by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
There is nothing more malleable than the mind of a child. Their minds are like sponges, absorbing everything they come in contact with. Previously, we’ve discussed the power of moving images as propaganda, including propaganda aimed at children. Film and video can also be used to educate as illustrated by excellent children’s programs such as Sesame Street. The benefits of this technology in that regard is unquestionable. But what happens when education becomes indoctrination? What happens when the lessons taught are hatred and intolerance? Does this cross the line from education into political propaganda? A recent story raises this very issue and others.
“The Andrew Show” is a crudely produced show viewable on YouTube. It’s not just crude in the sense of production values, although it is that. It is crude in content as well. Subtitled “A Show For White Kids”, the show promotes the White Supremacist views of the Ku Klux Klan. This is no surprise considering the young host of the show is Andrew Pendergraft, the grandson of Thomas Robb. If you don’t know Robb by name, he’s the National Director for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and Pastor of the Christian Revival Center.
I invite you to look for yourself at some of the videos below and ask yourself should there be additional limits to political free speech?
To save bandwidth, I only embedded a single video here. To see the full playlist of videos, use the “Watch on YouTube” option in at the bottom right side of the embedded player. Videos were still being added to the series as recently as April of this year.
This story also raises other issues. When does propaganda become child abuse? Raising a child to have such socially intolerant racial views is not preparing him for success in the real world where living and working with people of different races and creeds is a given. But is it grounds to interfere with custody? We’ve seen stories before about parents losing custody of their children for giving them Nazi names. The production of this show not only arguably is a disservice to this child, but to any child who watches it. It is, however, political free speech. Free speech comes with consequences and duties and has recognized reasonable exceptions at law such as defamation, incitement, and threats. While these videos are certainly disturbing, they don’t rise to the level of the current exceptions and are clearly protected political free speech. Political free speech is a paramount concern for protection and at the heart of the Founder’s desire to protect the ability of the public to dissent. With the noted exceptions to free speech in general, I don’t think anyone should be stopped from expressing a political view simply because it is unpopular or distasteful. Bad ideas will be sorted out in the marketplace of ideas so long as political free speech is protected and debate encouraged. However, when the issue is children, you are not just shaping the minds of the young, you are shaping the future. A responsible society protects its weakest most vulnerable members and no category of human is more vulnerable than children. Human children are require a huge investment to be shepherded into adulthood compared to most other species.
How far should we go to protect that investment? How far can we reasonably go to protect that investment and protect other valid concerns like liberties and freedoms? Including the right to raise your children as you see fit? Is ill-equipping a child for survival in life as damaging as incitement or a threat?
When do unpopular political views cross the line into being directly damaging to others?
Should society limit political free speech by exception, no matter how heinous or unpopular, when children are involved?
Can such a restriction ever be reasonable?
Keep in mind that anything that can be learned can be unlearned.
What do you think?
Source(s): Huffington Post, YouTube, Wikipedia
The Propaganda Series;
Propaganda 105: How to Spot a Liar
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Streisand Effect and the Political Question
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Sound of Silence
Propaganda 104: Magica Verba Est Scientia Et Ars Es
Propaganda 103: The Word Changes, The Word Remains The Same
Propaganda 102 Supplemental: Holly Would “Zero Dark Thirty”
Propaganda 102: Holly Would and the Power of Images
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Child’s Play
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Build It And They Will Come (Around)
Propaganda 101: What You Need to Know and Why or . . .
Related articles of interest;
Mythology and the New Feudalism by Mike Spindell
How about Some Government Propaganda for the People Paid for by the People Being Propagandized? by Elaine Magliaro
Is Freedom of the Press Dead? by Lawrence E. Rafferty
~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Gene, Absolutely not. I worked in a juvenile court. Terminating parental rights in every case I saw was physical, obviously combined w/ emotional abuse. However, for a parent to be sanctioned[supervision, counseling, etc.] for merely emotional abuse, it had to be severe. Here’s one example of a case of merely emotional abuse where court ordered supervision was ordered. Terminating mom’s parental rights was never considered. Mom would constantly, and in public, humiliate her son. The boy was obese and had still not stopped pooping his pants although he was 8 years old. I knew the social worker and she was an ace. Boys who are not toilet trained by that age are often victims of sexual abuse, although the social worker found no indications of that being the case. Mom would call her son “Fat shit boy” in public, 2 school[several teachers confirmed]. Whenever he pooped his pants mom would make him take them off, wherever they were, and then clean himself up in public or @ a public toilet. I doubt anyone here would disagree that court involvement was warranted.
