School reprimands seven-year-old boys for playing 'army game'Of course, before we get carried away with the Limey jokes, let's admit that it could have happened at most schools in America, too.
The thing is, does nobody stop to think about any of the long term effects of this suppression of "army games"? These days, little Johnny and little Pierre and little Gunther are spending the first fifteen or so years of their lives being relentlessly hammered with the message that guns are bad, violence is bad, rough play is bad, the army is bad...
I don't mean to be alarmist or anything, but little Achmed and little Ivan and little Jianjun are not being taught this. Are we planning on interposing an army of unwilling, soft, toothless creatures between us and them in the future? Is that the game plan?
Fortunately, kids are resilient and innovative: Take away their toy guns, and they'll use sticks. Take away their sticks, and they'll use anything from chicken fingers to their own fingers.
(H/T to Unc.)
40 comments:
Not every little Johnny. Some of us still teach our kids how to fight, even though society frowns on it.
"I don't mean to be alarmist or anything, but little Achmed and Ivan and Jianjun are not being taught this. Are we planning on interposing an army of unwilling, soft, toothless creatures between us and them in the future? Is that the game plan?"
But, isn't taking care of problems like that what America is there for?
WV: wanch - where Elmer Fudd keeps his cattle.
Mark,
You'll note that I said "we". Little Johnny is here in the 'States, too.
(I notice you're in New Jersey, where this happened.)
The plan is to eventually have our wars fought by drones and robots. The public school ones, of course.
jf
Have to raise the kids proper, you know.
“Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.”
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
"Are we planning on interposing an army of unwilling, soft, toothless creatures between us and them in the future? Is that the game plan?"
In a word, Yes.
The people in charge hate Western culture. Most especially American (and, formerly, British) exceptionalism. Dividing up what is left of the Western nations, and allowing parity among all (even if it is a desperate existence), is their goal...just so long as they remain in charge of whatever is left. They believe that their technology will provide superiority over those 'arab savages' and allow their continued rule. They have no other plans other than to destroy what is left and loot the last bit of production, so long as it ALSO keeps the producers down and them in power for another minute.
A little Randian, I know, but it is what it is.
I suppose that the drawback to having a rich, advanced, civilized society is that one begins to take peace and prosperity for granted, and forgets that the universe (not to mention its two-legged, more-or-less hairless inhabitants) is a pretty rugged place. In a geological timeframe, we westerners are about a half of a tick removed from having to kill each other with a rock to get first choice of eating the raw carcass of some small animal; pretending that we will never have to fight and kill to survive is bloody foolish, frankly, dangerous.
Telling little boys that "playing war" is bad is part and parcel with those animal lovers who abhore hunting or wearing fur coats as "cruelty to animals" but don't blink twice at picking up a ribeye from the Piggly Wiggly: it is willful blindness to reality.
Happily, I think that it's harder to overcome evolution and natural selection than these people think: little boys grow to be men who have the killer instinct no matter whether they grow up playing with Barbie or with GI Joe. I suspect that Audie Murphy had more to do with hunting and 'cropping as a boy that playing war, yet he did OK for himself.
I disagree, while I think the masses of sheeple are a non starter we have that random fraction of the populace that understand that. Their saying yes and not much more makes the sheeple handlers happy. Fortunately those are also intelligent creatures that while not making noise are not conforming one bit.
In the end during the Revolutionary War we had sheeple, the other side and those that took action. The other side was a small group, the action takers were a small group and the sheeple mostly fought to stay out of it till they were forced to take sides.
So it goes again.
As to the zero tolerance [Null Toleranz]it's the sheeple, they will learn when the wolves start discussing dinner.
Eck!
Thank god for Infinity Ward and EA Digital Illusions CE.
Was already a suspension in 2001 for assault with a chicken finger.
We made stuff. And the stuff we made was often as dangerous if not more so than real firearms.
My mother lobbied for NO bb guns. And won, until I started filling squirt guns (This was before super soakers) with rubbing alcohol and making impromptu flamethrowers. Dad reasoned- and mom gave in- that a BB gun was safer in my hands than the things I concocted myself
And to think that I was just bitching about how America has emasculated its warriors by keeping them in city sized gun free zones, and not letting them protect themselves from scumbags.
"Thank god for Infinity Ward and EA Digital Illusions CE."
HA! Very true.
"To ride, shoot straight and speak the truth..." is still the law of youth in Free America; which is still as much a "place" (albeit somewhat reduced in size) as an idea...
Looks like the Subjects of the Crown seem to have forgotten the words to their National Song : "Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the Waves. We will never ever be SLAVES!"
Little Achmed is being taught to play with sticks of dynamite, and to dress-up in dynamite style.
It will become a REAL problem when the original story doesn't make the news anymore.
gvi
I saw three kids playing down the block from me last night as I was walking the dog. The oldest had two large colorful boxes on, like something a small TV might come in, one on his head and one on his torso like armor and was waving a sword. His little sister had swim goggles and a tutu and another sword, and the other brother had some sort of crown and a lego-y looking pistol in hand as they invaded their front porch.
It made me smile as they yelled at each other, weapons swinging. i couldn't remember the last time I saw a kid wearing a TV box or a detergent box as body armor...
Matt
St Paul
Naw, we'll be fine. The news told me that Call of Duty is creating a generation of mindless Neo-con killing machines.
...And then there's airsoft FWIW.
WV: ovabless
Some folk are ovabless with an abundance of self-esteem.
The question is, is this 'demilitarizing' dumbing-down of children part of the Fabian progressive agenda? To create generations of people unwilling and unable to 'take up arms' because they find the concept alien?
