[WARNING: this post contains some graphic content. Blame the schools for this. Don't shoot the messenger.]
Neighbors, friends, fellow citizens: listen to my plea. We must find some common ground. We must be a country again; a people; a culture. Our civilization is doomed if we cannot search through the fog and the confusion and find in that mist some semblance of a thread to bind us all. We are supposedly a Union, are we not? You think there was ever a time when this country was truly united? See: history.
So let me make the first attempt. Let me prove that unity is possible, by pointing to just a few topics upon which all decent, civilized, rational people can agree.
Here we go:
1) Bacon is delicious. Bacon is a cultural phenomenon. Despite our differences, we all love bacon. It really seems like everyone is on the same page here… Except for the vegetarians, but they aren’t Americans, technically. Ok, so your first attempt at "unity" involves intentionally alienating and insulting a significant segment of the public.
2) The Princess Bride is a fantastic film. Everyone loves that movie, right? It’s charming, whimsical, and hilarious.
3) It’s nice to have money. We all would prefer to have money, right? I mean, given the choice between having no money, some money, or a lot of money, we’d all definitely choose either some or a lot, wouldn’t we?
See? We CAN agree on some things. We ARE unified. Oh, and here’s one more:
4) Public schools shouldn’t teach fourth graders how to masturbate. Clearly, no sane adult could possibly react with anything other than horror if they found out that government PUBLIC schools were taking time out of the academic day to encourage nine and ten-year-olds to masturbate, right? That is correct. Everyone agrees and, since this has NEVER occurred, there is no point in bringing up this hypothetical scenario. Unless you are trying to dishonestly construct a fantasy world and portray it as reality once again.
Right? Right.
RIGHT? RIGHT.
Well, three out of four ain’t bad. No one's disagreeing with that point. I guarantee you have never encountered one person who disagreed with that statement.
Victoria Jackson has the story about a “text book” on the approved reading list for fourth graders in Tennessee. The book is called “It’s Perfectly Normal,” and it’s been around since the mid 90′s. Matt you accuse your opponents of lying so often, and yet your lies are so blatantly obvious. I visited the link above, and she says, explicitly, that she has no evidence that this book has been used in any school (though she suspects - on what evidence, she does not say - that it soon will). You are totally making stuff up now, Matt. It seems you may have gotten the 4th grade part based on a statement in the next link you provide, that the book is for ages 10 and up. This would be older than most 4th graders, and right around the age kids are going through puberty these days (it's a book about "your changing body"). You also have no evidence that any 4th grader has ever read this book. The Victoria Jackson site is actually obtaining its information from another website, about books for teens.
Here’s a sample passage:
This is clear cut, folks. Yes, I’m Mr. Absolutist. You’re absolutely right about that, and here’s an absolute statement: it is a deeply depraved and disordered understanding of childhood and sexuality that leads one to believe that such a book belongs on a public school reading list. IT IS NOT ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL READING LIST!
Imagine a stranger came up to your son on the playground and said: “Hey little boy, if you touch yourself it’ll feel good and tingly. I drew some cartoons of kids masturbating. Wanna see?” What would you do? Would you shake his hand and thank him for the helpful sex ed lesson? Or would you call the cops and see to it that this sicko has to alert the neighbors every time he changes his address?
There is no discernible distinction to be drawn between the creep on the playground and the public school official who approves this kind of material for children. Teachers are not equivalent to strangers, and this book has not been approved by schools for children!!!!! This is child abuse, plain as day.
Here are a few more morsels from the Book of Pedophilia:
Sure, let’s make sure to put math and history on hold, gather the children around, and tell them about how “sexy” a man’s body feels when someone rubs his penis. No evidence, no evidence, no evidence....
Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931. The story is set in the year 2540. Little did Huxley know, Western Civilization would achieve his Brave New World over 500 years earlier than he predicted.
From Chapter Three:
Outside, in the garden, it was playtime. Naked in the warm June sunshine, six or seven hundred little boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns… “That’s a charming little group,” [the Director] said, pointing.
In a little grassy bay between tall clumps of Mediterranean heather, two children, a little boy of about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focused attention of scientists intent on a labour of discovery, a rudimentary sexual game…
[The Director] let out the amazing truth. For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!): and had therefore been rigorously suppressed.
A look of astonished incredulity appeared on the faces of his listeners. Poor little kids not allowed to amuse themselves? They could not believe it.
