MOMania

By FCM

January 8, 2008 8:41 AM | Link to this

Walsh may well be a budding Political Scientist, a Campaign Manager, a Candidate, or just a general good citizens. Kudos to you for letting him watch.

I recall watching the Ford/Carter debates (my parents thought I was nuts!). I ended up heading toward an interesting career…then took a branch of the path.

Primary returns are watched but I am unclear what you mean by discussed. The election process, the bicameral legisture, the executive and judiciary branches have been discussed (as they will continue to be). How can I expect them to be good citzens when its their turn to vote if they are uninformed?

I do not discuss my views of the individual candidates w/the kids. Nor do we discuss the various issues (Health Care, War, Education, etc)…they are too young to have real ideas on these things. I do not plan to influence them on how they vote by pre-programming them to espouse my views. As they show interest in a particular issue (the War is one now)I encourage them to research it and discuss it with me. If their view seems unblanced I bring other pieces to their attention. Then I encourage them to form their own opinion (BTW, for the curious their view on the War and mine are different).

My grandfather doesn’t care who runs for what office, just that a Donkey be the candidates name. He does not listen to valid points for or against any individual candidate (even within the party)he just picks somebody and tells us all to vote for them. Interestingly enough all of his children usually vote for some other candidate (and not always the Elephant!). Another friends father gets copies of the various ballots, marks them up and sends them to children telling them this is how they should vote…my friend seldom votes that way, but some of the siblings do. He said that his sibs figure Dad did all the leg work.

I applaud Michael for being neutral! Good for him for not brainwashing the kids. Even if the kids never agree with your view (or mine)you will know that you have raised good people who think for themselves.

As far as others knowing my opinion, trust me my close friends already know what is important to me and how I will vote. I respect others views.

I think this is because my Godfather is very, very Liberal in his views and my father is very, very conservative. Yet they are the best of friends. Listening at their feet as a young child I learned a great deal.

Oh! Take your children to the polls with you if can. That is another important way for them to see being a good citizens.

(OK I will step off the soap box).

By Ebaby

January 8, 2008 8:52 AM | Link to this

I think political beliefs are in one with your values, so passing them “on” wont be much of a concern of mine. What I will have to pay attention to is NOT passing on my political prejudices concerning the other parties :) Luckily, my baby is still too young. We are still working on sharing and not hitting, which come to think of it- can also be a political view.

By Jeff

January 8, 2008 9:06 AM | Link to this

I’m going to teach my kids to follow the facts, wherever they lead. Ask the challenging questions.

Then vote as logic dictates.

Of course, I’m also going to teach them the values I grew up with: hard work, individual responsibility, and the primacy of individual and property rights.

YES, this tends to lead to a limited-government view.

And I see nothing wrong with that.

By don't tell the family secrets

January 8, 2008 9:11 AM | Link to this

Go ahead and tell if you don’t mind your kid announcing your views to the whole entire school & teaching staff.

This won’t be a problem if you live in the suburbs, where every single person has the same exact view.

However, if you live intown, and you don’t want your personal beliefs broadcasted to the immediate 5-mile radius, keep it quiet. There are people in my neighborhood who would treat me & my kid differently if they knew my beliefs. Even the local public school usually has teachers illegally campaigning this time of year. I could see one of them easily treating my child differently b/c of my conservative beliefs. Mary Lin Elementary teachers - remember - if you use the classroom to espouse your political views - your school will lose its federal funding! Is it worth it?

By fk

January 8, 2008 9:13 AM | Link to this

My son was always pretty much in tune with politics, and it’s not because we’re a political family. He is a good listener. We have always discussed local, national and global issues. On my side of the family, there are always debates going back and forth, sometimes heated. Everyone has an opinion. It is an unwritten rule on holidays that politics, religion, insurance and the law not be discussed at the dinner table. Otherwise, we could be there for days.

