 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Who says that all the best ideas originate in the United States? In a country that some people rate as one of the most freedom-oriented nations in the world -- New Zealand -- comes a scheme that is truly breathtaking in the boldness and originality of its vision. The caring and dedicated staff at Tahunanui kindergarten in Nelson, South Island, have demonstrated the quality of their thinking and allegiance to liberty by demanding that the tykes under their charge be required to obtain a license to play with a toy gun.
One can only wait with bated breath for their counterparts to the north to glom onto this enlightened policy and charge it with the force of law here America.
Any misguided youth who might desire to play the role of law officer and "shoot" the bad guys will be swiftly disabused of his miscreant notions. Can't pop a crook. Apparently, cops in New Zealand normally perform their duties unarmed. And, of course, no child should seek to emulate those heathens in the USA who arrest criminals at the point of a gun.
Seeking a plastic "weapon" so you can destroy an endangered species? Oh, horrors! How could you? Imaginary animals are your friends, don't you know. You mustn't even pretend to harm such invisible targets.
Graciously, however, these pint-sized shootists will be permitted to obtain a license for their dangerous armaments should they merely desire to end the suffering of an injured creature. "Killing" make-believe pests also passes muster.
Such overbearing indoctrination gains the "tacit approval" of the police in the odd belief that without minute monitoring and control of their fantasy worlds, little boys will relentlessly mature into mass murders or -- now hold onto your hats -- police officers who shoot lawbreakers!
Get 'em used to requesting permission to defend their lives. Accustom them at an early age to producing a card to show their compliance with stupefyingly thick-headed authority figures. Destroy any vestige of independence or sense of justice so they will grow into docile adults who would never even think of rocking the boat or asserting themselves.
Can't happen here in the home of the Second Amendment? In the land from which sprang games of "cowboys and Indians," "cops and robbers"?
Don't bet on it.
The brainwashing and conditioning to lay the groundwork for such nonsense is well underway.
Kmart -- that bastion of principle which once hired virulently anti-self-defense and totally hypocritical Rosy O'Donnell as its product huckster -- recently announced that it will begin to demand proof of age before game enthusiasts will be permitted to purchase "violent" games. Not satisfied with coerced ratings from game manufacturers, Kmart now maintains it must impose yet another layer of control to prevent virtual murderers from roaming our streets.
It's for our own good, of course, and the good of our impressionable and mindless offspring. (See my "For the Children" for further analysis of this kind of blatant exploitation of kids for the purposes of political power.) Already, Sears and Wards have dropped "mature" rated games. Toys 'R' Us already imposes the Big-K brand of monitoring on would-be computer assassins. Wal-mart eagerly affirms it is following in the footsteps of the others.
Some may chalk this activity up to nothing more than election-year posturing as retailers seek to appease the politicos in Washington who periodically clamor and shout about the detrimental effects of "violent" images in movies, television, and games. (If the myriad false claims of the cause-and-effect relationship between such images and real violence had any substantive basis in fact, we would be witnessing skyrocketing rates of murder, mayhem, and slaughter as millions of game players move into adolescence and adulthood. Funny that such events are still so rare...) (For more on this, see my "The Myth of Gun Violence" and "In Praise of Violence.")
Unfortunately, the charlatans in our nation's capital (who are not above accepting generous payoffs, er, donations from those same purveyors of violence they so loudly decry) will pounce on the flimsiest of pretenses to increase their strangle hold on our culture. The efforts at "voluntary restraint" by manufacturers and retailers are as "voluntary" as our tax system. They represent the same "choice" as offered by a robber who says, "Your money or your life. Your choice."
Speaking for Kmart, Frank Buscemi was quoted by CNN as saying that, "It's the self-regulation that everyone was hoping for, so it's not done for us." (Or should that be to us!)
Only in the warped world of Washington can extorted behavior be characterized with a straight face as "voluntary" or "chosen." Our self-appointed guardians of the public weal proclaim without a hint of self-awareness or shame that "if you don't voluntarily police yourself, we'll pass a law to force you to police yourself." Do it our way or else! Ah, yes. The essence of liberty and self-responsibility...
Blow up aspirin factories and night watchmen; wreck a country's infrastructure, it's bridges, roads, and businesses; kill and murder thousands of innocent people in countries spanning the globe; burn scores of men, women, and children in their compound; shoot a mother cradling her baby; blast away at citizens seeking to defend themselves from men in black masks and uniforms bursting unannounced into their homes in the dead of night; destroy livelihoods, lives, and freedom in an insane war on drugs; shred the rule of law by suing and threatening to bankrupt tobacco companies; send an innocent child back to a ruthless dictatorship after pointing an automatic weapon at his head; do any of those and you are lauded, reelected, promoted, enriched, and feted by your accomplices in crime.
It's nonsense. It's obscene. It's an affront to any decent, thinking human being who values life and liberty.
It's high time we put a stop to it once and for all, before it's too late.
