Kenji And Matsuko And Seiichi And Hanako, All One And The Same

If you thought the PC goons are far too powerful in our schools -- banning dodgeball and purging "most likely to succeed" from the yearbook -- you haven't been to Japan lately. This just in from the C-SM Asia Bureau:

The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White.

For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents."

For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role. (Fox News)

I can't help it. Images of the fall of Rome overwhelm me. Images of Bushido, the Japanese samurai ethic disappear like a mist in bamboo. Japan has raised a generation that curses any hint of the societal regimen that has served the nation so well, replacing it with a bunch of blame-shifting, over-protective infighters and ear-biters.

The article concludes:

Previously, when a child was in trouble the parents apologized profusely to the teacher; nowadays, they try to have the teacher sacked.

Where previously schools were trusted and respected, they are now the targets of concerted activism. Dozens of educators have been forced to resign in the face of the blazing fury of parents who no longer tolerate anything that appears to disadvantage their offspring.

Any guesses how this coddled, uncompetitive population will turn out? How many of these kids will turn out to be whining primadonnas, serial_killers_in_a_cubicle and never_leave_the_nest middle-agers?

How few will be able to lead their country to anything beyond descending mediocrity?

How much alike our two countries are.

hat-tip: Jim

Secular Progressive Insanity

Here's a bit of classic secular progressive-think for you:

1. People who rape and murder little girls to get their sexual jollies need help, not jail, so let's keep their prison sentences to a minimum. Say three years or so.
   
   
2. People who are (1) foolish enough to have children and (2) savage enough to spank them are the worst of criminals. Let's charge those parents with abuse and neglect. (Neglect? For being aware that there's a disciplinary problem that needs dealing with?)

That's the state of the law -- and the mindset of the state -- in Massachusetts today under its current and proposed laws.

Read more at The Provocateur, who adds:

I am not necessarily a huge fan of spanking, however it is not only ironic but downright shameful that a state moves quicker to stop parents from deciding for themselves what punishment their kids should have than they do from protecting children from actual child predators.

Such is the absurd and perverse world view of the secular progressives. In their world, all criminals need treatment not punishment. At the same time, parenting decisions are taken away from the parents and controlled rather by the states. In some sense, child predators have more rights than parents.

Adventure Or Exploitation?

In producing Kid Nation -- an effort that required pulling 40 kids out of school and putting them on their own in New Mexico to fend for themselves without much adult supervision -- CBS gets the "What were they thinking?!" award.

The breathless NYT expose reveals that the New Mexico venue was selected because the state doesn't have laws covering child actors, that a state child welfare inspector was turned away, and that there was one medical emergency involving youngsters drinking bleach that someone had put in an unmarked soda bottle.

Surely, CBS could have seen this sort of criticism coming, and they're lucky they got through the taping without something more sensational happening, because putting 40 kids, aged 8 to 15, in a difficult situation without adult supervision for 40 days is not exactly a formula for safety.

Still, I wish I could have had the experience when I was younger. I wish Incredible Daughter #3, who's 12, could have been there. Kid Nation, while surely muted and soften somewhat by the unreality of "reality" TV, goes back in time to teach, through experience, lessons that are no longer well taught.

The children were made to haul wagons loaded with supplies for more than a mile through the New Mexico countryside, and they worked long hours — “from the crack of dawn when the rooster started crowing” until at least 9:30 p.m., according to Taylor, a 10-year-old from Sylvester, Ga., who was made available by CBS to respond to questions about conditions on the set.

The kids survived. They set up their own government, they made sure the work got done, the cooked and ate and figured out how to conquer adversity through inner strength and the power of community.

“Everyone usually had a job,” said Mike, an 11-year-old from Bellevue, Wash., who participated in the show. Among them were cooking, cleaning, hauling water and running the stores, where, he said: “It was hard work, but it was really good. It taught us all that life is not all play and no work.”

Taylor, from Georgia, agreed. “I learned I have to work for what I want,” she said.

Of course, some parents who thought it was a good idea to send their kids off to Kid Nation complained, leading to the NYT story and investigations into CBS' conduct. That's good -- behavior like this needs to be investigated because there's a very thin line between "reality" TV and child exploitation -- but what are the complaining parents teaching their kids?