My son accompanied me to the polls until he was about 13. He tried on many occasions to influence my vote. He will be 17 in a couple of weeks and has already mentioned that next year he will be eligible to participate in elections. He takes surveys to see if he identifies with a particular political party. Like his mother, he falls in between.

My dad said that he registered as a republican mostly because his dad was a registered democrat. That was probably way back in the ’40s. My husband’s parents were democrats and voted strictly along party lines. Their children are split, as are my siblings, but not evenly. I don’t usually push my beliefs upon anyone, but I have been known to state that there have been instances where I absolutely would not ever cast a vote in favor of a particular person.

By Snarky

January 8, 2008 9:14 AM | Link to this

Doesn’t matter…

In the end the schools, the church and the media will end up conforming, oops! I mean forming, the little unique snowflakes into political automatons, oops again! I meant independent thinkers.

By FCM

January 8, 2008 9:40 AM | Link to this

@Snarky—-ok I agree that the schools would love to propogate little automatons. However I do disagree on if what a parent does mattters……The single biggest influence in a young childs life: An Involved Parent (I think an involved/evolved parent but then…)

However surprisng me not at all, I find that schools teach a very one sided agenda. I have offered to come in and speak on certain topics that I have creditials for and they are all for it until they read my child’s first project in any of those subjects! (I require a blanced view).

By Jeff

January 8, 2008 9:49 AM | Link to this

FCM:

How do you balance lies and truth?

Ask the hard questions and follow truth wherever it leads. As long as you can defend your position with sound logic, it cannot be refuted.

By anne

January 8, 2008 10:37 AM | Link to this

I don’t think our children (both under 10) are too young to talk about the issues (resource allocation, efficiency, equity) and we encourage learning about their role as citizens and the history/political philosophies of politics around the world. The questions of individual humans’ responsibility to their fellow humans have been long debated, aren’t cut and dried and deserve serious thought. Hopefully we will raise independent thinkers who recognize that their role as a privileged race in a privileged country comes with some responsibility (not just to themselves!).

By FCM

January 8, 2008 10:55 AM | Link to this

@Jeff—-I did not find that the school was ‘lying’ just that they omit key facts….research consistanly shows my child that school only presents a portion of the large picture of the topic at hand. That may well be what you call ‘truth’….

Pick any ‘hot’ topic (Isreal/Palestine, the War, Civil Rights) and certain groups will only talk about a specific piece of it.
Ex: They were discussing ‘Current Events’ in school. It was mentioned that our soliders are overseas, they shouldn’t be there, and that we should really work on bringing them home. My child read part of letter from her Dad (a solider) that said he knew he was over there for a good reason, some specifics on why he feels it is a good reason, and why he is glad to be there. However, I had to go to the teacher before the child could do that….because the child came home so upset by what the teacher had talked about. Honestly, the teacher let me know they were not interested in the ‘balance’ but in the end relented when I pressed hard. If we had not done that, then I guess only that narrow view espoused that day in class would have been presented. (BTW, my grandmother did the same thing to my cousin’s history class when they studied the Civil War).

By Snarky

January 8, 2008 11:05 AM | Link to this

@anne…

Sounds like you’ve already made up their minds for them.

In one breath you state that “The questions of individual humans’ responsibility to their fellow humans have been long debated, aren’t cut and dried and deserve serious thought.”

Then you turn around and definitively state “[Your children should]recognize that their role as a privileged race in a privileged country comes with some responsibility (not just to themselves!).”

So much for encouraging independent thinking. Of course, maybe that’s not part of the “world citizen” role.

By Jeff

January 8, 2008 11:14 AM | Link to this

FCM:

Actually, the way I look at facts is this:

Put them in a court room setting. Have both a prosecutor and a defense attorney. Unlike a ‘normal’ courtroom, ONLY facts and logic are allowed in this courtroom. No emotional ploys. Just the facts and the logic connecting those facts and leading to a conclusion.

