Five Things Children Know That Liberals Have Forgotten

A friend sent me a link to the following column by well-known conservative writer John Hawkins.  This article originally appeared on the Townhall website.  I contacted Mr. Hawkins directly and he was kind enough to grant me his permission to reprint his post on my site:

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FIVE THINGS CHILDREN KNOW THAT LIBERALS HAVE FORGOTTEN by John Hawkins (2/28/12)

"Liberals love to think of themselves as intellectual and nuanced, but liberalism is incredibly simplistic. It's nothing more than ‘childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues.’ Very seldom does any issue that doesn't involve pandering to their supporters boil down at its core level to more than feeling ‘nice’ or ‘mean’ to liberals. This makes liberals ill equipped to deal with complex issues." -- John Hawkins, September 21, 2007

Liberals are actually worse than children, not just because it's so appalling to see adults who view themselves as highly intelligent and sophisticated thinking like little kids, but because in some respects, left-wing thinking is inferior to that of children. There are things that five year olds all across this country know that liberal child-men are intellectually unable to comprehend.

1) Life's not fair. There's probably not a kid in this country who hasn't said, "That's not fair," and has heard a "Life's not fair" in return. You could actually go farther than that. Not only is life not fair, the word "fair" is completely arbitrary and primarily dependent on whose goose is getting gored.

If you're paying 35% of your income in taxes and are being told that it's not "fair" you're only paying that much when almost half the country isn't paying any income tax at all, you probably disagree in the strongest of terms. On the other hand, someone making $10,000 a year might not think it's "fair" for someone else to make so much more money than he does after taxes. If you're a black, Harvard educated business owner with 10 million dollars in the bank, you may think it's perfectly fair that your son gets into a college over a more qualified son of a white garbage collector because of Affirmative Action, but it's pretty easy to see how the person being discriminated against because of his race wouldn't feel the same way.

In other words, one person's "fair" is another's person's "unfair" which can become a huge problem when the government starts defining what's "fair" and putting the force of law behind it. Yes, some of that has to happen in order to have an orderly and law abiding society, but increasingly, what's "fair" is becoming little more than an overbearing government and tyrannical judges abusing the law to do favors for the politically well-connected and voting blocks they think will help "their side." No matter what they do, life will never be “fair" and trying to make it so is an inherently "unfair" exercise in utopianism that has proven to lead to considerably more misery than simply accepting that "Life isn't fair" in the first place.

2) You can't have everything you want. This is something most kids learn when they don't get a pony at Christmas or when their parents take them into a dollar store and tell them they can have "two things."

This is not a lesson liberals seem to have ever learned because their thinking is, "If it's a 'good idea,' then it should be funded, regardless of what it costs, regardless of whether it's worth the money." It's like liberals start with the assumption that we have infinite money and if anyone opposes spending for any reason, it must be because he’s "mean." Did you know we actually have a higher debt load per person than Greece ($44,215 vs. $39,000), a nation that's only being saved from default because richer countries are paying its bills? So what happens when we run out of money, go into a depression, taxes explode, and the checks from the government slow down and stop? Judging by what's happening in Greece, liberals will start throwing Molotov cocktails in the street and blame everyone but themselves for spending the country into oblivion.

3) Good people make the world work. Most fairy tales, boiled down to their essence, consist of someone being put in danger and either learning to overcome the danger through working hard and showing virtue or having a "good" prince, teacher, or fairy godmother help the hero triumph. Who is Superman? Captain America? Spider-Man? They're personifications of goodness and righteousness come to life to protect people and to right wrongs. Children not only believe in goodness; they want to BE that hero when they grow up.

Liberalism, on the other hand, undercuts Christianity at every opportunity and sneers at goodness and virtue. Liberals believe enforcing moral standards is one of the worst things you can do. They consider judging people for bad behavior to be "mean" and impermissible. The liberal replacement for decency, character, and virtue is the pseudo-morality of being "nice, tolerant, and non-judgmental." Of course, you can be "nice, tolerant, and non-judgmental" and still be a bad person, a coward, and generally worthless as a human being. Being genuinely good requires a moral code, it requires drawing a clear line between right and wrong, and it requires having the fortitude to stand up for what's right. The real heroes, the people who make the country work as opposed to parasites who leech off the efforts of better men, generally turn out to be exactly the sort of good people that liberals hold in complete and utter contempt.

4) Liberals think EVERYONE should get a trophy. Oh, you're the right race? It should be easier for you to get into college. You're the right gender? Well, you should get paid more even though you work less because you take three months off to take care of your children. You want to work for a non-profit? Well, you should make as much as that guy running a small business because some people think that's just as valuable.

Wrong.

Life is a competition on an almost infinite number of levels with an almost infinite number of ways to "win." As P.J. O'Rourke has said, "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." If you think "banksters" and CEOs have it so much better than everyone else, you don't demand that the government put you on the same level they are; you become a banker or CEO. If you're a secretary and you don't think it's right that a fireman makes more than you do, become a fireman. If you like having lots of leisure time, but you want to make the same money as someone who works two jobs, then you make your choice as to what you value more and you live it.

Everyone can't be on the same level. Some people will be born with richer parents, better looks, more athletic ability, more brains, a better environment, etc., etc. All of them won't be good at the same things and the only way to make sure they all "get a trophy" in the same areas is to make sure that everyone is equally mediocre. Smart people push for equality of opportunity and let everyone rise to his own level while liberals try to tear people down and turn them all into losers to insure equality of results.

5) Nobody owes you a living. There are a lot of people who have come to believe that they're owed a certain standard of living just for being born in this country. Oh, you're an American citizen? That means you're owed a free education, a house, medical care, a job you enjoy with lots of vacation days, and then early retirement with someone picking up the bills.

Wrong.

You're actually owed "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" all of which you're primarily responsible for getting and maintaining yourself. Even most people's parents expect them to move out at 18 and take care of themselves and newsflash, the government isn't your parents. Because Americans are a benevolent people, we've chosen to put a basic safety net in place to take care of people who fall on hard times. Unfortunately, it has been so abused that we have a whole movement full of bums, thugs, and losers with their hands out, demanding that everyone take care of them because they think they should be children for life and the government should take the place of their mommy and daddy.

Again, wrong.

At the end of the day, you are responsible for taking care of yourself. You want a bike, get a paper route. Want to go to college at a private school for 6 years to get a degree in lesbian studies, then get a job, pay your bills, and pay off your own loans. Live below your means, save some money, get married before you have a kid, and if, God forbid, you do fall on hard times and take government assistance, have the common decency to feel a deep sense of shame for leeching off your betters instead of paying your own way.

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(If you wish to read more of John Hawkins works, click on:  http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/)