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3 Ways Parents are Ruining Halloween
Reason.com ^ | October 29, 2014 | Jim Epstein & Lenore Skenazy

Posted on 11/01/2015 12:30:41 PM PST by Forgotten Amendments

Happy Halloween! It's that time of year when your neighbors are secretly unwrapping candy, brushing lollipops with poison, and inserting razor blades into Snickers bars!

Actually, while it may be a holiday tradition view your neighbors as psychopaths who patiently wait for the one day of the year to kill the local kids, in fact no child has ever been killed by a stranger's poisoned candy. Ever. But facts don't stop fear. Here are three ways in which our misguided terror on Halloween is killing all the fun.

Don't Go Outside

Parents are so scared of letting their kids roam free, that—no joke—there's a trend called "Trunk or Treat." Cars gather in a circle and kids go from one trunk to the next to grab candy, as if walking in a circle in a parking lot and collecting sugar is the whole point of the holiday. Sugar is important, but so is going outside on your own with your friends.

Some towns are so scared of the holiday that they've placed curfews on trick or treating. It's medieval. It's as if they really believe the ghouls come out at night.

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
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To: Forgotten Amendments

Sadly, Halloween Trick or Treating around our neighborhood by the local kids has almost died out.

Here is the cause.

Someone (parents?) brings in carloads of minorities from other areas and they dominate the streets.

Most of them don’t even have Halloween costumes on and and by far they are not all children.

We have had mobs with some 200-300 lb. 6 feet tall men and women banging on the door for candy.

The cute little neighborhood kids are overpowered and their parents won’t let them trick or treat on the streets anymore.

Many of them have started having house parties as a replacement for the lost fun of door to door Trick or Treating.

Another aspect of our culture run into the ground.


41 posted on 11/01/2015 2:18:38 PM PST by Iron Munro (<p> The wise have stores of choice food and oil but a foolish man devours all he has. Proverbs 21:20)
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To: IYAS9YAS
We get a ton because I live in a predominately Mormon area and the families all have 4,5 or 6 kids.

A war broke out on our little message board over Halloween. A transplant from Chicago (we are getting a lot of those, yay us!) asked what the Halloween hours were.

That threw some other neighbor on the board into a diatribe about how this is Arizona and we don't have hours to trick or treat (and a bunch of other things we have or don't have, do or don't so, etc.) and to take that mentality back to Chicago. It was great!

On a somewhat related note, I noticed how expensive the candy was this year and how tiny the packages inside were. $20 for a "jumbo" size bag that wasn't really that jumbo. The packaging has to cost twice as much as the product. I honestly do not know how young families are doing it.

42 posted on 11/01/2015 2:19:24 PM PST by riri (Obama's Amerika--Not a fun place.)
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To: Jedidah

My gate is 5’ tall. That is plenty tall enough to stop acting like a child. Sorry, but I think Halloween is fine for little kids. Teenagers need to break with childhood at some point, so why not give them a defined boundary? Ancient cultures used to have a ceremony where teenagers would have to destroy their toys in a ritualistic ceremony before they would be considered adults. It’s time we do that too. The extended childhood we seem so lenient about needs to stop. Look at what it has produced. “Children” the age of 26 still on their parents health insurance! When I lived in California, we would have these gangs of kids show up at the door on Halloween-no costumes, not even a treat bag-and some of these boys may have been 13 or 14, but they were 6’2” and could have easily pushed the door down and taken whatever they wanted. That’s when I decided I’d had enough of the teenagers at Halloween. They were also the ones who showed up later...between 8-10pm. So I started turning the lights out at 7pm.


43 posted on 11/01/2015 2:29:09 PM PST by ponygirl (An Appeal to Heaven.)
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To: Snickering Hound

In the 60s we had Jungle Gyms on asphalt. If you fell off and broke his arm your parents didn’t sue. You dad would yell at you, “What the hell did you fall off for? The hospital bill cost me $65!”


44 posted on 11/01/2015 2:32:21 PM PST by Hugin ("First thing--get yourself a firearm!" Sheriff Ed Galt, Last Man Standing.)
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To: ponygirl

They were already x-raying candy at the police station prior to this. In the late sixties, stories of drug tainted candy and popcorn balls featuring razor blades were all over. It was the Manson era.


45 posted on 11/01/2015 2:42:21 PM PST by Luke21 (Go Ted go.)
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To: I want the USA back

Trust has nothing to do with it. Just the pussification of the U.S. going along at break-neck speed.


