When I Think Back On All The Shit I Learned In High School...

...none of it was quite as bad as this. From an article by Christina Hoff Sommers:

Which games are deemed safe and self-affirming? The National PTA recommends a cooperative alternative to the fiercely competitive "tug of war" called "tug of peace." Some professionals in physical education advocate activities in which children compete only with themselves, such as juggling, unicycling, pogo sticking, and even "learning to ... manipulate wheelchairs with ease."

Hmmm... making kids learn juggling, unicycling, and pogo-sticking?

Next lesson: How to curl yourself up into a defensive fetal position when you're getting your fuckin' ass Goodfellas-stomped by every non-emasculated guy out there. Guys who don't juggle, unicycle, or pogo-stick.

Maybe they can change the name of that from "getting punched out" to "getting peaced out."

For God's sake. When did teachers decide that society was best served by transforming boys into women?

Probably around 1953, given their mentality. They just feel comfortable putting the program into action now.

There are a lot of people who just want to repeal manhood. It's not so bad when they contstantly rip into adult men-- hey, we're men, we're supposed to be able to handle such whining and sniping. Sure, we cry ourselves to sleep every night, but during daylight we put up a brave front.

But they're doing this to children who don't know any better. And some of them are actually impresionable, and want to do whatever it takes to please the teachers they (unfortunately) respect.

Let's cut to the quick. Stop overprescribing Ritalin to boys and simply castrate them. That's what you're after; why settle for half-steps?

Tendentious Connection Update: Charges filed against the monsters who sexually assaulted a handicapped girl in school.

Okay, I've got to say I've never liked it when Rush Limbaugh would attempt to link a discreet act of sickness to liberalism. Most of the time I figure he's really just filling time, stretching (both time and a point), but I still don't really like the attempt to pin a lot of vile criminal behavior on a political philosophy.

To some extent, it's fair. If liberals keep telling criminals "It's not your fault; it's society's fault," that really must have some (smallish to be sure) effect on encouraging criminal behavior, by giving a faux-intellectual cover to paper over what vestiges of guilt, shame, and decency remain in the souls of monsters.

But usually it's unfair.

I'm going to dabble in the arguably unfair right now. I'm not going to pretend that rape is a new phemenon, or that boys (and men) haven't been inflicting forcible sex on girls (and women) for all 100,000+ years of human history.

But: I wonder about this.

Part of education is character education. But character education can only work if there is some code that appeals to the student. For men, that code has historically been one of honor and duty and truthfulness. And, yes, a bit of chivalry thrown into the mix.

Suppose misguided educators are now attempting to indoctrinate a wholly alien code on to boys. A code that does not, will not, and cannot resonate with 95% of boys. A code they think is complete bullshit.

And there is little out there in society to offer or reinforce an alternate code, a more traditional code.

Being offered a code that they dismiss a simple lie, would that not tend to make some boys believe that all codes of decency and honor are likewise bullshit? And would many of these boys simply become nihilists and moral monsters, for want of any sort of internal code -- and the shame and guilt that comes from failing that code -- to restrict their behavior?

I don't know. I'm not really trying to pin this awful assault on liberalism. But ideas have consequences, and most ideas have unintended consequences (which often are far more powerful than the intended consequences).

Let's stop trying to turn boys into respectable young women -- which will never work -- and start trying to turn them, as we did for centuries before, into honorable young men. Yes, they're still going to exhibit some of that awful masculine behavior that our ultrafeminized teacher corps so despises, but maybe they'll grow up to be good men, or at least as good as men can be.

Arms Are Made For Huggin' Update: A magically stupid poem by a cat named Shel Silverstein:

Hug O' War

a poem by the late Shel Silverstein
[Author of A Light in the Attic]

I will not play at tug o' war

I'd rather play at hug o' war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses

And everyone grins

And everyone cuddles

And everyone wins.

I don't have any beef against rolling around on the floor with a chick and kissing her, and maybe even touching her boobies, but I've got to say that a lot of this touchy-feely "love" shit the left is peddling to children has some decidedly creepy sexual overtones. And undertones. And mid-range tones, too.

This is a fine poem to hang over the door at Plato's Retreat, but I don't know if we should be selling kids on Cuddle Parties. Let them do their own PR.

Thanks to apotheosis.

posted by Ace at 02:10 PM

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