Jan.14 1998
It's the phrase which can move mountains, balance the budget,
end war, save the environment and bring the Oilers back to Houston: "...to
help protect the children."
Take a look at any major social program, educational fad, moral
argument or new piece of spending legislation in today's America. We've
expended trillions of dollars over the past 30 years, all "to help protect
the children."
Tobacco, for example, kills millions of adults every year. Yet
the arguments which precipitated the war on tobacco had nothing to do with
the leaf's adult users: it was "to help protect the children" that we've
created new tax after new tax on tobacco. It is "to protect the children"
that legal eagles in the several states and in Washington are doing their
best to sue the tobacco industry into bankruptcy.
We've neutralized discipline in the American family, "to protect
the children." You all remember the case of the mother who was charged
with child abuse "to protect the child" for disciplining her misbehaving
teenager with a slap; the child learned the valuable lesson that parents
are powerless in the face of government bureaucracy and red tape.
Think about what we've done "to protect the children." School
lunches. School breakfasts. Curfews. Raising the drinking age and lowering
the voting age. Psychological counseling on the sly. Car seats, seat
belts, air bags and laws on where kids can ride.
President Clinton's latest proposals for government child-care,
child health-care and the like are, of course, "to protect the children."
Yet for all we've done, some kids are still hungry, living in
poverty, being hurt and dying. Have we done enough?
Perhaps it's time to consider more options.
Studies show conclusively that most children who are abused are
abused by their parents, girlfriends and boyfriends of their parents, and/or
step-parents. "To protect the children," let's outlaw post-divorce dating
and second marriages. Better yet, "to protect the children," let's take
children away from parents minutes after birth and raise them all in a
protected environment.
We've all heard the horrid tales of ritual abuse at day-care
centers, foster homes and orphanages, so "to protect the children," our
protected environment must be in some place else. That place must also
be structurally sound, built to high standards, able to withstand just
about any kind of natural disaster; considering the number of children
we're talking about, the only sound, economically-feasible place "to protect
the children" would be in our schools.
Even in those places, the risk of war, global warming and religious
conservatism remains a threat; "to protect the children," we should consider
euthanizing all adults who attend church, own or work in heavy industry,
or wear military uniforms. Statistics also show that because most
parents in China, India, Mexico and Mississippi are poor, their children
are at risk of turning out that way, too: "to protect the children," let's
add them to the list.
(Since this would, of necessity, involve a world-wide effort,
we'd have to exempt soldiers wearing United Nations uniforms, who of course
will only be "protecting the children.")
Even within our protected environments, children will still run
the risk of harming themselves or one another accidentally; "to protect
the children," perhaps we should consider enclosing them individually in
big plastic bubbles, and never, ever teach them to eat with forks and knives.
Certainly, this is carrying things to extremes — think of the
individual liberties we'd be depriving! — but you have to remember why
we're doing all this: "...to protect the children."