The kids just learned a lot about self preservation, strength and cooperation, only to have their parents teach them blame-shifting and victimhood.

Shame on them, even with the bleach. One of our kids drank some bleach once, so I know how terrifying that is, but this parent would have done his/her kid much better by saying, "Yeah, that's too bad, and I'm glad you're all right, but now you know to be careful about what you put in your mouth, right? If you smelled it, would you have drunk it?"

I may even watch this "reality" show. With ID#3 as company, since there are some good lessons here for her.

Yeah, But Will The Muslims Listen?

James Taranto and crew at BOTWT have mighty funny tales to tell every weekday and today's offering ended with a bang, led into by a list of worst titles of the year offered by a publisher. One of the titles, "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence," triggered this:

That last one caught our attention, so we looked it up on Amazon.com. The author, David Benatar, is head of the philosophy department at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Here's the book description from Amazon:

Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. Thus, if they ever do reflect on whether they should bring others into existence--rather than having children without even thinking about whether they should--they presume that they do them no harm.

Better Never to Have Been challenges these assumptions. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm. Although the good things in one's life make one's life go better than it otherwise would have gone, one could not have been deprived by their absence if one had not existed. Those who never exist cannot be deprived. However, by coming into existence one does suffer quite serious harms that could not have befallen one had one not come into existence.

Drawing on the relevant psychological literature, the author shows that there are a number of well-documented features of human psychology that explain why people systematically overestimate the quality of their lives and why they are thus resistant to the suggestion that they were seriously harmed by being brought into existence.

The author then argues for the "anti-natal" view--that it is always wrong to have children--and he shows that combining the anti-natal view with common pro-choice views about foetal moral status yield a "pro-death" view about abortion (at the earlier stages of gestation). Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct.

Although counter-intuitive for many, that implication is defended, not least by showing that it solves many conundrums of moral theory about population.

So basically, this joker has built an entire philosophy around the childish protest "I didn't ask to be born!"

Benatar has succeeded in capturing the selfish existentialism of the urban West, and its desire to simply stop procreating. He gives it a glossy psychiatric sheen, but beneath his arguments is this: Life for us is more fun if we don't have sagging-diapered little brats running about.

His ruminations are lost on the Muslims. He would have us become a demographic footnote while Muslim populations in the western democracies surge.

Note to Benatar: Never having been equals never having voted. Got it?

Making Sure The Clueless Keep Educating Our Kids

Judge Mark Wolf's decision in the most recent "What in the heck are they teaching our kids?!" case of Patrick v. Hurley opens a pretty wide door:

"The constitutional right of parents to raise their children does not include the right to restrict what a public school may teach their children. Under the Constitution public schools are entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy."

In this case, two couples didn't think teaching their gradeschoolers about homosexuality was a particularly good way of preparing their kids to become productive citizens of the American democracy. Tough, Judge Wolf tells them, you've just got to shut up and let educators, who know more than you do, take care of educating your children.

Under Wolf's' ruling, parents have no say whatsoever about any subject whatsoever. Protest schools teaching white supremecy? Too bad; you've got to let them teach. If the schools want to slam Bush and recognize Muslim holy days while banning all things Christian, parents better just put up and shut up.

Jeff Jacoby summarizes the the foolishness of letting someone as stupid as Judge Wolf -- yes, he may be intelligent, but that doesn't mean he's not stupid -- in the Boston Globe:

The only way to end the political battles over schooling is to depoliticize the schools. And the only way to do that is to separate school and state.

Parents should have the same freedom in educating their kids that they have in clothing, housing, and feeding them. You wouldn't let the government decide what time your kids should go to bed, or which doctor should treat their chicken pox, or how they should spend their summer vacation, or which religion they should be instructed in. On matters serious and not so serious, parents are entrusted with their children's well-being. Why should schooling be an exception?

The answer to that "'why" is simple: Bad judges like Mark Wolf who cannot see the stupidity of giving decision-making ppower to educators who rely on "zero tolerance" programs because they don't trust themselves to make sound decisions.

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics