Should we listen to the kids or…what the heck do they know?



One couldn’t help but feel compassion for the group of Florida teenagers as they testified to the violence that took the lives of seventeen classmates and teachers in their high school last week. For some, however, it almost looked like a chance to shine in the national spotlight as the cameras and microphones would’ve certainly been located elsewhere if these students hadn’t been in such close proximity to ruthless killer Nikolas Cruz and lived to tell about it.



The same could be said of surviving concertgoers in Las Vegas last fall when Stephen Paddock plotted and carried out perhaps the most notorious mass murder in American history. If it weren’t for Paddock no one would’ve ever heard of most of those people (not a bad thing, just fate).



The horrific events made these folks famous. And some took advantage of it. Others suggest (in the Florida teenagers’ case) they must have had assistance in their quest for notoriety.



Katelyn Caralle reported in the Washington Examiner, “Former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., argued Tuesday that left-wing groups are helping high school students mobilize against the Trump administration to push for tougher gun controls in the wake of last week's school shooting in Florida.



“’Let’s ask ourselves: Do we really think 17-year-olds, on their own, are going to plan a nationwide rally?’ Kingston said on CNN.



“His comments drew a rebuke from CNN host Alisyn Camerota, who told him, ‘I was down there and talked to these kids’ and said they were motivated enough on their own to buy bus tickets and plan a protest in Washington.”



Hmmm. Harkening back to my high school days I don’t recall any of my classmates with the wherewithal to get to a bus station much less purchase tickets for a crowd of followers to go someplace to argue in favor of a social cause. Kingston has a point – someone, somewhere, heard about the shooting and mobilized to find enough gullible kids to use to score points with the public – proxies for the people who hate guns and only see half of the argument.



Granted there’s an awful lot of information available at your fingertips but it takes years of scholarly study for anyone to converse intelligently on the Second Amendment issue and contemporary notions of “gun control.” Anyone’s capable of blabbering from emotion at any given moment, but to actually organize rallies in faraway places takes knowhow – and money.



The liberals’ disinformation operations in the wake of mass shootings is reminiscent of the propaganda campaigns carried out by Soviet spies in decades past – and even the semi-amateurish Russian plots to influence the 2016 election. Invariably someone who’s not visible is steering the media ship hoping it will hit the rocks before the truth (in the form of facts) bubbles to the surface.



In the Florida case it’s likely some leftist fringe group’s blatantly exploiting kids to con the susceptible media into providing them a platform to express grief. It’s almost shameful – but what else would you expect from today’s journalists? They’re playing on the immaturity and ignorance of children to achieve what they otherwise couldn’t in the political realm.



As responsible adults we should listen to the apprehensions of the still growing but when it comes to making policy, save it for those with fully acquired cognitive abilities.



Ben Shapiro wrote at National Review, “This discussion of young people’s political involvement leaves out one crucial element: the responsibility of older people to help inculcate expertise and reason in young people. The whole reason that young people are generally less capable of strong decision-making is that the emotional centers of the brain are overdeveloped in comparison with the rational centers of the brain. And it requires training to fully utilize what psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls System 2 — the analyzing portion of the brain.



“It’s the job of those who think most rationally to teach those whose rationality is still developing. Leaving individual decision-making, let alone general policy, to young people — those who respond most strongly to System 1, the intuitive, emotional brain areas — may be smart politics. After all, we all respond intuitively to slogans and emotional appeals. But it makes for rotten policy.”



In other words, fully formed adults separate facts from feelings, youngsters don’t. That’s why 18 year-olds don’t lead armies and aside from monarchial systems adolescents don’t act as heads of state. We might have any number of teens commenting on politics on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter – and their liberal political leanings sound as well developed as Whoopi Goldberg’s – but do we really want neophytes calling the shots when the chips are on the line?



How would you feel about these same 17 and 18 year-olds holding sway over your right to free speech or worship? Or should they be given latitude to determine the life or death of their unborn children – oh wait, they already have that ability thanks to the Supreme Court.



Most if not all states have minimum age requirements for getting married too. Similarly, all states mandate a person having reached their twenty-first birthday to buy a drink or to be 18 to purchase cigarettes. If kids can’t be trusted to possess enough judgment to buy a beer or a smoke should we really be listening to their emotional yammering on the God-given right to bear arms?



