweeted earlier, is ignored

10:00pm: bugs Galen to finally participate since I see him tweeting other things, he finally does, but inappropriate for retweet from NYRA

10:30pm: Alex finally remembers it’s the 16th despite this having been going on a while and finally shows up and tweets something

10:31pm: facepalms because Alex can never seem to remember that starting a tweet with someone’s username makes it so that tweet can only be seen by those following that person

11:15pm: realizes again I went a long time without tweeting anything, bleh

11:30pm: announces there’s half hour to go, to give it a big finish

11:40pm: bunch of people only just now realize the event’s going and retweet lots of stuff

11:55pm: gives my final remarks, whatever crap I come up with based on whatever got tweeted earlier, cranks out some eloquent sounding closing speech

12:00am, the 17th: it’s over, I breathe sigh of relief, start counting number of participants and recording rest of #16tovote tweets

12:20am: post several tweets thanking participants, then announces the next one will be – you’ll never guess! – the 16th of next month! yay!

Weekend:

12:00am, the 16th: Introductory tweet, calling this run a Saturday Edition or Sunday Edition!

3:00am: decides to finally go to bed despite sparse tweets, intends to get up early next morning to get back to it

11:00am: crap, I overslept! rushes back into it

12:00pm: tweets voting age ad

The rest is about the same.

For youth rights. For NYRA. *brandishes fist*

Got a reminder of it yesterday when an anti-corporal punishment article was posted to NYRA’s Facebook page. Seriously, click through that and check out all the comments.

Some people are all “WTF? I thought NYRA was only against corporal punishment in schools?!”

*facepalm*

Do they really think our opposition to corporal punishment is about WHO is hitting the kids rather than, you know, the idea of them being hit at all? Or, in general, did they not catch that we’re a “youth rights” organization?

Hell, in 2009, when our opposition to school paddling was added to our Education position paper, someone at the annual meeting out and asked me “this is just for schools, right? so if I had kids, I could still smack them?” I gave him a dirty look that made him recoil a bit and answered plainly “just for schools” and my look that seemed to add “but go fuck yourself”. I mentioned this to Alex later, since that guy was a friend of his, but Alex insisted the guy was joking. Eh, maybe.

Speaking of Alex, as seen further down that comment thread, he just had to chime in with his usual “oh dont worry, people who like beating children! NYRA doesn’t have a position against parents hitting kids!” Honestly, this is what annoys everyone about him, particularly these days. I know he’s against corporal punishment just like the rest of us. But our newer members don’t know that. Since in the past couple years, he’s been quieting his own youth rights views in favor of being more diplomatic and “moderate” because he’s afraid of NYRA seeming too fringe. As a result, he’s more interested in pleasing “potential” supporters than us sticking to our guns, or at least that is strongly implied. I don’t fault him for the diplomacy attempt, but he could at least stand with us more on the issue!

It’s sort of like MLK’s famous line that what we remember most is not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. It is in fact more disheartening for known supporters to prefer to keep quiet and thus not stand with us, than it is to hear anything our opponents have to say. We know we’re outnumbered. We know the world is against us. As such, all we have is each other. But when some of our own prefer to avoid offending opponents with disagreement than to join our precious few in standing up for what we’re about, it’s incredibly discouraging. Even more so when it’s a deliberate withdrawal rather than an accidental oversight.

Actually, maybe this answers my question. Maybe this is why many people don’t totally understand what NYRA is. There are some who don’t want NYRA to actually “be” anything, at least nothing too specific. But the trouble is, that leads to people completely not understanding why we do what we do. And, as such, we have people coming to our organization and being surprised that we… support youth rights. Our identity is unclear, and to some, deliberately so.

Though even identity issues don’t totally excuse these people. While the words “youth rights” can make people think all kinds of different things, many of which way off what we do, you’d think freedom from assault that’s called “discipline” would be obvious. I wonder if these same people join or follow an LGBT org and are surprised they are for same-sex marriage. I wonder if they join or follow an animal rights org and are surprised they are against fur.

I recently watched this viral video of the depressed bullied 13-year-old with the index cards. All I could think after watching that was how much I wanted to give him a hug!

On one hand, it’s nice this is getting the attention it is, not being written off as just “typical” teenage depression (though I’m sure many are still seeing it that way). Of course, that could be because he’s supposedly gay (or at least that’s the implication) and his tormentors are his classmates. If his tormentors were his parents, the reception would be much different. But I’ll cover that another time.

There’s so many like him, though. Any sexual orientation. Whether the tormentors are classmates or family or whoever else. And they are trapped. Because we say you cannot leave your situation until you are at least 18. No matter how terrible it may be, we tell you it’s not really so bad and that you’re young and don’t understand. We say you can’t decide for yourself that your home or your school is a terrible environment, but that it’s only terrible if it meets such standards for those with power over you, and hell, even then good luck doing anything about it.

