Dennis Prager: Using 12 year-olds to drive political agendas is child abuse

After spending the week at the Democratic National Convention broadcasting my radio show, it was not easy to choose which aspect of the convention I would devote my column to. Would it be the discussions I had with delegates, nearly all of whom I liked and none of whom thought clearly about our nation's issues? Or about the Potemkin Village the Democrats erected — a convention where almost nothing the Democrats really believe was on display?

I decided on the speech given during prime time by a 12-year-old girl from the San Francisco Bay Area. In my view, this talk was typically and uniquely Democratic.

To understand modern liberalism and its political party, it is vital to understand Democrats' desire to blur any distinctions between child and adult. Ever since the 1960s, liberalism has been largely a movement dominated by children (of every age). I enjoyed meeting Democrats last week. Many are people I would be happy to have as neighbors. But compared to Republicans, liberals and Democrats are often adults who do not wish to grow up. When George W. Bush was elected, I felt as if adults would now run the country after the adolescent-like President Clinton.

Liberals and Democrats are not comfortable with adult-child distinctions. They therefore frequently treat and regard children as adults and frequently treat and regard adults as children.

That is why liberals do not generally want children to call adults "Mr." or "Mrs." Such titles render adults distinct from children.

That is why liberal teachers often dress and talk similarly to their students and ask to be called by their first names.

A few years ago (OK, maybe 30 or so, who's counting) I "accidently" called my PE teacher by his first name. I still vividly remember the wooden paddle with his name (Rudy)on it. My high school forbid teachers to allow students to address them by their first name. Thanks for the lesson Mr Montalvo.

More like 50 years ago, I was in a History class taught by Mr. Peterson and inadvertently blurted out the nickname "Pete" that was standard usage on the basketball team he coached. There is no need for scare quotes around the term when I say it was an accident. If a hole had opened up in the classroom floor I would have dived for it.

Thanks for posting this. I do believe that the Left's irrational hatred for this administration arises from fear and ignorance of how "grown-ups" react to problems.

No more "give peace a chance" rallies, no more candlelight vigils. The lefties and hippies that gathered in the small park in Greenwich village, lighting candles, chanting, plucking guitars on the night of September ll and later, looked bewildered and frightened, while blocks away grown-ups clawed through burning rubble for a hand, an ear, some piece of flesh that would confirm that, yes, your father, brother, daughter, son did not make it out.

When President Bush addressed the nation and the congress after 9/11, our boomer congress members reached out to touch him when he passed, swarming in the aisles, pleading with their eyes for their president to "make it all go away."

He couldn't make it go away and he did not pretend that he could.

He did what grown-ups do, made tough decisions, and stuck to them.

Now Senator Kerry soothes the troubled dreams of our citizen-kids, promising to talk with his pals in Syria and Iran, to make the bad stuff go away. Gerhardt Schroeder, who just last week released a group of 9/11 terrorists, saying "Let them [America] scream," is another of Kerry's chums, as is Jacques Chirac, who is presently blocking humanitarian aid to the Sudan because of stinking America insisting the aid go directly to the suffering Sudanese and not to the French administrators.

Senator Kerry will make it all go away. Allahu akbar!

But on Sat. AM's call in show on Fox re: the now-21-year-old who had been raped by his 34 year old teacher, most the callers and commentators were glued on the true love issue. Republicans most, they could not see the adult-child distinction.

Yet when you see him interviewed, he has the vascillating, unsure mind of a 10 year old: "Where would you like to go with Mary Kay?" "Someplace warm, tropical, the Caribean maybe, or someplace cold."

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