Salon Sunday Ridiculousness: Why Children Should Vote

Salon Sunday Ridiculousness: Why Children Should Vote

Salon Sunday Ridiculousness: Why Children Should Vote

As we scroll Salon on Sunday morning, we come across this piece written by Gail Cornwall. The long-winded interview with law professor, Adam Benforado, ultimately makes the argument of why children should be allowed to vote.

The article focuses on points made by Benforado in his new book entitled “A Minor Revolution“.

Children still end up on the street when their families can’t make rent. Not a handful of children—millions. They experience lead poisoning, toxic metals in baby food, death trap bassinets, and vaping. Among the twenty richest countries in the world, America is dead last on childhood mortality. Car crashes and firearm injuries persist as the leading causes of child fatalities because we’ve vigorously blocked gun and vehicle safety laws that our peers passed years ago.. We know so much more about what is good and bad for young people, but we do so much less about it. Why? Because we prioritize other principles, like parents’ rights and corporate profit, over child welfare.”-Adam Benforado, Salon

This is Salon, so we know where all of this is leading right out the gate. Let’s get to the talking points here, shall we? Lead poisoning and not deadly fentanyl coming across an insecure border (Joe Biden and his lead obsession). Toxic chemicals in food and items imported from China and other countries and not made in America (Joe Biden and his supply chain disaster). Car crashes because, like, too many people who do have to actually drive to work to support their children in gas-powered vehicles (The Democrats and their climate change fixation). Firearm injuries because we absolutely have to address guns (The Democrats and their obsession with the Second Amendment). We know so much more about what’s good and bad for young people, but we do so much less about it.

They know so much more about what’s good and bad for young people? Really? Like harmful hormone regimens and surgeries? Oh, I am sorry I triggered some liberal progressive reader somewhere. Fine. Gender-affirming care, it is:

But if said pre-teen boy, wants to be a girl, we need to prioritize this, I suppose. And parentsneed to get on-board with the desires of this child, despite his not fully-developed adolescent brain. Benforado, however, disagrees about these kids and their under-developed frontal lobes:

We’ve somehow ended up with a justice system that treats kids as adults when it comes to policing and punishment but not when it comes to basic rights,” he writes, noting that each year 76,000 children who aren’t allowed to watch R-rated movies are prosecuted as adults. In some states, they’re deemed fully responsible for rash choices made under peer pressure but not responsible enough to sell a bike or go to the dentist alone. These rules aren’t just wildly inconsistent; they’re also backwards, according to science.”-Adam Benforado, Salon

Again with the science. Yay, science! Salon loves science and loves to throw it in the face of Conservatives because, everybody in our camp is an anti-science bumpkin.

Studies show that a teen’s ‘capacity to understand and reason her way to a decision is comparable to an adult’s ability in situations that allow for coolheaded deliberation,’ Benforado explains. In other words, research on the adolescent brain says ‘yes’ to letting them vote and ‘no’ to prison.”-Gail Cornwall, Salon

“No” to prison is a good thing. Yes, to voting…eventually but not until they can get on a learn basic phone manners and how to talk to adults like civilized human beings for God’s sake.

Benforado ties into research that adolescents look for the immediate results instead of the long-term consequences. Well, duh. And how does this translate to allowing a child to vote? Which party is giving out more free stuff (that they will pay for later as adults)? Which party will give them free abortions and sex changes (again, that they will pay for later)? Cornwall then chimes in and states “the education of children is not a private matter” and that “in America, our old cars are scrutinized far more than our young homeschoolers.” Dear Jesus, take the wheel. These nut jobs firmly believe that our kids do not belong to us but to the State. Hell, they’ve even said so:

We have put the business of raising children squarely on the shoulders of individual parents, and it’s incredibly resource-intensive and exhausting. We have just abandoned this idea that raising kids is a communal enterprise. And it asks too much of parents. It’s one of the reasons American parents are feeling so burned out and depressed.”-Adam Benforado, Salon

More of this “it takes a village” crap. Benforado and Cornwall even muse at creating a “Children’s Bureau” that can address-you’ve guessed it- more lead paint, climate issues, gun violence and gender identity and “empower children with real political power.” Sheesh. Oh, and I almost forgot-giving babies a right to vote. (Hey, guys, newsflash…you’d have to not vote for killing them off if you want this to come to fruition.)

There’s also irony upon irony here. While these two talk about a young, fresh perspective determining our political future in America…who sits in Office? An old, senile, white man, that’s who.

