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Victor Davis Hanson connects Obama to the current scene. (See 1 below.)
Trump's speech not dark enough for Prager. (See 1a below.)
Meanwhile, Democrats, began their convention as combative Donkeys but
end as supplicant sheep. This is the build bridges party, but they were building walls to keep their own delegates safe from Bernie protesters upset over the corruption in their own party.
However,Bernie's endorsement of Hillary, who rigged the convention against him, suggest he became the dutiful revolutionary last night.
As I have said many times, Democrats are a rowdy bunch but they come together for the purpose of winning. Republicans, on the other hand, stand on their principles to the point of losing.
I did not watch the convention but my wife,who did, said if you buy their rhetoric and twisted logic the speeches were good.
and then, an elderly priest's throat was slashed in a Roen church attack yesterday, The response of French leaders suggests the French assume an accepting and defeatist attitude once again. (See 1b below.)
Finally, Sowell discusses what really matters to Hillary and Democrats - black votes not lives. (See 1c below.)
In keeping with black votes matter Hillary, continues to pander by inviting on stage black families whose children were killed by police but not families of police killed by blacks.
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Henry C. "Hank" Johnson Jr. (born October 2, 1954) is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 4th congressional district, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democrat Party. The district is based in DeKalb County, a largely suburban county east of Atlanta. It also includes portions of Gwinnett, Newton, and all of Rockdale counties.
Johnson is black and the Democrat Representative who made the charge that Israeli settlers were termites.
I expect the editors of our local newspaper to write a lengthy editorial about Hillary's failure to denounce Johnson but am not holding my breath. After all, Hillary is too caught up in stealing the nomination her friend, Wasserman, arranged.
===ACAC
Hillary's village is all about government raising children. AC
The article's author is a friend of my son and a fellow memo reader of mine.(See 2 below.)
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Dick
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by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON May 19, 2016 12:00 AMHow Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy De-Stabilized the World
In 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier warned Adolf Hitler that if the Third Reich invaded Poland, a European war would follow.Both leaders insisted that they meant it. But Hitler thought that after getting away with militarizing the Rhineland, annexing Austria, and dismantling Czechoslovakia, the Allied appeasers were once again just bluffing.
England and France declared war two days after Hitler entered Poland.Once hard-won deterrence is lost, it is almost impossible to restore credibility without terrible costs and danger.
Last week, Russian officials warned the Obama administration about the installation of a new anti-ballistic missile system in Romania and talked of a possible nuclear confrontation that would reduce the host country to “smoking ruins” and “neutralize” any American-sponsored missile system.
Such apocalyptic rhetoric follows months of Russian bullying of nearby neutral Sweden, harassment of U.S. ships and planes, warnings to NATO nations in Europe, and constant threats to the Baltic states and former Soviet republics.
China just warned the U.S. to keep its ships and planes away from its new artificial island and military base in the Spratly archipelago — plopped down in the middle of the South China Sea to control international sea lanes.
Iranian leaders routinely threaten to close down the key Strait of Hormuz. North Korea and the Islamic State are upping their usual unhinged bombast to new levels — from threatening nuclear strikes on the U.S. homeland to drawing up hit lists of Americans targeted for death.
All the saber-rattling of 2016 is beginning to sound a lot like the boasts and bullying of Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany of the 1930s.
But why so much tough talk — and why now?
After the abject pullout from Iraq in 2011 and the subsequent collapse of the country eroded U.S. credibility, after the fake Syrian red lines, the failed reset with Russia, the Benghazi fiasco, and the slashing of the military, America has lost its old deterrence.
In a recent interview, President Obama claimed that his Syrian flip-flop was one of his prouder moments, and he disparaged some of our allies (presumably Britain and France among them) as unreliable, glory-hogging freeloaders.
Israel has formed an alliance with some of its longtime enemies in the Persian Gulf based on their shared fears of Iran and their mutual distrust of American commitment. Israelis and Saudi Arabians alike are confused about whether the Obama administration naïvely appeased Iran with a nuclear deal or deliberately courted it as a new ally.
Japan and South Korea have hinted about going nuclear, prompted by their growing distrust of decades-old American pledges to protect them from neighborhood bullies such as China, North Korea, and Russia.