“Even adolescents,” the D.H.C. was saying, “even adolescents like yourselves.”
“Not possible!”
“Barring a little surreptitious auto-erotism and homosexuality–absolutely nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“In most cases, till they were over twenty years old.”
“Twenty years old?” echoed the students in a chorus of loud disbelief.
“Twenty,” the Director repeated. “I told you that you’d find it incredible.”
“But what happened?” they asked. “What were the results?”
“The results were terrible.”
The results were a society where people learned discipline and self-control. But tyrants do not want a citizenry with these kinds of characteristics. That’s one of the central themes in Huxley’s novel. No, that is not. I don't think you realize the primary point of the book (but then again, you said you didn't pay attention in high school....). Aldous Huxley was critiquing modernity in general, and in particular, how the rational-calculating impulse that seeks to maximizes pleasure for its own sake actually robs people of key aspects of their humanity.
It’s terrifying to think of all the modern progressives who read this excerpt and nod their head in agreement with the Director. Once again, what is your evidence that they do? Huxley wrote Brave New World to be a nightmarish vision of a Dystopian future – they read it like a practical outline of their domestic agenda. You are just SAYING they do. You are making things up. Dare I say... lying?
That’s why I chuckle whenever a radical progressive professes to have read and loved this book. It’s like they don’t realize that the entire thing is one long, stinging, merciless indictment against their ideology and worldview. No it is not. Not at all. Maybe you should stop accusing people of not understanding things... because there are so many things you don't understand.
I was going to take a few paragraphs to explain why it’s not OK for elementary schools to teach our children about “sexy feelings” and “exciting” self-pleasure, but what’s the use? To make my case, I would need to appeal to some common moral principle. You would also need to appeal to hypothetical scenarios that do not exist in reality. Yet, if you believe this sort of thing to be acceptable, your “moral principles” are so far afield from anything that I recognize as moral or principled that I’m not sure how to communicate with you. You live in an entirely different dimension. I am an alien in your universe, and you are an alien in mine.
I can hear the argument already: “But kids will do these things anyway!” If you are hearing these things, Matt, I would recommend seeing a psychiatrist. What you're hearing, it doesn't exist outside your head. Yes, people use that argument in relation to teens and sex ed, but, until you prove otherwise, I do not believe anyone has ever used this argument to suggest that masturbation should be taught to 4th graders in school. I do not believe anyone has ever suggested that masturbation should be taught to 4th graders in school.
Really? How do you know what kids are doing? How do you know what they WILL do? Where are you gathering your data on the masturbatory habits of little boys and girls? Haha, you ask your hypothetical opponents where they are getting their data.... oh the hypocracy. Wait, let me get the FBI on the line before you tell me. Besides, IF they are “doing it anyway,” then I suppose this “lesson plan” is rather redundant. And, whether they do it or they don’t, the contention that they “should” or that it’s “perfectly normal” is subjective at best. If I can’t inject my religion into the schools, then I don’t think it’s fair for you to inject your Freudianism into it, either.
This book has been floating around for a while. It won’t shock you to learn that Planned Parenthood considers it to be required reading (they love anything that’ll help groom our kids into their future customers). I don’t know how many schools have this on their reading list. ZERO. Also, you just admitted that you have NO EVIDENCE that it is being used in schools, and yet, you said very confidently that it was. I call that lying. It doesn’t matter. It does. It matters because you are using a hypothetical scenario to construct imaginary arguments with imaginary opponents... and letting your readers believe that it represents reality. You are presenting your base with a false view of the world, based on totally fabricated information, in order to make the argument that anyone who disagrees with you (this mythical homogenous group of "progressives") is so totally "out there" that it is not worth trying to find common ground with them. You are also trying to inflame them and get them angry about things (that don't exist). You are impeding unity and productive conversation, and frankly, being just flat out dishonest. Does truth not matter to you? Can’t we all just agree that elementary schools shouldn’t, in any way, be in the business of discussing, teaching, advocating for, instructing about, or otherwise mentioning masturbation, tingly feelings, or anything in that general ballpark? YES WE ALL AGREE!
Can’t we?
No?
Fine. How ’bout this for a compromise: if you want your young child to learn about masturbation and condoms and sexy feelings, you are free to teach him or her yourself. Leave other people’s kids alone. That is exactly how things stand right now.
OK? Yes.
Agreed? Agreed.
Probably not. Boy, your non-existing opponents drive a hard bargain.
Hey, at least we still have The Princess Bride.
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