Heck, even in a time when life expectancy was much lower the Founding Fathers placed age minimums in the Constitution. No one under 25 can serve in the House, you must be at least 30 to be a senator and a 35-year old can run for the presidency – but that still doesn’t mean we see a lot of non-gray full heads of hair and young parents carrying around infants serving in Congress.



In our society age equates to wisdom – at least to a degree. Experience counts too…otherwise why would an employer hire someone who’s got a great resume as opposed to an underling who will work cheap fresh out of junior high school?



The truth is these Florida kids are being instructed to say the National Rifle Association buys off politicians to keep guns unrestricted and to feed the pipeline of maniacs seeking weapons to rub-out people in school shootings. In reality there are hundreds if not thousands of laws pertaining to firearms already – and they function fine for all but a few crackpots.



What the leftists are actually after is the complete sequester of guns in society – and they want government to do the collecting. It ain’t gonna happen.



No quantity of emotional teens or Hollywood actors would do the trick – but that’s not to say they’ll cease trying to move the needle in the war on common sense.



Naomi Lim reported in the Washington Examiner, “Jennifer Lawrence is quitting acting for a year so she can devote her time to effort to help ‘fix our democracy,’ according to a report.



“’I'm going to take the next year off,’ Lawrence told Entertainment Tonight during a promotional appearance for her new film, ‘Red Sparrow.’



“’I'm going to be working with this organization as a part of Represent.Us ... trying to get young people engaged politically on a local level,’ the 27-year-old Academy Award winner said. ‘It doesn't have anything to do with partisan [politics]. It's just anti-corruption and stuff trying to pass state-by-state laws that can help prevent corruption, fix our democracy.’”



No doubt gun control will be part of Lawrence’s agenda.



Maybe it’s because J-Law’s brain hasn’t fully developed but she’s confusing a lot of things here. First off the United States isn’t a “democracy” -- it’s a representative republic. A democracy is where everyone votes on issues before the body and majority rules. Your church is a democracy in some ways – members vote on budgets and amendments to the church constitution.



But in America we vote for federal representatives, senators and a president to make consequential decisions on our behalf. Individuals are elected, go to the legislature and take part in the process. Do we always like their choices? No. It’s called politics.



Thankfully Ms. Lawrence won’t likely be any more successful in stirring up youth activism as other famous liberals who’ve tried in recent times. The gun control fury will fade soon enough – until the next incident happens. Unfortunately for liberals the people who they hope to drive forward have the shortest attention spans and least amount of civic knowledge or stamina.



It shouldn’t be forgotten that the late 60’s and early 70’s college campus Vietnam War protests were largely youth driven movements, but were they led by young people or adults who just used kids as foot soldiers in their own private crusades to sabotage traditional American culture and institutions? There is no such world conflict to galvanize attention today. Leftists will need reoccurring chaos to make headway. Here’s thinking they won’t get it.



In contrast, the Tea Party movement was propelled by ideas and led by real adults who’d accomplished things in their lives. Youth movements are anger inspired odysseys in pursuit of nebulous goals that can’t be defined much less achieved. “Give peace a chance” has morphed into “Am I next?”



Today’s Millennials don’t have what it takes. Is it partly because they’re too fat?



Bryan Bender of Politico reported, “The Trump administration's ambitious new military buildup is at risk of being hobbled before it even starts — by a dwindling pool of young Americans who are fit to serve.



“Nearly three-quarters of Americans age 17 to 24 are ineligible for the military due to obesity, other health problems, criminal backgrounds or lack of education, according to government data. That's a harsh reality check for the Pentagon’s plan to recruit tens of thousands of new soldiers, sailors, pilots and cyber specialists over the next five years.



“’We all have this image in our mind of this hearty American citizen, scrappy, that can do anything,’ said retired Army Lt. Gen. Tom Spoehr, co-author of a new Heritage Foundation paper on the military recruiting challenge titled The Looming National Security Crisis. ‘That image we keep in our heads is no longer accurate.’”



Spoehr indicated obesity rates skyrocketed in the last 10 to 15 years. Anyone guess what big societal change took place in that timeframe? How about social media and hand-held devices?



Kids spend a lot more time indoors on their phones these days. No wonder they’re chunky.



There’s little doubt today’s youth has a lot to learn when it comes to real world survival and the fight to preserve precious constitutional rights. There will always be plenty of people telling them what to say – we can only hope they’ll grow brains to make original thoughts of their own.