In a recent New York Times Magazine interview, deputy national-security adviser and presidential speechwriter Ben Rhodes ridiculed the “Blob” — his derogatory term for the bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign-policy establishment. He also bragged about deceiving journalists and policy wonks in order to ram through the Iran deal without Senate approval or public support. Rhodes, who wrote Obama’s mythological “Cairo Speech” and also the infamous Benghazi “talking points,” seemed to confirm accusations that this administration has contempt for traditional U.S. foreign policy.
If we know how and when the U.S. lost its ability to deter enemies and protect friends, why is the world suddenly heating up in the last year of Obama’s presidency?
Recent interviews with the president and his advisers might confirm the impression abroad that the global order is, for a rare moment, up for grabs, as a lame-duck administration retreats from America’s role of world leader. And given that there are only eight months left to take advantage of this global void, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Islamic terrorists are beginning to believe that the U.S. will not do anything to stop their aggressions once they change global realities by force.
South Korea, Estonia, Japan, Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Philippines, and much of Europe all expect provocations — and fear the U.S. might issue more red lines, deadlines, and step-over lines rather than come to their aid.
Aggressors are not sure whether Hillary Clinton, if elected, will govern more like a traditional Democratic president committed to leading the Western alliance. And if Donald Trump were to be elected, no aggressor would know exactly why, when, or how he might strike back at them.Given those uncertainties, it may seem wise in the waning months of 2016 for aggressors to go for broke against the predictable Obama administration before the game is declared over in 2017.For that reason, the next few months may prove the most dangerous since World War II.—
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
1a)
Trump's Speech Wasn't 'Dark' Enough
By Dennis Prager
One of the many remarkable traits of the progressives is their lack of self-awareness.
This trait was on display last week in the media and Democratic Party's characterization of Donald Trump's acceptance speech — and the entire
Republican National Convention — as "dark."
For the left to dismiss other Americans as having a dark view of America is preposterous.
Because no one — not Trump, not the Republican Party, not any conservative — has nearly as dark a view of America as does the left.
Across the board — from the universities to the media to the Democratic Party — the left, around the world and in America, has an unremittingly dark view of the United States.
Here's a brief glimpse.
—Racism "is part of our (American) DNA," President Barack Obama said in 2015. Is there anything Trump said in his acceptance speech that is as dark about America as that?
—On July Fourth weekend, Vox published a long column arguing "3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake."
—The most widely read historian in American high schools and colleges, the late left-wing professor Howard Zinn, was asked (by me) whether he thought the United States had done more good or more bad in the world. "Probably more bad than good," he answered.
—The left regularly characterizes the United States as a sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist and bigoted country.
—Our wars are wars for imperialist expansion, driven by material greed.
—The top 1 percent relentlessly exploits the other 99 percent.
—America is rigged against blacks, Hispanics and the 99 percent.
—Cops kill unarmed blacks proportionately more than they kill unarmed whites because so many cops are racist.
—About 1 in 5 female college students are sexually assaulted on campus.
Is there anything in Trump's speech that can match any of those left-wing views of the United States for "darkness"?
Moreover, every one of those leftist critiques of America is false.
Nevertheless, we are in a dark time in America. In fact, Trump didn't make the case for America's darkness nearly effectively enough.
Read more at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0716/prager072616.php3#v9fqkP1x8Wshjo8h.99—Our universities — outside of the natural sciences — are being destroyed as learning institutions. They close minds, censor speech and indoctrinate rather than educate.
—Blacks have more anger toward whites and America than at any time since the civil rights era.
—American students are learning less while being indoctrinated more. They graduate high school barely able to write a coherent essay with proper sentence structure, grammar and spelling. But they know all about the existential threat allegedly posed by fossil fuels.
—According to a recent Gallup Poll, fewer young Americans than at any time since polling began are proud to be Americans.
—A greater percentage of Americans are dependent upon government for their income and even for food than at any time in American history.
—The American national debt is the highest it has ever been. And it is increasing at a rate that can only lead to an economic implosion.
—A smaller percentage of Americans are married than at any time in American history.
—Americans are having fewer children than ever.
—Fewer businesses in proportion to the general population are being started than ever before.AC
—Sectors of major American cities are essentially killing zone
—Fewer Americans than ever before believe in God, go to church or affirm Judeo-Christian values, the basic moral code of
America's founding and of Western civilization.
—Only 2 in 10 black children are born to a married mother.
Is that dark enough?
And the list is only a partial one.
