intramuralist ™

Prior to Boston’s bombing garnering most of the nation’s attention, the week previous cable news host Melissa Harris-Perry received more attention than usual for the news she made as opposed to the news she reported.  In only a 30 second promotional ad for her network, the television host and Tulane professor said the following:

“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have, because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children.  ‘Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility.’  We haven’t had a very collective notion of ‘these are our children.’  So part of it is we have to breakthrough our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.  Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.”   [Emphasis was Harris-Perry’s.]

While the Intramuralist previously paid little attention to the rhetorical flap that has since transpired on all sides of the equation, my desire today is to briefly analyze what the TV host said and why my internal alarms are unfortunately now sounding…

In attempts to either squelch the firestorm (or gain increased publicity — you decide), Harris-Perry acknowledged that while she can comprehend how many are “genuinely upset” by what she said, she still stands by her statement.  She reiterated that the ad “isn’t about me wanting to take your kids, and this isn’t even about whether children are property.  This is about whether we as a society, expressing our collective will through our public institutions, including our government, have a right to impinge on individual freedoms in order to advance a common good.”  

That emphasis is mine.  That’s where my alarm begins to sound…

Let’s be clear.  People sometimes make bad choices.  We sometimes make bad choices.  I still make bad choices.  I’ve previously allowed my kids to sleep ‘til noon and eat ice cream for breakfast.  I also have zero doubt that at times I’ve allowed them to believe some things that were not true — even completely, totally ignorantly on my part; yes, I have at times taught them wrongly… maybe even “allowing” my kids to believe something that didn’t advance the desired “common good” that one of the country’s presumed intellectuals passionately believes in.

But a free, democratic republic, that teaching is no one’s right nor responsibility other than my household’s.  Perhaps even more significantly — and why this intelligent professor’s comments strike me as a contradiction of wisdom — is because it is no one else’s responsibility to teach my kids rightly.  It is no one else’s right nor responsibility to discern what is right or wrong for my children… that applies whether the topic be worldly or weighty, no matter if even about ice cream.

For me, that’s what bothers me about this ad.  With all due respect to Melissa Harris-Perry, I do not think of my children as my property; that’s not the issue.

Each of us has been endowed with inalienable rights.  Note:  the Declaration of Independence credits our Creator for those rights — not any desiring overreach of government.  One of those rights — and responsibilities — is to raise our children well.  That is not our community’s right nor the government’s responsibility.  That job is notably, divinely ours.

So if in my responsibility I make errors in judgment — which will happen sometimes — and if I make errors that cause partisans on one side or another (or both) to cringe at my teaching — it is no one’s right to play the moral compass or perceived human Holy Spirit and convict my kid; it is not their right to straighten my kid out.  Alarmingly, that argument is far more compatible with a socialist state than with a democratic republic that long ago acknowledged the individual endowment by our Creator.

Pass the ice cream, please.  For the record, we’ll be serving it for breakfast.

Respectfully,

AR

(With all due respect to “Sound of Music” lovers…)

How do you solve a problem like Korea?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

How do you find a word that means Korea?

A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!

Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her

Many a thing she ought to understand

But how do you make her stay

And listen to all you say

How do you keep a wave upon the sand

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Korea?

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

How do you solve a problem like North Korea?  How do we hold this hostile ‘moonbeam’ in our hand?  … The rhetoric is rising.  The probability of a military conflict is increasing.  Allow me to first share facts (much of which was outlined by USA Today this weekend)…

• First president Kim Il Sung established the country’s self-described Juche (“self-reliant”) state, which has essentially cut off North Korea economically and diplomatically from the rest of the world.
• According to South Korean government estimates and Human Rights Watch, between 150,000-200,000 North Koreans live in prison camps.  A 2011 Amnesty International report reveals that as many as 40% of camp prisoners die from malnutrition while doing mining, logging and agricultural work with rudimentary tools in harsh conditions.
• The World Food Programme estimates that 6 million of North Korea’s 25 million people are in need of food aid and one-third of children are chronically malnourished or stunted.
• Only military and government officials can own a motor vehicle.
• Citizens are allowed 1 of 28 government approved haircuts.
• All legal televisions are tuned to state-controlled domestic programming; the Internet offers only a closed domestic network.  Observers believe that few citizens receive news from any source other than North Korean propaganda.
• Nearly all property belongs to the state.
• A modern independent judicial system does not exist.
• Religious freedom does not exist.
• The death of the leader Kim Jong-il in Dec. of 2011, prompted great, global uncertainty as to how the country will interact with foreign nations in the future.
• 2 weeks ago, new leader Kim Jong-un (youngest son of Kim Jong-iI) declared it was in ‘a state of war’ with South Korea, promising “stern physical actions” against “any provocative act.”  He also announced that rockets were ready to be fired at American bases.

While many remain on edge because of the nuclear capability possessed by North Korea, many others dismiss the problem because the totalitarian country is a fairly small, singular state.  The challenge, however, lies in the fact that global conflicts are usually sparked by singular, sometimes isolated acts…  After multiple diplomatic clashes between nations, for example, World War I started after the assassination of the Archduke of Austria Hungary and his wife… World War II, with unresolved tensions from war #1, is generally understood to have been prompted by the German/Russian invasion of Poland and the Japanese invasion of China…  singular countries… isolated acts.

So how do we solve a problem like Korea?  While many among us promote peace at all costs, that position will likely not serve effective in halting the hostility of such a “flibbertijibbet” country [“flibbertijibbet” chosen for self, diplomatic purposes].  Unfortunate or not, there exists a time for everything… a season for every activity under heaven… a time to be born and a time to die, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time for war and a time for peace.

Let’s pray this isn’t a time for war.  But until the problem of North Korea is firmly and effectively extinguished, the possibility solemnly remains.

Respectfully…

AR