Or, is this a product of the peacenik 60s generation, morphing into what the statists want - a maleable Eloi?
THE ANSWER - BOTH!
Og:
Metal straw on a can of WD-40 (with a Zippo in the other hand) was LOTS of fun, too!
wv:bromphog - well, it was some kind of phog
Historically, the next step is to hire Achmed to fight Ivan, and Jianjun to police Achmed, and so forth. This ended badly the last thousand times it was tried, but this time it's different!
So much for anything being won on the playing fields of Eton ...
Little Gunther, Johnny and Pierre are being perfectly educated for their future jobs at the UN, NATO and the EU.
Little Ivan and Achmed can't wait to grow up in that reality.
Gerry
I'm not worried about my kids here in the deep-red Northwest corner of NJ. When baseball and football doesn't interfere, the boy greatly enjoys the club's Friday night rifle classes.
He has enjoyed the COD series although I won't let him play Black Ops due to the language.
I've seen the previews of Modern Warfare 3 - fighting against an invasion of America - good Cold War stuff.
My daughter just graduated 8th Grade. More than one kid said he wanted to serve in the military after High School.
The kids are okay - as long as we leave them a decent country.
Mom's super-size can of Aquanet and a cig lighter was the best flamethrower EVAR.
Humans have a fighting SPIRIT, whether mommy and daddy like it or not. It's how we are. When we're born, we're already warriors, most of us. I have some friends, a very Liberal couple, who agonizingly cannot comprehend Where They Went Wrong, because their precious snowflake chews his sandwich into the shape of a handgun and shoots everyone at the table.
We'll survive just fine, although the savages will give us fits for a time.
I had a neighbor who was determined to raise her son in a gun and violence free home. She was horrified one day when she saw him running around the front yard with a barbie doll stuck in his belt and "shooting" things with a rifle that looked a lot like a three foot long stick. Then he dropped the rifle and pull out his barbie doll and proceeded to continue shooting with his 'pistol'. (Barbie doll pistol - no arms, one leg is the grip, other leg the barrel, you sharply pivot the head left then right to reload)
His mother just doesn't know where her sweet little boy learned such aborhent behavior. She apparently doesn't know that my kind, gentle, teenage son who is always friendly to her son, and the teen age girl from down the street who babysits her son are both competitive shooters. (it sounds like he was trying to replicate one of this babysitter's three-gun matches)
The next day my son gave him a couple of his old cap pistols. He managed to keep them hidden from his mother for almost three months before she caught him with them. Since the kid didn't rat my kid out when being grilled by his Mom, his baby sitter gave him a couple of her's to replace the others that were confiscated.
Saki figured it out 100 years ago.
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ToysPeac.shtml
NATO:
Needs Americans To Operate
Churchill weeps
And little Dontavius, and all the little girls from everywhere.
Don't worry. The drones and rockets and oceans will keep us safe.
Just as their parents, the battleships and bombers did in 1941.
And as the dreadnoughts and the Channel kept England safe in 1914.
Count me among those with enough faith in evolution not to be worried. We humans may be a very heavily cultural species, but I suspect trying to de-violence the species starting from children will be every bit as successful as de-sexing has been.
"I suspect that Audie Murphy had more to do with hunting and 'cropping as a boy that playing war, yet he did OK for himself."
Slightly off topic, I took a course with Mr. Murphy's godson, who shared some insights into the character of the man. He was kind. We all know he was brave. He was not a "money-man" with a head for business. But, he would help someone out if he could.
If this country still produces people of his caliber, then even Genghis Khan on the rampage would be a minor irritant.
NOW on topic:
The school would do better to promote the "Code of Chivalry" as the baseline to any "army games" played. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/knights-code-of-chivalry.htm
ANY protesting parents are right to reprimand the school for this asinine decision. Even in jolly old England.
Ulises from CA
Little Jose who went unwatched and untutored is a member of the Nortenos and gets his guns from the ATF - he just got out of Folsom. His daddy was a Pachuco who spent time in Victorville.
As usual, Kipling said it best.
And as usual, no one listened.
Somehow I remember reading how the Romans were pretty much out of decent Patrician military men just after Caesar, so the later Generals were New Men like Gaius Marius, or Romanized barbarians like Hermanius, Flavius Aetius, Theodoricus, Stilicho, Belisarius, and the occasional eunuch like Narses
Hell, little Achmed and little Ivan and little Jianjun are being taught how to shoot REAL GUNS, and how to hate America!!!
Old NFO - They aren't being taught well. Achmed only hits the target when Allah wills it. Little Bram makes dime-size groups because he has correct sight-picture and alignement, a good position, proper breathing and trigger squeeze...
The Sheepdogs
Most humans truly are like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.
Their lives serene upon Life’s farm,
They sense no threat nor fear no harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat; there is no need.
To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries,
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fetid reek of the carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told,
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.
But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves attack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the rout,
Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!”
Thus is our nature but too our plight
To keep our dogs on leashes tight
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Until he has us by the throat,
We pay no heed; we take no note.
Not until he strikes us at our core
Will we unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.
And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before;
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.
Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66
(posted in comments by "retired military" at Wizbang)
Little Ivan and Jianjun are likely to be only children. An army of private Ryans won't do much fighting.
Little Achmed may be a problem (for now).
Accentuate the positive: Some kids (about three percent... heh) tend to rebel against their indoctrination.
I did.
Though I don't know what the remaining 97% expect to do when the push-button, no-thinking-required, received-wisdom world they've lived in all their lives comes collapsing down around their ears.
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