If all Donald Trump did between now and November were to delineate the darkness created by the left and the Democrats, he could potentially win in a landslide. But, for reasons that elude me, he won't, just as no Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan has. In the same way that Democrats won't identify America's international enemy — Islamic terror — Republicans won't identify America's domestic enemy, the left.
And until Republicans do, the darkness won't recede.
1b)
France: After the Third Jihadist Attack
- Successive French governments have built a trap; the French people, who are in it, are thinking only of how to escape. The situation is more serious than many imagine. Whole areas of France are under the control of gangs and radical imams.
- Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated what he already said 18 months ago: "France is at war." He named an enemy, "radical Islamism," but he was quick to add that "radical Islamism" has "nothing to do with Islam." He then repeated that the French will have to get used to living with "violence and attacks."
- The French are increasingly tired of attempts to exonerate Islam. They know perfectly well that all Muslims are not guilty. But they also know that all those who committed attacks in France in recent years were Muslims. The French have no desire to get used to "violence and attacks." They do not want to be on the losing side and they feel that we are losing.
Nice, July 14, 2016: Bastille Day. The evening festivities were ending. As the crowd watching fireworks was beginning to disperse, the driver of a 19-ton truck, zig-zagging, mowed down everyone in his way. Ten minutes and 84 dead persons later, the driver was shot and killed. Dozens were wounded; many will be crippled for life. Dazed survivors wandered the streets of the city for hours.
French television news anchors quickly said that what happened was almost certainly an "accident," or when the French authorities started to speak of terrorism, that the driver could just be a madman. When the police disclosed the killer's name and identity, and that he had been depressed in the past, they suggested that he had acted in a moment of "high anxiety." They found witnesses who testified that he was "not a devout Muslim" -- maybe not a Muslim at all.
President François Hollande spoke a few hours later and affirmed his determination to "protect the populace."
Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated what he already said 18 months ago: "France is at war." He named an enemy, "radical Islamism," but he was quick to add that "radical Islamism" has "nothing to do with Islam." He then repeated what he emphasized so many times: the French will have to get used to living with "violence and attacks."
The public reaction showed that Valls convinced hardly anyone. The French are increasingly tired of attempts to exonerate Islam. They know perfectly well that all Muslims are not guilty. They also know that, nevertheless, all those who committed attacks in France in recent years were Muslims. They do not feel protected by François Hollande. They see that France is attacked with increasing intensity and that radical Islam has declared war, but they do not see France declaring war back. They have no desire to get used to "violence and attacks." They do not want to be on the losing side and they feel that we are losing.
Because the National Front Party uses more robust language, much of the public votes for its candidates. The National Front's leader, Marine Le Pen, will undoubtedly win the first round of voting in the presidential election next year. She will probably not be elected in the end, but if nothing changes quickly and clearly, she will have a very good chance next time.
Moderate politicians read the public opinion polls, harden their rhetoric, and recommend harsher policies. Some of them might demand harsher measures, such as the expulsion of detained terrorists who have dual citizenship and the detention of people that praise attacks. Some have even called for martial law.
Calm will gradually return, but it is clear that the situation in France is approaching the boiling point.
The recent attacks served as an accelerant. Four years ago, when Mohamed Merah murdered soldiers and Jews in Toulouse, the population did not react. Most French did not feel directly concerned; soldiers were just soldiers, and Jews were just Jews. When, in January 2015, Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were slaughtered, an emotional reaction engulfed the country, only to quickly vanish. A huge demonstration was organized in the name of "freedom of speech" and the "values of the republic." Hundreds of thousands claimed, "Je Suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"). When, two days later, Jews were murdered again in a kosher grocery store, hardly anyone said "I am a Jew."
Those who tried to speak of jihad were promptly reduced to silence. Not even a year later, in November, the Bataclan Theater bloodbath did not lead to protests, but was a deeper shock. The mainstream media and the government could no longer hide that it was an act of jihad. The number killed was too overwhelming; one could not just turn the page. The mainstream media and the government did their best to downplay anger and frustration and to emphasize sadness. Solemn ceremonies with flowers and candles were everywhere. A "state of emergency" was declared and soldiers were sent into the streets.
But then the feeling of danger faded. The Euro 2016 soccer championship was organized in France, and the French team's good performance created a false sense of unity.
The Nice attack was a wake-up call again. It brutally reminded everyone that the danger is still there, deadlier than ever, and that the measures taken by the authorities were useless gesticulations. Memories of the previous killings came back.
