..........
Visit our sister site
ExileStreet
home to conservatives
in arts and entertainment

Somewhere between
Hollywood and Vine
lies ExileStreet
In Residence:
Julia Gorin
Burt Prelutsky
Steve Finefrock
Patrick Hurley
Ralph Peters
Bruce Thornton
..........

Julia Gorin

Clintonisms
by Julia Gorin
..........

Wounded Warrior
Please Help Those
Who Protect Us

Burt Prelutsky

The Secret of Their
Success
by Burt Prelutsky

Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco
by Burt Prelutsky
.........

America Alone
by Mark Steyn
..........

The CRO Store
..........

..........

Thousand Oaks

Now Substituting for Mom and Dad… by Tom McClintock [politician] 7/9/07

One of the most objectionable trends that has emerged from the Left’s dominance over California public policy is the movement to replace ordinary parental decisions with government regulations. We began down that road a few years ago in the name of safety and every year the number and intrusiveness of such mandates has proliferated. Although the bill to prohibit spanking was defeated after near universal public outcry, many others are likely to make it to the governor’s desk to be signed, including bills prohibiting smoking in a car when children are present, requiring children up to eight years of age to sit in booster seats, and mandating that children be vaccinated against certain sexually transmitted diseases.

The seductive thing about each of these mandates is that many make good common sense in and of themselves. But they introduce a new and dangerous concept into the law: that ordinary parental discretion and parental decisions ought to be replaced with governmental regulation, intrusion and, ultimately, enforcement. And that’s crossing a very bright line.

I have no problem with listening to government’s advice on raising my kids – but I’ll be damned if I’ll take its orders. Yes, it’s a really bad idea to smoke in the car with your kids. But it’s also a bad idea to let them eat too many sweets, not brush their teeth twice a day, watch too much TV, spend too much time inside, spend too much time outside, run by the pool, go swimming too soon after eating – but once government starts to substitute its judgment for the parents’, government rapidly takes over. And as we have learned time and again, it’s a lousy parent.

Yes, parents make mistakes. But with very, very few exceptions no two people on this earth care more about a child than that child’s parents, and the few mistakes we make as parents are the price for all the good decisions we make for our kids. Government is a ham-handed, bungling, incompetent and impersonal substitute.

Phil Gramm once asked a government busy-body if she really believed that she knew better than he did what was best for his own kids. When she said “yes” and recited her impressive list of academic credentials, he posed this simple question: “Then what are their names?” CRO

§