Do it “for the children” is a favorite leftist pitch. As for what liberals do to the children, doxxing and death threats that have silenced a budding little social-media comedy star are a good example. The incident also again illustrates how intimidation, Brown Shirt-style, does effectively stifle dissent.

The victim is eight-year-old Ava Martinez, better known as “Mini-AOC,” who did spot-on satirical impressions of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). The young performer’s family deleted all her social-media accounts last Wednesday, alarming her 87,000 Twitter followers and sparking suspicions that Twitter had suspended her or someone had hacked her account. But the truth was even worse, as her stepfather, Salvatore Schachter, explained in the tweet below:

Schachter elaborated in an interview with the Gateway Pundit website. “We had to delete our accounts because the threats, harassment, negativity and hate directed at Ava and our family grew too much to bear,” he said. “The calls, texts, posts and emails from angry, hate-filled people were quite frankly, disturbing.”

“We started Mini AOC because Ava is a natural performer who loves to entertain and she enjoyed the praise she was getting for her sense of humor and charming personality,” Schachter continued. “It’s with some sadness that she will not get to share her talent with the many people who enjoyed her videos because of others who use violence as a means to an end. I do find it odd that people feel the need to protect a congressperson with such hate and disgust.”

Just as shamefully, that congresswoman hasn’t spoken out against the harassment even now, a week later. This is telling. Even if it’s not in Ocasio-Cortez’ heart, defending Martinez would at least be good public relations. Yet the politician still can’t bring herself to make a statement.

One observer questioned why Ocasio-Cortez has protested the treatment of children at the border — whom the government actually takes pains to accommodate — but not the threats against Martinez. But the answer is obvious considering that the congresswoman’s set supports prenatal infanticide even up to birth.

To wit: Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t actually care about children.

She cares about how they can be used for attainment of power.

Were the congresswoman and her acolytes honorable, they’d be concerned with how the avowed socialist’s “arrogant ignorance” provides troves of material for mockery, not with how an eight-year-old uses that material. The latter could be quite entertaining, too, with Mini-AOC’s accurate imitation of Maxi-AOC’s speech patterns and appearance coupled with often laugh-worthy lines (clearly written by adults). Providing a prime example, Gateway Pundit described one Mini-AOC video, writing:

“Like, I want to tell you about my plan to single-handededly [sic] save the planet. I call it the Green New Deal. I picked green because I’m still learning my colors. I came up with my plan after we were watching, like, the most important documentary on climate change. It’s called Ice Age 2: The Meltdown,” she said, referring to the animated 2006 hit movie. “That’s not me saying it, that’s science.”

“My Green New Deal will cost, like, 93 trillion dollars. Do you know how much that is? Me neither. Because it’s totally worth it. If sea levels keep rising, we won’t be able to drive to Hawaii any more [sic],” she said.

Then there’s the Mini-AOC video below, published under someone else’s YouTube account:

The threats against Ava aren’t the first time leftists have menaced little children (and won’t be the last). Another example was the vile threats against then-six-year-old Isaac Anthony, featured in a 2012 video (below) providing 10 reasons not to vote for Barack Obama.

If the threats made against little Isaac are any indication of the level of mental instability of the Left — one left-wing poster wrote “Shoot tha kid! Kill tha parents!!!” — it’s understandable why Martinez’ father deleted her accounts. A person might be willing to risk his own neck for a political cause, but risking his child’s is another matter.

Moreover, while most of the death threats against Ava would just be smoke, the congressional-baseball shooting in 2017 and other incidents inform that they can become dark reality.

Another tragic reality here is what this story illustrates: that threats, intimidation, scorn, and ostracism do work to silence dissent.

This, mind you, is why the Left doxxes conservatives, shouts them down on college campuses, assaults them in the street (e.g., Antifa), and harasses public officials in restaurants. It’s one reason they targeted the Covington Catholic kids. And here’s a point to ponder: How many conservatives do such things? As phenomena go, this is a leftist one.

Couple this with Big Tech’s stifling of conservative voices, and what picture emerges? A group can’t win the battle of ideas if it can’t express its ideas. Of course, this is the whole idea.

(Example of censorship: While writing this piece and searching for a 2013 article I wrote that included information on Isaac Anthony, I put the search terms “‘Selwyn Duke’ obama six-year-old boy death threats video” into Google. I checked the first five pages and the piece was nowhere; i.e., it was in Internet Siberia. I pasted the same terms into DuckDuckGo.com, and my article was the second result on the first page. Google has long been burying my pieces — along with countless thousands of other conservative works.)

Lamenting double standards, Gateway Pundit closed its Ava Martinez story by asking: How was the girl’s satire “different from ‘Saturday Night Live’ bashing President Trump week after week?” The difference? Mini-AOC could actually be funny.

What’s not funny is that the Left is winning the battle of ideas — by silencing opposing ones.

Image of Ava Martinez (Mini-AOC): Screenshot of video provided by Politically Biased