Attempts to hide that Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the terrorist in Nice, was a jihadist fooled no one. Instead, it just created more anger, more frustration, and more desire for effective action.
Days before the Nice attack, the media reported that the parliamentary inquiry commission report on the Bataclan Theater attack revealed that the victims had been ruthlessly tortured and mutilated, and that the government had tried to cover up these facts. Now the entire public discovered the extent of the horror, adding fuel to the fire.
France seems now on the verge of a revolutionary moment; it would not take much to cause an explosion. But the situation is more serious than many imagine.
Whole areas of France are under the control of gangs and radical imams. The government delicately calls them "sensitive urban zones." Elsewhere they are bluntly called "no go zones." There are more than 570 of them.
Hundreds of thousands of young Muslims live there. Many are thugs, drug traffickers, robbers. Many are imbued with a deeply rooted hatred for France and the West. Recruiters for jihadists organizations tell them -- directly or through social networks -- that if they kill in the name of Allah, they will attain the status of martyrs. Hundreds are ready. They are unpinned grenades that may explode anywhere, anytime.
Although possessing, carrying and selling weapons are strictly regulated in France, weapons of war circulate widely. And, of course, the Nice attack has shown once again that a firearm is not necessary to commit mass murder.
Twenty-thousand people are listed in the government's "S-files," an alert system meant to identify individuals linked to radical Islam. Most are unmonitored. Toulouse murderer Mohamed Merah, the murderers of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, and many of the terrorists who attacked the Bataclan Theater were in the S-files. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the terrorist who acted in Nice, was not.
France's intelligence chief said recently that more attacks are to come and that many potential killers wander freely, undetected.
Doing what the French government is doing today will not improve anything. On the contrary. France is at the mercy of another attack that will set the powder keg ablaze.
Doing more will lead to worse before matters get better. Regaining control of many areas would entail mobilizing the army, and leftists and anarchists would certainly add disorder to disorder.
Imprisoning whoever could be imprisoned in the name of public safety would imply more than martial law; it would mean the suspension of democratic freedoms, and even so, be an impossible task. The jails in France are already full. The police are outnumbered and showing signs of exhaustion. The French army is at the limit of its capacity for action: it already patrols the streets of France, and is deployed in Africa and the Middle East.
Successive governments have built a trap; the French, who are in it, are thinking only of how to escape.
President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls bear all the guilt. For years, many in France supported any movement that denounced "Islamophobic racism." They passed laws defining criticism of Islam as a "hate crime." They relied more and more on the Muslim vote to win elections. The most important left-wing think tank in France, Terra Nova, which is considered close to the Socialist Party, published several reports explaining that the only way for the left to win elections is to attract the votes of Muslim immigrants and to add more Muslims to France's population.
The moderate right is also guilty. President Charles de Gaulle established the "Arab policy of France," a system of alliances with some of the worst dictatorships in the Arab-Muslim world, in the belief that France would regain its lost power thanks to this system. President Jacques Chirac followed in the footsteps of de Gaulle. President Nicolas Sarkozy helped overthrow the Gaddafi regime in Libya and bears a heavy responsibility for the mess that followed.
The trap revealed its lethal effects a decade ago. In 2005, riots across France showed that Muslim unrest could lead France to the brink of destruction. The blaze was extinguished thanks to the appeals for calm from Muslim organizations. Since then, France has been at the mercy of more riots.
The choice was made to practice appeasement. It did not stop the rot gaining ground.
François Hollande made hasty decisions that placed France at the center of the target. Seeing that strategic interests of France were threatened, he launched military operations against Islamist groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Realizing that French Muslims were going to train and wage jihad in Syria, he decided to engage the French army in actions against the Islamic State.
He did not anticipate that Islamist groups and the Islamic State would hit back and attack France. He did not perceive the extent to which France was vulnerable -- hollowed out from within.
The results put in full light a frightening landscape. Islamists view the landscape and do not dislike what they see.
On their websites, they often quote a line from Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse."
They appear to think that France is a weak horse and that radical Islam can bring France to its knees in a pile of dust and rubble. Time, they seem to think, is on their side as well -- and demography. Muslims now make up about 10% of the French population; 25% of teenagers in France are Muslims.
The number of French Muslims who want Islamic sharia law applied in France increases year after year, as does the number of French Muslims who approve of violent jihad. More and more French people despise Islam, but are filled with fear. Even the politicians who seem ready to fight do not take on Islam.
