Posted on 10/07/2005 5:30:53 PM PDT by shining_city
Anyone who believes, with Whitney Houston, that children are our future, will probably want to pay close attention to a children's book that's outselling almost all others in the US. It's easy enough to spot on the shelves: it's called Help, Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!
Katherine Debrecht's book is proof that there is no front on which the American culture wars cannot be fought. Its heroes are Tommy and Lou, two rosy-cheeked boys who set up a lemonade stand. All they want to do is save up for a new swing. But they reckon without a cast of meddling liberals, intent on passing restrictive laws, taxing their lemonade, and generally telling them how to live their lives.
Close readers might detect a hint of satire in characters such as Congresswoman Clunkton, "a star in the Liberaland Socialist Party" who wants to outlaw sugary drinks - or the Kerryesque Senator Kruckle, "who earned his money the old-fashioned liberal way: he married into it".
Weirdly, given the book's thesis that laws, red tape and taxes stop ordinary folk making an honest buck, it has sold in its thousands. Reviewers have been ecstatic too, although, to be fair, some may have been partisan to begin with. "My eight-year-old daughter ... read it once. She read it again. Then I read it to her and explained some of the nuances," wrote a contributor to the website Conservative Monitor. "She quickly grasped the terrible error of leftist ideas."
Much as this may seem like a victory for rightwing ideology, liberals should, in fact, take solace: the cringe-inducing political children's book is no longer the exclusive embarrassment of the left. About time, too. The liberal initiator of the genre, Heather Has Two Mommies, has been around so long that a 10th anniversary edition was recently published. By now, for all we know, Heather has rebelled against her parents and is living with her Christian conservative husband just down the street from Katherine Debrecht.
Incidentally, Heather's two mommies wouldn't be able to get married in Debrecht's home state of South Carolina, because the legislature there explicitly banned such unions in 1996. Don't you just hate meddling liberals telling you how to live your life?
There is also a good interview with Katharine DeBrecht, the author "Help Mom," on IntellectualConservative.com in case anyone is interested.
Thanks for posting this. I would never have heard about the book otherwise!
Christmas gift giving idea bump
Too funny, but I think for kids in conservative households this talk is trite. They should stick this book in every urban city public library. ;)
Weirdly, given the book's thesis that laws, red tape and taxes stop ordinary folk making an honest buck, it has sold in its thousands.
The Guardian? An absolute sack of Marxist kwap, invariably -- obviously, you know it when you see it, and needn't apologise.
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