There are parents that preach all kinds of hated to their children. Besides this you all should realize there are black parents preaching the same hate to their children. There are Christian parents teaching hatred of Jews, Muslims, etc. and vice versa. Hell, go back to the 50’s/60’s many Catholics were taught to hate Protestants and vice versa. That may even still be going on, although I’ve not heard that horseshit of late. It is not a step from my aforementioned example of emotional abuse requiring intervention by a court, and this. It is a HUGE leap. And there is also the slippery slope.
What’s that old saying….” Give me a child till he’s five years old, and I’ve got him forever..” Unfortunately, that’s how Religion works too!
If the program that is described here included pornography would censoring the pornographic material be proper without watering down the First Amendment protection for these young viewers?
You’ve got to be taught.
Gene: “And yet psychological abuse can be the grounds for terminating parental custody as well, Juliet. Can instilling a non-functional antisocial political view equate with psychological abuse?”
Seems to me that when the state curtails the 1st Amendment to decide that issue for everyone it becomes state indoctrination and the disappearance of free speech.
Galatians 3:28:King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
God sees us loving all. God sees inside of us. People see outside of us. Have God in you see ind side of others even as God sees. The boy speaking is innocent. He is reading what he is reading because he was told to read it.
Once you open the door to civic interference with family values, you open Pandora’s box.
What is a conservative community declares that advocating abortion rights at home is “fostering genocide”?
Remember, censorship is a two edged sword and once instituted often goes further and is used for purposes other than originally envisioned.
Parents need to parent by ensuring their kids don’t watch such garbage. It’s not the role of the government or the private sector to do so.
And yet psychological abuse can be the grounds for terminating parental custody as well, Juliet. Can instilling a non-functional antisocial political view equate with psychological abuse?
ap,
Thanks for the note. Not sure what happened to the top byline. I changed the initial graphic and must have accidentally deleted it when I did. I’ll fix that.
No censorship. Absent physical abuse, the state needs to stay out of the parent-child relationship.
There seems to be a misunderstanding about whether action has been taken action against the Pendergraft/Robb this instant case or not.
FOR CLARIFICATION: No action has been taken against Andrew’s family. The right to political free speech has not been redefined.
Byline?
Sorry for the runaway italics. I like Italians.
I predict this child will grow up, meet an attractive Muslim woman from India, fall in love, and have 3 beautiful so-called “mixed-race” children. The forbidden fruit is always the sweetest. (Just for the record, there is no “white race” — there is only the human race.)
No, I don’t believe we should censor. This ‘video’ is easily discredited by parents and schools teaching tolerance, but also teaching history–with all the ugly bumps. I find it curious that this video is so disturbing to some–yet the ongoing slander of Native Americans continues unabated.
Lets face it–parents are going to teach their children as they see fit and there will always be bigots out there. You don’t fight bigotry with censorship–you fight bigotry with knowledge and honesty–and a big stick if necessary. I grew up in an area where Christians were teaching their kids that the Jews were ‘Christ-killers.’ I fought those stupid bigots by standing my ground, as the teachers did nothing. Ironically, this was an area with many professional people. It is the responsibility of schools as well to correct children when they are pushing bigoted ideas. You fight this by having school rules that entitle ALL participants to respect and full participation with no privilege for anyone. After that, enough said.
This is an example of the legal profession interfering and causing problems.
Very challenging post. Well done.
Gene H says and asks:
I think that nails it, and what I come away with is the notion that we can go further when children are concerned than we can when adults are at issue.
How much further would be determined by how much damage would be done in the absence of intervention of some sort.
We don’t allow children to enter contracts, vote, drink, or other thinks adults may do at will.
So, I would say that when damaging extremist views are forced on children, there is some state right to intervene:
Not at first.
If parents will agree to allow the children to see the societies main views, and can realize the difference, then no custody intervention.
If the parents refuse to stop the abuse based on their oppression of the mind of the child, then that becomes an issue.
There are parents who preach racist views, like this, to their children every day. Thanks to the First Amendment we can reply w/ speech expressing outrage. However, that’s it. That’s the way it works. If a parent’s actions are affecting the health of a child then the govt. has a right and duty to act. Now, if parents want to ensure their children are not exposed to this, then they need to be vigilant about their own children’s computer use. It’s a beautiful, wonderful, nice, bad, horrible, evil, world out there. I’ve seen the entire spectrum. Happy, positive people focus on the beautiful end of the spectrum. Unhappy, negative people, on the evil end. To each their own.
There is a right to be an outspoken pluperfect racist idiot in public or private. At least that way we learn who the idiots are. But cannot agree with “John” above that we are losing our rights already. We are perfectly free to vote, speak, think, pray or not, join, quit, sleep, wake, work, relax as we choose. It is just that some of us make choices others of us would not make. That is freedom. Let’s be glad this is not Egypt, China, or Russia. Although those nations do not allow the designated hitter.
Unless pushed in schools by the Government, WHY would we put MORE limits on the 1st Amendment!?!?
We are losing enough of our rights already!!