Islamists seem to think that no French politician will to overcome what looks more and more like a perfect Arab storm. They seem to feel that the West is already defeated and does not have what it takes to carry the day. Are they wrong?
Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
1c) Black Votes Matter
By Thomas Sowell
Black votes matter. If Republicans could get 20 percent of black votes, the Democrats would be ruined. This is highly unlikely, given the approach used by Republicans. However, the point is that Democrats must not only continue to get nine-tenths of black votes, they also need to get a high turnout of black voters on election day.
People who expected the election of President Barack Obama to lead to racial healing and a post-racial society failed to take account of the political reality that racial healing and a post-racial society would, at a minimum, reduce black voter turnout.
Black votes matter to many politicians -- more so than black lives. That is why such politicians must try to keep black voters fearful, angry and resentful. Racial harmony would be a political disaster for such politicians.
Racial polarization makes both the black population and the white population worse off, but it makes politicians who depend on black votes better off.
Hillary Clinton desperately needs black votes in this year's close election. Promoting fear, anger and resentments among blacks -- and, if possible, paranoia -- serves her political interest. Barack Obama has mastered the art of keeping black voters aroused while keeping white voters soothed -- thanks in part to the gullibility of much of the public, who mistake geniality and glib rhetoric for honesty and good will.
Obama has repeatedly put the weight and prestige of the presidency on the side of those who denounce the police before any facts are verified -- and even after facts have come out, exposing the fraudulence of such claims as the claim that the "gentle giant" Michael Brown said, "Hands up, don't shoot."
When a career race hustler like Al Sharpton, with a history of hoaxes, is a regular visitor and advisor to the White House, that is a reality that whites and blacks alike ignore at their peril.
The fact that Sharpton owes millions of dollars in unpaid income taxes ought to be a devastating revelation of what lucrative careers there are in race hustling.
Nothing reveals the political cynicism of the Obama administration like their campaign to force schools to reduce the number of black male students who are disciplined for misconduct. Because black male students are cited for disruption and violence more often than other categories of students, that is automatically taken to mean that racial discrimination is the reason.
The most obvious alternative explanation is that black male students engage in more disruption and violence than Asian females or some other students. But that possibility is implicitly ruled out.
What makes this such a farce is that many, if not most, of the teachers and administrators in ghetto schools are black themselves, and have no reason to discriminate against black males. What makes it a disaster is that only a few thugs in a classroom are enough to deprive all the other students of a decent education -- which, for many, is their only chance for decent lives as adults.
If black lives matter at all to the Obama administration, they obviously don't matter as much as black votes that can be won by posing as defenders of blacks, even in situations where defenders of thugs are destroying black children's futures.
Even the thugs themselves will be worse off in the long run, if somebody does not put a stop to behavior that can lead them to prison as adults.
Hillary Clinton plays the same political game of posing as a defender of blacks from enemies threatening them on all sides, as she tries to win an election that would amount to a third term of the Obama administration's policies -- most of which have left blacks worse off than before Obama took office.
The ancient phrase, "By their fruits ye shall know them" has been replaced by the current notion that by their rhetoric you should judge them -- and vote for them.
One of the key questions this election year is whether black lives matter more than black votes that can be won by racial charades that undermine and endanger those lives. The answer to that question will affect all Americans, because racial turmoil is to no one's interest, except some politicians and race hustlers.
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2)
Village Idiocy
Hillary Clinton's opus reconsidered.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Hillary Clinton’s It Takes a Village, and given what's written there, Clinton must be sorry she isn't running for president of Scotland. After all, the Scots have been rolling out a law that implements much of her argument, namely that government—or "the village," as she quaintly keeps calling it—has to do more of the job of helping to raise "our" children.
Scotland's "named person" law empowers the government to designate someone as the nonfamily representative of every child from birth to 18 years of age, in order to ensure their proper growth and development.
"Studies confirm the importance of breast-feeding infants," Clinton wrote. And lo, two decades later, hospitals have practically banned swag bags of baby formula, and some only dispense formula reluctantly, as if it were the narcotic Percocet, while simultaneously shoving lactation consultants at every mother who gives birth. The federal government has changed the rules for recipients of Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women and Infants (WIC) to extend much more comprehensive food benefits, with greater quantity and variety, for those who breastfeed, and Obama-care mandates employers set aside a space for breastfeeding employees.