The prosecution’s job is the same as in a real courtroom: Support the premise of the charge. The defense attorney’s job is also the same as in a real courtroom: provide evidence that the prosecutor is wrong, and offer an alternative if one is available. The defense attorney must then defend the alternative while the prosecutor attacks it.

Another difference in my courtroom is that if the defense gets one alternative completely blown out of the water, they are to come up with another alternative and defend it. This is repeated until all possible alternatives are fully explored or the defense is successful in putting forth an alternative that the prosecution cannot refute.

Another difference is that every time new facts are found, the case is retried. (No ‘Double Jeopardy’ laws in this court.)

Now, admiteddly, this practice has a couple of major flaws: An emotional-based person cannot follow it, and an acute knowledge of logic is a major prerequisite before engaging in this endeavor.

Once such a knowledge of logic is acquired, however, I feel that it is IMPERATIVE that ALL use this or similar methodology.

It is the very definition of ‘open minded’, after all.

By Jesse's Girl

January 8, 2008 11:20 AM | Link to this

Yes…we very much include the kids in on our political discussions. It gets interesting as we do not allign with one party or another. We are registered as Republicans, but have found ourselves leaning on certain issues on more than one occassion. Our oldest is very atuned to the issues and has started asking some difficult questions. I think as long as we answer delicately…all should be well. It gets a little hinky when Mr Jesse’s dad gets involved. He is a very free thinking Democrat/Conspiracy Therorist that sometimes injects too much of his personal doctrine. But thats ok…thats whats its all about right? I believe as parents we do our children a huge disservice to avoid this topic.

By Joyce

January 8, 2008 12:45 PM | Link to this

When I was a TA in a large midwestern university, one of my students, probably about 19 years old, informed the class during a discussion about civics, that she would be voting as soon as her father told her which alternative to vote for! Pretty scary. We’ll discuss these things as we go along, so my child won’t be saying the same thing when the time comes!

By motherjanegoose

January 8, 2008 2:01 PM | Link to this

My high school and college age children know where we stand…we tend to be conservative but also try to be open minded. We state our preferences but also indicate where things may need change. The biggest thing my kids have learned is that when you read something in the paper or hear it on TV it is not always 100% true. They learned this first hand when an article was written about me that had an error in it ( not life changing) and when they read it for themselves…WOW…MOM that is not true at all…an important lesson learned. We try to point out good aspects of other candidates, even if we would not vote for them…to show why some folks would vote for them…just not us.

By Snarky

January 8, 2008 3:30 PM | Link to this

This thread slowed down too much. Let’s get it moving again…

If you have a tramp stamp you shouldn’t vote. Discuss. ;)

By MrLiberty

January 8, 2008 4:30 PM | Link to this

There has probably never been a more instructive primary season than this one. For the first time in probably 100 or more years we have a candidate running on a platform based on the Constitution, a non-interventioninst foreign policy, an end to the slavery of income taxation, an end to inflation through re-establishment of the gold standard, and a return to a federal government that is the size defined in the Constitution. This candidate is routinely ridiculed, joked about, and treated as though his ideas are foreign to this country, our history, and our way of life. Yes, this is a very informative primary season.

This man has been elected 10 times to Congress as a Republican, yet the republican party is actively working to undermine his candidacy. They say he sounds like a democrat because he wants to end the war in Iraq, yet neither Nixon nor Eisenhower were called democrats for opposing the war being waged by the democrat of their times. Instead they received party support.

On the democratic side we have three front runners who claim to be “antiwar” candidates, but who will not commit to even bringinig the troops home in 18 months. In fact all of them will likely be there or in the region for years. They all voted for the Patriot act which singlehandedly undermined the Bill of Rights, the Miliary Tribunals Act - even worse, and none of them have the courage to recind their support of these laws. They all continue to vote for funding of the war, though their party was elected in 2006 specifically to bring the troops home. Thousands of democrats have switched their registration to republican just to vote for Ron Paul, but the Main Stream Media won’t even bother to mention it. Yes, a very educational moment.