46 posted on 11/01/2015 2:48:21 PM PST by i_robot73 ("A man chooses. A slave obeys." - Andrew Ryan)
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To: Forgotten Amendments
My wife and I have gone 24 years without any trick or treaters coming to our homes.

First, was our townhouse in Arizona which was in an enclosed neighborhood that was not very kid-friendly, even though we were the only ones in the entire complex that had kids. It was not gated but there were no sidewalks and none of the front doors could be seen from the street. And most were behind ornamental iron gates. Even when we left the gate open and placed a lighted jack-o-lantern out front, we still got no kids.

Then we retired and moved to the country in Florida and have not had any kids come by the farm in 5 years.

We stopped stocking up on candy many years ago and figure we have saved a ton of money buy not having to buy it.

47 posted on 11/01/2015 2:54:48 PM PST by HotHunt
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To: Forgotten Amendments

The biggest problem we have is the non residents who drive in by the minivan’s/suv’s full of people. I live on a corner and when I ran out of candy, there were over 100 people in my view! Ridiculous. Parents and kids collecting candy.


48 posted on 11/01/2015 2:56:46 PM PST by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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To: Iron Munro
"Here is the cause.
Someone (parents?) brings in carloads of minorities from other areas and they dominate the streets.

Late teens, no costume, don't even bother to say 'trick or treat'...just stand there.
ALL of the above are the underlined...
Never see white kids on the streets for Halloween around here anymore.
49 posted on 11/01/2015 2:57:57 PM PST by 45semi (A police state is always preceded by a nanny state...)
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To: Iron Munro

You must live in my hood! lol


50 posted on 11/01/2015 2:59:37 PM PST by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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To: 45semi

We had a few! lol


51 posted on 11/01/2015 3:00:11 PM PST by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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To: 45semi

We had a black kid in hoodie come by. No costume. He said “I’m black” and held out his hand. I gave the candy dish to my guy and said “handling this, I’m going to bed.”


52 posted on 11/01/2015 3:13:28 PM PST by chae (The Lannisters send their regards--Game of Thrones)
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To: Forgotten Amendments

Blame Liberals, Progressives, Democrats, Socialists, Marxists and Communists.
Everything they touch they take the fun out of.


53 posted on 11/01/2015 3:37:58 PM PST by BuffaloJack (Political Correctness is Suppression of Free Speech. Thank the Commies for Political Correctness.)
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To: Jim from C-Town

How cute! I bet they had a blast!!!!!!!


54 posted on 11/01/2015 3:44:30 PM PST by Radagast the Fool (At my signal, UNLEASH PALIN!!)
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To: Forgotten Amendments

The kids in our neighborhood had a neighborhood welcome.
The town set a time slot from 5-7PM which was liberal inspired.
Everyone on the street for 3 blocks either way sat on lawn chairs in their driveways in front of a rolling steel fire-pit and handed out candy as the kids came by.
I’d estimate that at least 80 to 100 houses participated.
The kids had a great time. And everyone ignored the 7PM curfew and trick-or-treated until 8-8:30.


55 posted on 11/01/2015 3:44:54 PM PST by BuffaloJack (Political Correctness is Suppression of Free Speech. Thank the Commies for Political Correctness.)
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To: Forgotten Amendments
18 Reasons Why I Don’t Celebrate Halloween

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/18-reasons-why-i-dont-celebrate-halloween

56 posted on 11/01/2015 3:46:00 PM PST by SVTCobra03 (You can never have enough friends, horsepower or ammunition.)
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To: Jim from C-Town

Precious!


57 posted on 11/01/2015 4:06:00 PM PST by llmc1
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To: Jim from C-Town

What an adorable pic!


58 posted on 11/01/2015 4:08:29 PM PST by Trillian
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To: MamaB

Happened to me in the sixties. There have always been pervs and jerks around. I was taught to run and yell. I am not sure that there weren’t too many kids who weren’t offered a ride by a smiling man.


59 posted on 11/01/2015 4:15:10 PM PST by Chickensoup (We lose our freedoms one surrender at a time)
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To: ClearCase_guy
When I was a kid, my best Halloween involved walking a winding path which eventually reached a point 2 miles from home. Walking back home was hard because my bag was so full of candy. I’m guessing I was about 9 years old. The world has totally changed since then.

One bag? When I was nine I had to go home twice to get another empty shopping bag. I collected enough candy to sweeten me until Christmas. A few righteous adults gave me apples, but the rest knew better and gave me candy. We made our rounds knowing time was short. No time to explain costumes to others.

60 posted on 11/01/2015 4:16:46 PM PST by LoneRangerMassachusetts (behind enemy lines)
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