TURNING KIDS INTO SPIES?

The function of government is to protect individual rights.   A proper government does so by protecting each individual from other men, those who seek to initiate force (or threatens its use)--and this protection against the initiation of force applies to children, too.  Beyond this protection afforded to each and all, the state should have nothing else to say about your life and this especially applies to the rearing of your children.

It is not the function of the state to educate, feed, clothe or otherwise raise your children.  It is not the function of the state to protect children (or adults) from prejudice or from being disliked or from having their feelings hurt. 

Given the foregoing, consider the gross impropriety of the web site for kids of the Justice Department and the advice it dispenses.

At the Justice For Kids site, the Justice Department advises children about what they should do if someone in their family "makes jokes about people" because of skin color, gender or religion.  The Justice Department tells children that these jokes are "both a hurtful act and a hateful act."  In fact, such jokes may or may not be an example of prejudice, but even if they are prejudicial, the state should have nothing to say about it.  Free speech is just that: free speech, even if such speech expresses prejudice.  Mel Brooks and many other comedians have made their careers telling funny jokes based on religion, skin color and gender--and most of these comedians would not be regarded as prejudiced.  Thus, the Justice Department is feeding to children politically correct, but factually incorrect, information.

However, apart from the false statements made to children at Justice For Kids, the more disturbing aspect of this web site is that it exists at all.   Here we have the Justice Department, whose bailiwick is the prosecution of crimes, urging kids to talk to their parents if some family member makes a "hurtful" or "hateful" comment but, if that fails, the Justice Department goes on to suggest that the child might also talk to a "teacher, religious leader, counselor, or other adult with whom you feel comfortable." 

What is the precedent being established by this advice?  That children should become informants, reporting "improper" comments (speech) and behavior by members of their family to others, if the parents can't fix the alleged problem.  It matters not that these children are not being advised (at least, not yet) to report "improper" comments to state authorities, it only matters that children are being advised to report such comments to others--and that is all the precedent statists need for future purposes when statists will cash in on this precedent and use your children against you, turning them into spies who will inform authorities of your "improper" comments.   It happened in Nazi Germany and it will happen in America if this country continues down the road to totalitarianism.

We already have telephone hotlines for "child abuse."  When will we have a hotline for "speech abuse," for comments made by you, comments which will be reported by your child by calling 1-800-MOM-SAID?

(I am indebted to Joe Burciaga for bringing the Justice For Kids web site to my attention.)

Fulton Huxtable
May 24, 1998

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