There was a girl on NYRA’s forums a few years back who was being horribly abused by her father, that even trying to call Child Protective Services did nothing for her because they found nothing wrong. And we heard about this knowing we could do nothing for her. I even fantasized about driving to where she was, picking her up, and taking her home with me just to hide her. But I’d be the criminal. I wouldn’t be seen as rescuing an abused young person with no other options. I’d be abducting some poor man’s child (read: property). He’d be seen as the innocent victim, his treatment of his daughter unnoticed and uninteresting.

And there are so many like her, with no options. They must continue to attend schools where they must fear for their safety, be harrassed (by students AND teachers, mind you), and if their grades slip or they want to drop out, they are seen as losers who are giving up on themselves. They must continue to live with their dangerous parents, who often hate them for who they are, for not living up to the parents’ ideal, and suffer for it. And if they try to run away or seek any other living situation, they are seen as delinquents, as spoiled brats (because it’s not possible a teenager could have a problem with parents that isn’t about not enough allowance, right?), as throwing their lives away.

We can try to change minds. We can try to make changes where we can, when the right opportunity comes up. But in the end, this all continues, perhaps whether we’re saying anything or not. Maybe we’re seen as out of touch. Maybe we’re assumed to not truly know what youth are like. Maybe we’re assumed to not know anything just because we’re not parents of teens (because apparently only by being a parent can you truly know anything about young people, that actually being a young person isn’t good enough). Or maybe we just aren’t saying it loud enough or widely enough, that the lives of young people aren’t trivial, that, yes, their schools and homes can be horrible places for them and they are perfectly capable of judging this for themselves.

NYRA mostly just tackles some of the policies around these things, as opposed to direct personal advocacy, though we’ve done that here and there. As we grow, it’s certainly something that we’ll strengthen. But I still can’t help the feeling, the wonder, of whether we’ve made anyone’s lives any better. We’ve had a few members that felt their lives changed for the better by getting involved with us, and that is something! There’s just so many more out there. Those who haven’t found us. Those who, despite what they suffer at the hands of those who are supposed to be loving and supportive of them, probably don’t like our ideas. Probably don’t truly realize they do not have to live through what they are living through. Probably figure there’s no way out anyway and there’s not point wishing otherwise. Probably don’t even recognize it is wrong because they’ve never known otherwise.

I wish I knew. I know making the kind of youth rights change that we seek takes a VERY long time, but there are many youth who cannot wait, yet no one can help them. They can’t even walk out the front door without being stopped. And even if they could, the rest of the world doesn’t want them, sees them as too young, tells them to go home. Save jumping through emancipation hoops, and even then, they wouldn’t be able to find a job most likely or anywhere safe to live unless they have helpful friends. And there are so many homeless teens out there. While there are services for them, it’s not enough, and they should be more able to earn a living and find a home, that it shouldn’t be a choice of abusive parents (who probably threw them out) or the streets (and if there’s a curfew, they’ll just be handed back to those parents). I sometimes feel like the best we can do is just tell people this is bad, and hope the people will agree and not treat teens so badly. But they can easily and do ignore us. And no young people are helped.

But I suppose rallying over and over how harmful this system is for young people should eventually gain supporters and enough of them to finally change this. That too, however, will take a very long time. Until then, the suffering continues. The suffering continues and is still publicly assumed to be because the parents didn’t buy their son an iPod.

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

I’m really getting sick of the same canned “complaint” about the younger generation, whether my own or ones after or even a little before, that we expect life to be fair all the time. This is blamed on school and maybe parents that supposedly give out awards just for participating, hoping to squash competition in order to prevent anyone from “feeling bad”. Or occasionally blamed on pop culture telling stories implying nothing seriously bad will ever happen to you.

And that all these messages have supposedly spoiled us and made us think life is perfect or that we’re good at things even when we’re not.

Speaking as someone whose schools and teams and such did have participation awards…

Bull-fucking-shit.

How stupid do you think we are?

We know good and goddamn well that the swim team trophy that’s awarded to anyone who signed up for it that year regardless of participation means little and is just a decoration. We know the Participant ribbons don’t say First Place. We know the others finished the race three whole minutes before we did.

There were times even at school when a C I got for a marking period wasn’t truly a C, and was marked as such only because the teacher figured she’d give me another chance to really get a better grade, that it would otherwise have been an E.

Yes. E. The failing grade. Not that F bullcrap. I like E. It makes more sense. Why go A B C D F? Why are you skipping a fucking letter?! You’re supposed to be an educational establishment yet you’re forgetting the fifth letter of the alphabet and the most common in the English language? Hell no!

Did it make me feel like I’d have life handed to me? Not at all. I was actually trying. And I really did do better the following terms usually.

Maybe instead of looking at these little breaks and superfluous “awards” and assuming we’re not only spoiled and padded from failure and mistakes but that we really think there’s nothing else, you should actually look at our lives.

There are kids in these “spoiled” generations who before the age of 10 had lost a parent, had to battle cancer, suffered a horrible accident and had to lose a leg, or had their home burn down. Yeah, I don’t think any of these people are thinking life is perfect no matter how many Participant ribbons you give them, and it doesn’t help to presume that just because they might have those ribbons means they think so.

And you don’t need to look down on these kids for thinking life is perfect. Life is pretty damn good at making its glaring imperfections known on its own, no matter what the runs per inning limit is on your youth softball team. All the kids on that team have had something bad happen, to varying severities, I guarantee it.

In fact, it’s a typical anti-youth sentiment to assume kids’ lives are always perfect and that everything about their lives is trivial. It’s this assumption of trivial kid lives that makes one totally ignore that the unfairness of life hardly spares kids. You think that little boy is spoiled because he got a Wii for Christmas, but not seeing that he’s being regularly molested by his uncle and is terrified to speak up about it to anyone. Still think his “kid problems” are trivial, asshole?

So no, we don’t need to make kids realize life isn’t fair. Believe me, they know.

But the FDA came in and said “why stop those under 17? this is safe for all young women capable of pregnancy!”

But then HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the FDA, the people who actually know WTF they’re talking about, “nah, the idea of this being available to YOUNG GIRLS OMG sounds scary! so I’m going to say no to this and keep the current age restriction LOL”. And Obama supports her decision.

*sigh*

Really? I mean, I’m not surprised in a way. Typical pandering bullshit, trying not to make the Republicans too uncomfortable. And politics doesn’t like women or youth and therefore especially doesn’t like young women! So the Obama administration wants to make its policies less squeamish to the average anti-youth misogynistic Joe Six-Pack by not – gasp! – letting 12-year-olds access emergency contraception!

Sebelius claimed that she wasn’t so sure it was actually safe for those under 17. Because she knows better than FDA, the people who have to comb through mountains and mountains of research that’s been conducted before they come to such a conclusion. Right. Hey, Sebelius, you know what’s actually not so great for young girls? PREGNANCY!

Again, though, shouldn’t be surprised. Politicians reach astounding levels of cluelessness when it comes to just about anything about young people, especially their reproductive issues. They ignore any statistics and sense and just cover their ears and go “la la la la la!” and just pass more laws to hurt young people for their political gain. Hey, it’s not like those young people can VOTE!

Anyway, here’s a Change.org petition about it. And here’s a lovely piece by Scarleteen! And here’s a lovely paragraph from that piece:

It’s so tremendously important that your requests for rights like these be heard. And that the incredibly sound, sage things you say like this from reader Arai, “These politicians really need to get on the same CENTURY as the one young people live. All the questioning for contraceptives, abortion rights, gay marriage are real in today’s society,” or this from reader Katrina, “Politicians on both sides of the aisle reach unheard of levels of cluelessness when it comes to youth reproductive rights and needs,” are heard and seen. It is, of course just as important that they are also very thoughtfully and with great intention considered in choices like this, but we can’t help much with that part, save continuing to say things like that and continuing to be ardent supporters of youth rights, including reproductive rights.

Yes, that Katrina is me!

It’s NOT “just like the Holocaust”!

A common rookie mistake. I’ve done it myself. It’s this need to justify your movement by comparing it to the Holocaust, to slavery, or whatever other Historical Bad Thing that everyone knows is Very Very Bad.

This needs to stop. Not only is the one who makes the comparison often ignorant of the thing they are comparing their issue to, not only can it make light of the compared atrocity, not only does it just piss people off more than anything else (and not in a way you’d want to piss them off), but it contributes nothing to the case and movement.

If the thing you’re trying to say is horrible is really as horrible as you believe (and it probably is, don’t get me wrong), then you can make that case in and of itself.

For example, at my car’s dealership, there are these Humane Society posters with what looks like a half-dog half-child figure, and the point is that people who are abusive to their pets are likely also abusive to their children. And that this is apparently a reason to save abused pets. Yeah, as a youth rights supporter, fuck you, Humane Society! Your point is saving pets, not children. Children are abused rampantly regardless of how the family dog is treated. In fact, the movement to protect abused animals started BEFORE there was ever one to protect abused children. I guarantee you there are active members of PETA who still go home and beat their children. Instead, you piggyback off a serious issue, that you erroneously assume everyone knows is bad (90% of parents hit their children, “everyone” my ass!), and use it to promote your unrelated one. And you don’t have to do this, because abuse of pets is plenty bad enough on its own and you can argue that easily without pretending saving pets means saving children.

