Three year-olds get It.
So I was teaching a group of three year-olds today, and they started to argue with each other about something. I started to think to myself:
"Man. I don't need this shit. This reminds of being around statists."
In the end, however, the three year-olds came up with their own non-violent solution to the problem at hand, which is more than I can say for statists.
Almost all parents teach their children that it is wrong to hit, cheat, or steal. Why does this magically change when it comes to "government."
Are moral values such as not hitting, cheating, or stealing, only applicable sometimes?
So many children hear their mothers and fathers talking about the war on the television:
We oughta just nuke those guys!
War is hell! It's collateral damage! Innocent life being lost just can't be helped. Get over it!
This is not even to mention the endless other examples of the massive cultural hypocrisy of "do as I say, not as I do." If folks are going to sit around and think that kids don't hear this stuff, don't take note, and don't wonder, then there is really no reason to pretend to be shocked at the "horrors of war," or the "immoral youth."
Until parents start teaching their children that government wars are wholly unnecessary, evil, and wrong, that taxation is really just stealing, and that no, plants are not "evil," then their children will rightly begin to see them as hypocrites as they mature. This realization is often too frightening for a child, as mom and dad are the caregivers and must be "right," if a sense of security is to be maintained.
The viewpoint will then be adjusted, in the child's mind, so that hitting is sometimes right, stealing sometimes necessary, and if a few little kids are left for dead in the dirt in the Middle East, after a bloody drone attack on some small, obscure village, well, that's just "part of life." After all, MOM said so, and MOM (or DAD, whichever the case may be) would never lie to me!
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