The key point Salon misses when they say having a child is resource-intensive and exhausting is that this is what most, responsible parents have signed up when hearing that heartbeat for the first time. Raising children is the parent’s responsibility and to be honest, good parents know this and do not want to pawn this responsibility on our schools or our government. Can a teacher, a coach, or a parent of a friend be a mentor and fill in the gaps of a child who does not have a solid support system? Sure. But I am willing to bet most parents do want the sole responsibility of raising their children without the assistance of government agency. And, this responsibility is a rewarding one. I mean, we see some of the people in our “villages” and no, thank you. They do not have any business around our children. And, Salon? I’ve got news for you. Most of us will take this resource-intensive, utterly exhausting experience of raising a critical, free thinker who will vote when he’s 18 over a brainwashed robot who can vote at 13 any day of the week.

Photo Credit: Whoisjohngalt via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/Instapundit Readers!

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5 Comments
  • NTSOG says:

    An article today in the leftist Australian paper The Age discusses teenage brains: “Teen brains need more sleep: Why they struggle to get out of bed”.

    Two specialists – University of Sydney chair of adolescent medicine Kate Steinbeck and Dr Chris Seton, paediatric sleep specialist note:

    “… there are also “incredible brain developments” during adolescence.

    “[They] start developing the most effective communication and task pathways, so there’s an increase in synapses, which are nerve connections,” explains Steinbeck.

    “These are trimmed back over time as you find the optimal way of doing tasks, and your nerves get covered in more myelin which allows them to have the messages sent quicker.”

    With a rapidly changing brain and hormones, teenagers are particularly susceptible to the effects of inadequate sleep.

    “As they get tired, prefrontal cortex, the sensible brain shuts down and goes to sleep,” Seton says. “And the amygdala – the emotional bit of the brain – is still wide awake. We call it all petrol and no brakes. The brake is prefrontal cortex and the petrol is the amygdala.”

    Along with increased likelihood of risk-taking, impulsivity and emotional reactivity, teens struggle to retain information when they are tired. This also means trying to do homework, if they are tired, instead of getting the extra sleep is futile.

    “They’re less attentive, less likely to take in learning,” Steinbeck says. “Sleep lack is associated with mood disorders, particularly depressive disorders. And it’s something that [has] also probably been associated with heavier body weight.”

    In my experience teaching secondary school I found that teenagers can make reasoned statements about many issues, but they lack the life experience to contextualise those facts. Being able to parrot facts does not mean they can actually think laterally and consider multiple perspectives. The infamous and obsessive Greta Thunberg demonstrates this. Their overall social-emotional presentation is not stable; their impulse control is poor. Teenagers are also easily manipulated by others as the current gender contagion demonstrates. There are reasons we protect developing children and adolescents – often from themselves – but nowadays we must protect them as much from predatory Progressives.

    • GWB says:

      Teenagers are also easily manipulated by others as the current gender contagion demonstrates.
      Which is why our Progressive education systems want them to stay as teenagers, emotionally. The right wording for a progressive, though, is they are “more malleable” – easier to make into the widgets the progressives need for their utopia.

    • Abyss says:

      Why not? They have the same mental acuity as the supposedly adult Progolodytes, after all.

  • Nina Bookout says:

    “death trap bassinets?” Wow. Had NO idea.

    That said, the entire it takes a village crap the Salon writer is spouting is problematic given this case in point. A foster family, in St. Louis, MO, has two young children in their care right now. It’s a situation where the parents are totally unable/incapable of raising those children correctly.

    Benforado and Cornwell want the city/state to step in and raise kids. Except in the St. Louis case, CFS has been unresponsive and uncommunicative for MONTHS now. So the foster family is trying to find an adoptive family on their own who meets all the criteria. Yet those two Salon writers thing gov’t should raise the kids if ‘parents are burned out?’ RIIIIGHT.

  • GWB says:

    Among the twenty richest countries in the world, America is dead last on childhood mortality.
    Well, I know this person is a progressive now. This is one of the lies they love to promote. The primary reason for this “statistic” is that the nations with lower mortality count their mortality differently. The US counts every child, where the others do not count some birth outcomes as a birth to start with.

    death trap bassinets
    Ummm, no. We haven’t had those in 40+ years. And many they slapped that label on 40 years ago were not, either. Another indicator of Progressivism – using the same arguments from a battle won to urge the fight to go on today.

    We know so much more about what is good and bad for young people
    And there’s the “I’m an expert; I have all this data, and I can use it to make life perfectly safe and happy for everyone, if only they’ll shut up and do what they’re told.” I can guarantee I knew more about what is actually good and bad for young people 30 years ago than you do now, bubba.

    it’s incredibly resource-intensive
    Then how about not taxing us so much for a thoroughly unsuccessful public school system and welfare? Then we’d have lots more resources….
    Also, how did all those parents do it when this country was being built? They (by progressive lights) had even fewer resources, yet not only managed, but gave us all the heroes of the American experience.

    These people are why “public schools” need to be totally de-funded and parents made to raise their own children* and thereby choose/implement their children’s education. The resources for homeschooling are overwhelming, all without public funding.

    Public school administration delenda est.

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