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We Need Less Self-Esteem
Townhall.com ^ | February 27, 2018 | Elliot Tresnick

Posted on 02/27/2018 2:49:33 AM PST by Kaslin

While browsing Twitter last week, I suddenly noticed a barrage of tweets hailing Dana Loesch’s performance at CNN’s town hall meeting on gun control. Curious, I headed to YouTube to see it.

Loesch, indeed, defended the Second Amendment with tact and poise, but what struck me most as I watched the event wasn’t her performance but the vicious behavior of the crowd. Like a mob, the audience repeatedly heckled Loesch – and Senator Marco Rubio before her – for opposing gun control of any kind. It even booed Loesch for arguing that some rape victims would have loved to have had a gun to fend off their assailant.Meanwhile, anyone supporting gun control was wildly cheered – as if CNN were hosting a sporting match rather than a serious political discussion.

That so many adults were uninterested in reasoned debate was disturbing enough. More disquieting, though, was watching several snarky teenagers at the town hall lecturing adults three times their age. One liberal student even had the gall to say to Loesch, a mother, “I want you to know that we will support your two children in the way that you will not.” Another treated Rubio like a six-year-old child, interrupting him repeatedly while demanding that he pledge to reject NRA donations in the future.

“If I would have addressed Marco Rubio the way that kid did,” wrote one popular Twitter personality afterwards, “my grandpa would have [whipped me] on national television. And I would have rightfully deserved it.”

I second the sentiment. When I was a teenager, I was taught to honor my elders. To never contradict them or be disrespectful. To act with diffidence before them. These high school kids did none of the above.Not only did they flout basic standards of decency, they did so without the slightest trace of nervousness – as if disrespecting adults meant nothing to them.

Also meaning nothing to them apparently was their appalling ignorance on gun control. They showed no signs of having read any books on the subject, of having studied any statistics on gun violence, or of having given any serious thought as to why the Second Amendment appears in our Constitution. That didn’t stop them, though, from appearing on national television to mock adults who actually do know a thing or two on the topic.

As I watched these teenagers talk, I kept on thinking: If only they had less self-esteem… Today, self-esteem is considered the sine qua non of growing up “healthy,” but the term was hardly used until a few decades ago. Before then, men of distinction were held in high esteem and people endeavored to win the esteem of God and their peers. But to esteem oneself? That was considered downright arrogant. Indeed, one of the definitions of self-esteem in the 1973 Webster’s dictionary sitting on my father’s bookshelf is “self-conceit.” Which is presumably why, “instead of prioritizing ‘self-esteem,’” schools of yore endeavored to “lower it to imperceptible levels by the end of the first week,” as conservative Mark Steyn writes recalling his own childhood.

Unfortunately, we’ve come a long way since then. Now patting oneself on the back is considered virtuous; indeed, it doesn’t even require justification since the gospel of self-esteem preaches feeling good about oneself for no reason at all. You failed the test? Wonderful. You botched the job? Amazing. You know nothing about the topic? That’s fine, just tell us how you feel. As Newt Gingrich has said, we now have a “whole school of education theory that you don’t have to learn; you have to learn about how you would learn so that when you finish learning about how you learn, you have self-esteem because you’re told you have self-esteem even if you can’t read the word self-esteem.”

This is madness. And this madness was on display Wednesday night at CNN’s town hall meeting. A bunch of smug teenagers with robust self-esteem exhibiting pompous ignorance before millions of viewers. To paraphrase Rabbi Meir Kahane, one of the greatest Jewish nationalists of the last century, “Ignorance may be excusable, and arrogance may be tolerable, but the arrogance of ignorance is insufferable.”

America can probably survive stricter gun laws if it came down to that. But long-term, it cannot survive such mindless arrogance. If we wish to survive as a republic, we need an infusion of humility. We need less self-esteem.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: cnn; selfesteem; teenagers

1 posted on 02/27/2018 2:49:34 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

These kids are repulsive. What’s even worse is that they are standing on the dead bodies of their classmates to do this, using them as a stage for their fifteen minutes.