And this careless messaging can cost supporters. Alex KP’s friend Jackie is a strong animals rights supporter and vegetarian and all, and she used to be a PETA member. Right up until they compared cattle slaughter to the Holocaust, that is. Is she opposed to cattle slaughter? Absolutely. But not in a “it’s just like my grandparents being in Auschwitz” sort of way.

Whoever came up with that message was probably thinking “well, anyone offended is just someone who doesn’t get the severity of cattle slaughter anyway”. Common assumption, but it’s more complicated than that. Again, I’m sure they have more reasons than “it’s just like the Holocaust” for opposing cattle slaughter. But none of those reasons is apparent when you make that comparison. Who sees a message like that and thinks “oh, really? I didn’t know that! I’ll sign up!”? And when explaining the comparison, you must be explaining what parallels you’re seeing, and in doing so listing off harsh treatment of cattle in slaughterhouses, in which case, you’re therefore stating your case and don’t need to be pretending Jews are cows! Not to mention that the meat-industry-is-genocide message is pointlessly offensive to those you’d need to convince (and thus wouldn’t feel inclined to seek you out to learn more), and they’d just walk away from you since you’d look crazy and stupid, and those who’d see it as apt already “get it” anyway so there’s no need.

Notice I said pointlessly offensive. Obviously, anyone seeking to make radical change is going to be offensive to many, or the change wouldn’t be needed in the first place. But there’s a difference in HOW to be offensive. When I tell you that your 17-year-old daughter is not your property and this offends you, good. You’re offended at my actual message, and any following arguments will actually be about that issue. If I tell you you’re treating your daughter just like plantation owners treated their slaves, then the offensiveness becomes about slavery and the ensuing argument drifts away from youth rights and becomes about the comparison itself and I’d just look dumb.

Another example is I saw a pro-Palestine Facebook page that kept posting images comparing Jews/Israelis to Nazis or otherwise portraying them as evil. And the ensuing comment thread after these images was their very pro-Palestine fans, many or most of them oppressed Palestinians themselves,… calling out the page for spreading hate and ridiculous comparisons. Because it not only detracts from the issue at hand, but spreading such hatred only adds fuel to the fire that perpetuates the Israel/Palestine problems. It is through massive hate and “othering” that crises like that happen, and many of that page’s fans knew this and were displeased. Gross anti-Israel statements like these may feel good to some people especially frustrated about what’s happening over there, but not a single Palestinian has ever been helped by this.

The RIGHT way to do it is ignore the explicit comparisons and stick to what makes you think they are comparable to begin with. Talk about the horror of abusing pets without acting like it’s the same as child abuse. Talk about the conditions of slaughterhouses without bringing up the Holocaust. Talk about the dangers of parental rights over their kids without bringing up slavery. Talk about the oppression of Palestinians without calling Israelis or Jews as a whole Nazis (or invoking South African apartheid comparisons). Even if the comparison seems 100% apt, it serves no purpose for your case and you really just end up derailing yourself into defending the comparison rather than sticking to your issue.

Stick to the issue itself, and its “rightful place” alongside other more-widely-known-to-be-bad will happen organically. Wild comparisons are not needed.

With this anticipation comes the question of whether this kindly figure in fact exists or is merely an imaginative festive icon or a parental lie.

First of all, there’s no question over that. I’ve been over this. Santa Claus is real.

But then you get parents and others getting all upset because someone tells their children that Santa Claus isn’t real. How could the teacher say that to a second grader!

Oy. *facepalm*

With this comes the issue of parents controlling what information their kids receive, whether others have the “right” to say anything contrary to what the kids are told at home. That to say such a contrary word is to infringe upon “parents’ rights”. Rights to control any and all things said to people whose existence they happened to have a hand in.

Yeah, such a thing is not only a violation of right to information for the kids, but also incredibly delusional on the part of parents who think this. You can’t keep your kid in a bubble. It isn’t actually possible, and if you care about raising someone who’s supposed to be a productive member of society ever, don’t even try.

Don’t hide. Guide! Enable to deal.

The bubble will burst eventually. What then? What will you be left with?

A child you now hate because he no longer believes your bullshit, that’s what. And you’ll blame this newfound awareness and cynicism on teenage hormones or some shit.

Because you deluded yourself into believing you were Frankenstein or Pygmalion, that the child is there for you to fashion exactly as you see fit. And now your own bubble burst. Now your child is not your personal programmable robot but another human being with personal opinions who must be convinced of things and has free will.

Maybe live in the real world and save everyone involved a lot of trouble, hmm?