I had no idea that by ages 5 and 7 my kids would already be getting turned into environ-mental-ist wackos.
This morning, my 7-year-old son, just a couple weeks shy of starting 2nd grade, finished watching the DVD Epic, which their mother bought for them yesterday, and came into my office asking to go to the "Energy Star" website.
I was already familiar with the propaganda Energy Star (with the government's help and using our money) peddles to kids. Three summers ago I noticed posters inside my town's public schools using the Lorax movie to motivate kids to "save the planet".
Anyway, I humored my son and we went to the EnergyStar.GOV site. There we were met with this page:
If you go to the actual site, the "HELP" sign sticking out of the North Pole pops in and out of supposedly melting ice and bops around. Nice touch. The pink vocab box on the top right changes every time you visit or reload the page, showing words like "renewable energy," "CFL's," "photovoltaic cells," "greenhouse gases," and other things every young skull full of mush needs to know. The green "fun facts" box changes too, giving scary statistics about all the evil things the U.S. does to destroy the environment.
From this web page you can click on the spinning wheel at the bottom and select various games and activities. My son chose this word search game:
OK, "clean air," "clean water," is fine, whatever. But "togetherness" and "respect"??? How much leftist feel-good gobbledygook can one government-funded website squeeze into one child's word search game??? Someone should let them know they forgot "bullying"!
Anyway, while my son played these activities he began complaining that "Cars are bad!" My 5-year-old daughter seconded that, bemoaning cars' "smoke". I asked, "Well, how would we get around?" To which my son quickly replied, "By bike." (I immediately recalled a story El Rushbo talked about this week about young millennials being glorified by NPR for living a car-free lifestyle and getting around by bike.)
How does Epic fit in to all this? Our EPA (again with our tax dollars) is using the characters, who in the movie "save the planet", to encourage viewers to go to the Energy Star website and to "join Team Energy Star in the EPIC fight to protect the climate!" They've done this by playing advertisements on the DVD following the movie.
This page is at schoolfamily.com, a website associated with America's PTA/PTO organizations.
What was I, an informed citizen but also a parent, to do? I calmly explained to my kids that cars were not evil and that the website was meant to scare kids into thinking that we're destroying the planet. It was a good way of teaching them that not everything they see on TV or online is true. I was also straightforward and explained in a way for kids to understand that the people trying to scare us to stop using cars and electricity really just don't like the fact that people have ways to be successful and prosperous and provide for their families. I also pointed out that the scarers haven't even given up their own energy-indulgent lifestyles.
Not quite convinced of my explanation, my son reasoned that at least littering is definitely bad for the planet. Which I, of course, agreed with.
But the conversation wasn't over. Done with the computer game in my office, my two kids were about to head upstairs to play something else when my son stopped at the doorway and insisted the light be turned off to save energy. I told him not to because, for one thing, it wasn't light enough in my office at 9:30 in the morning to use only sunlight, and in addition, the fixture in my office had those curly CFL bulbs in there anyway. (Why the hell not? They last longer and in the long run they're cheaper.) So my son reluctantly turned the light back on and went up to play with his sister.
I had no idea that by ages 5 and 7 my kids would already be getting turned into environ-mental-ist wackos.
But I'm just one parent trying to "fight back the liberal hoardes." What I'd like to know is: How are other parents dealing with creeping leftism everywhere -- schools, songs, movies, websites, and even commercials?
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