"The case for quality early childhood education and programs like Head Start is stronger than ever, and we should be expanding them," Clinton wrote. And expand they have. When the book was written, Head Start was reaching 750,000 children on a budget of $3.5 billion. Last year it served one million kids with a total budget of $7.8 billion. Early childhood education has become such a dogma among the "village" elders that President Obama suggested there be a universal system for 3- and 4-year-olds in his last State of the Union.
Of course, there's less talk from Clinton—then and now—about whether we would feel a need for such early childhood enrichment and school readiness programs if the public school system were doing a better job of educating kids. The other fact that Clinton hasn't discussed recently is how the families for whom she professes her greatest love—the children of the poor and working class—are often priced out of licensed day care thanks to two decades of steady government pressure to "enrich" programming, professionalize early childhood education, and regulate providers—especially when it comes to health, hygiene, and safety—which have sent costs skyrocketing.
Health care has got to be the biggest accomplishment Clinton can claim, since many of her recommendations for prenatal and preventive care, her argument in favor of insurance companies accepting preexisting conditions, her insistence that the system be redesigned to keep costs down while expanding coverage to the uninsured were indeed the promise of Obamacare. Of course, the reality is quite different as a majority of Americans dislike the new system, many have lost their coverage, insurance companies are backing out of the marketplaces, and there is even greater pressure from the left to just do what "should" have been done in the first place: single-payer. Funny how Clinton never used the collapse of Vermont's single-payer state system against Bernie Sanders.
Not everything Clinton advocated has gone her way. "A decade of new research confirms that heavy exposure to violent and sexually explicit media triggers unhealthy responses from boys and girls alike, but we don't yet know the full effects of all this technology on our kids," she wrote for the tenth anniversary edition of the book in 2006, when she was senator from New York. Her proposed legislative solution—the Children and Media Research Advancement Act—"would coordinate and fund new research into the effects of viewing and using electronic media, including television, computers, video games, and the Internet on children's cognitive, social, physical, and psychological development."
The legislation never made it past the Senate, and yet it typifies Clinton's mode of argument throughout much of It Takes a Village. She takes a serious subject—in this case the potential harm to kids from popular culture and media—and, based on a selective understanding of scholarly research, she insists that there can be a solution and, as is so often the case for her, that the government should impose the remedy.
Her uncritical reliance on supposedly scientific discoveries about child development, psychology, and neuroscience is all the more shocking when you realize that there are already abundant examples of failure by policymakers attempting to convert the latest "science" into action. When legislators and regulators try to take a discovery and turn it into a uniform policy for the betterment of us all, the mistakes, inefficiencies, and costs can be astronomical. And often the solutions create more problems than they solve. For 30 years, the U.S. government went on a crusade against the use of butter, owing to the supposed "dangers" of saturated fats. But they were wrong about the dangers, and the heavy-handed nutritional guidance that resulted was arguably worse for our health than traditional ways of eating.
On the other hand, can we really object to her premise? "We all depend on other adults whom we know— from teachers to doctors to neighbors to pastors—and on those whom we may not—from police to firefighters to employers to media producers to political leaders—to help us inform, support, or protect our children."
I'm a mother of four kids and of course I want to protect my children and of course I want them to grow and thrive. Of course I want the surrounding community and the nation as a whole to support my values and my efforts. Every other parent I know feels the same, regardless of our differences over how to achieve those aims. What makes Clinton's vision so distasteful is how unrealistic and overbearing she is. For Clinton, the outcomes of not agreeing with her and not doing what she recommends are dire indeed. She warns,
The consequences are there for any of us to see: children's potential lost to spirit-crushing poverty, children's health lost to unaffordable care, children's hearts lost in divorce and custody fights, children's futures lost in an overburdened foster care system, children's lives lost to abuse and violence, our society lost to itself as we fail our children.
The other failure of Clinton's vision is that while she takes care to say that parental authority should be respected, she then goes on at great length to detail the many ways in which the "village" should help mom and dad raise their kids. But of course, she isn't really talking about a village, in which people are more or less equals, able to pitch in together but also, just as important, to ignore the nosy neighbor with the crackpot ideas.
Her "village" is government, which does not involve itself in families as a helpful equal but as an authority figure with coercive power at its disposal. She can never bring herself to admit that parents often know far better than government what their children need to thrive and that what parents most need from government is that it leave them alone.
Abby W. Schachter, a senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, is the author of No Child Left Alone: Getting the Government Out of Parenting, to be published by Encounter Books in August.
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