2 posted on 02/27/2018 2:55:29 AM PST by livius
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To: Kaslin


3 posted on 02/27/2018 3:12:15 AM PST by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: Kaslin
I think we should all treat each other with respect and recover a more civil society. There is nothing more likely to shut down a potentially productive dialogue than disrespect.
4 posted on 02/27/2018 3:16:37 AM PST by neverevergiveup
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To: SkyPilot

Don’t forget the sheriff said he showed amazing leadership too.


5 posted on 02/27/2018 3:18:47 AM PST by taterjay
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To: Kaslin

It was downright crazy of Loesch and Rubio to allow themselves to be used by CNN as props in this Mad Max type of cage match. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind at this point in time that CNN is absolutely evil and rotten to the core. Consenting to participate in any event that puts you behind a CNN microphone is just nuts. Not “brave” or “speaking truth to power” or “getting the word out”, but just plain nuts.


6 posted on 02/27/2018 3:23:46 AM PST by DrPretorius
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To: SkyPilot

He truly does look much more crazy than the mass shooter.
Such an angry, disturbed person.


7 posted on 02/27/2018 3:43:08 AM PST by GnuThere
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To: livius

“disrespecting adults meant nothing to them”

That statement made me think that with that attitude and an over abundance of artificially induced sense of self esteem the students wouldn’t think too much of doing worse than disrespecting adults or anyone else around them.


8 posted on 02/27/2018 4:05:52 AM PST by CheneyClone
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To: SkyPilot

Young men like to be angry about something. More so for girls now, too (gender equality I guess). And now, they have American MSM riling them up, not CPUSA like in the 1960’s.

CNN planted the questions, and censored students’ own questions. Some questions a real and fair town hall would have allowed:

How many of you, before the shooting, read the Constitution front to back?

Many of you knew Nick Cruz. Was he bullied in school?

Is AAA responsible for the thousands of car deaths and injuries each month? Should cars be banned for the demographic causing the most accidents?

Are cars responsible for car accidents? If not, why are guns, inanimate pieces of steel like a car, responsible for shootings?

How many of you have taken debate class?


9 posted on 02/27/2018 4:16:11 AM PST by polymuser (Its terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today. - Chesterton)
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To: Kaslin

From my personal experience: Fear is a powerful motivator. Cockiness is a source of failure.


10 posted on 02/27/2018 4:20:03 AM PST by Senator_Blutarski
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To: CheneyClone

“...students wouldn’t think too much of doing worse than disrespecting adults or anyone else around them.”

I expect as the kiddies get frustrated with everyone not doing exactly as they say, we’ll see some destructive activities begin. Seems like many in America are itching for real battle — BLM, antifa, revcom, feminazis, now gun grabbing teens.


11 posted on 02/27/2018 4:21:08 AM PST by polymuser (Its terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today. - Chesterton)
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To: DrPretorius

They were court jesters in the Kingdom of Lies.


12 posted on 02/27/2018 5:01:27 AM PST by cgbg (Hidden behind the social justice warrior mask is corruption and sexual deviance.)
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To: Kaslin

There are many today with lots of self-esteem and no self-respect.


13 posted on 02/27/2018 5:52:03 AM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: SkyPilot
Anyone else think there's a similarity?


14 posted on 02/27/2018 5:55:25 AM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Kaslin

How about trading that in on SELF-RESPECT?!?!?!


15 posted on 02/27/2018 6:09:38 AM PST by G Larry (There is no great virtue in bargaining with the Devil)
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To: polymuser
Young men like to angry about something.

And there's always a place for the angry young man With his fist in the air and his head in the sand And he's never been able to learn from mistakes So he can't understand why his heart always breaks But his honor is pure and his courage as well And he's fair and he's true and he's boring as hell And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man
Angry young man -- Billy Joel

16 posted on 02/27/2018 7:25:11 AM PST by mc5cents (Pray for America)
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To: Senator_Blutarski

Self-esteem leads to self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is just a phony form of respectability.


17 posted on 02/27/2018 10:49:43 AM PST by jmacusa ("Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
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To: blueunicorn6

Ping.


18 posted on 02/27/2018 6:43:01 PM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Kaslin
You can't give a kid self esteem without first teaching them self respect. Self esteem without self respect is nothing but vanity.

We failed them on that one. The current crop of kids are lost to us.

19 posted on 02/28/2018 8:27:36 AM PST by Kenton
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