Issues are being brought up in this campaign that most americans would just assume ignore until they blow up in their faces. The housing and mortgage crisis is all about the illegal Federal Reserve and its non-stop printing press, but everyone keeps calling for more money. Ron Paul of course studied the Nobel Prize winning economist Ludwig Von Mises so he already knows how the last Depression hit this country and he is attempting to wake people up before it happens again. Nobody listens - yes, very educational. Most of the democrats and even some republicans are pushing for more government control over health care - universal care. None have yet shown how its going to be paid for (long term) or even how we are supposed to take care of the current 800 billion/year, 10 trillion total (really more like 60 trillion with Social Security and Medicare) and all the other pending debts. Not only has Ron Paul talkied about where the money is coming from to pay off the debt, but he is the only practising physician running. He has a great plan to fix medicine, restore choice, put the patient back in charge, get the government out of the mess (that they created). Think that gets coverage? yes, very educatial.

And why is this man not running as an independant since neither party seems to have a place for someone who believes in the constitution any more? Because as he quite accurately notes, the republicans and the democrats have rigged the process in favor of themselves and against anyone with any different ideas. To quote him “so long as we are going to all the trouble to export democracy around the world, it would be nice if we could export a little back to our election process. It is far from what anyone would call democratic.”

So yes, there is plenty to teach someone about this primary season. First, if you think you can become president, forget it. Aspire to something more dignified. Second, everything you learned about Lincoln, how a bill becomes a law, how presidents get elected, how we are “represented”, how a free press is the greatest protector a free society has, how the constitution is the law of this land, and how people will respect you if you stick to your principles - its all garbage.

Better yet, just tell your kids to Google Ron Paul and let them find out for themselves what a true statesman is really about. Then tell them to sit back and watch and remember this election, for it was the beginning of the second american revolution.

By Snarky

January 8, 2008 4:40 PM | Link to this

sigh

It didn’t slow down so much that we needed a Ron Paul ad.

By FCM

January 8, 2008 5:20 PM | Link to this

Snarky, I agree…..I did not see it asking who were educating them about…just were we being specific or general. However, Mr. Liberty (despite his diatribe that might make you think otherwise)still has CONSTITUTIONAL freedom of speech right… and I will not object to his using it.

By Jesse's Girl

January 8, 2008 5:31 PM | Link to this

I personally like McCain…he’s flirting with geezerville, yes. But the man doesn’t waver, falter or back away from a fight. He actually has a sensible plan to address the inlfux of illegal immagrants and he survived a prison camp. He’s not afraid to shy away from traditional Republican view points and…shocker….do what makes the most sense! All while being cute as hell. Ok….so that last nuggett doesn’t make him a good President. That was just for me….:)

By Jeff

January 8, 2008 6:31 PM | Link to this

MrLiberty and I RARELY agree, but on this one we do!

Dr. Paul is truly the ONLY ‘Hope for America’.

By Racebaiter

January 8, 2008 7:08 PM | Link to this

At least make sure they have the common sense to understand why illegal aliens shouldn’t be allowed into the country.

By nurse&mother

January 9, 2008 10:32 AM | Link to this

I think this election year is truly a toss up! I too (like Jesse’s Girl) am rooting for John McCain.

By nurse&mother

January 9, 2008 5:09 PM | Link to this

Racebaiter-not trying to stir the pot, but I’m not sure that it’s possible to keep illegals from entering this country. If we had a way to document them (not necessarily granting citizenship-but taking out taxes) we could at least collect some taxes. We all know that the U.S. can’t or won’t get rid of them. They just step over the border again.

It’s ironic that the U.S. won’t grant amnesty to those Iraqi’s that have served as interpreters for our men/women serving in the middle east. 100’s of thousands of these Iraqi’s that have helped out the U.S. are in fear of their lives. Many have been killed or their family members have been killed because they have helped us. It’s a shame that the U.S. won’t step up to the plate and help defend these people, but will overlook the countless number of illegals that merely want to drain the medicaid, WIC system, etc.