CJ’s Dan Way on U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s keynote address at N.C. Central University:
It was interesting, perhaps coincidental, that Duncan chose a book titled Our Kids from which to bracket much of his commencement message, and echo the thought.
“They’re your sons and daughters,” he told assembled friends and families of the graduates, “but in a very real way, they are our kids as well.”
I don’t know about you, but I find it creepy and foreboding when bureaucrats, especially a federal cabinet official, assert equal rights of ownership and parenting to my progeny. Whether they are dangerously misguided in their intentions or convinced that the power of government has a rightful seat at my table, overreach is inevitable.
Given the help I’ve had as a single father, I am deeply grateful to have had a support network lend valuable assistance over these last 19 years.
But mutually agreeable and negotiated acts of kindness with individuals of my choosing are a social compact far different from turning child-rearing responsibilities over to an authoritarian village, the village idiots, or, especially, the state.
Elsewhere in his speech, Duncan expressed alarm over growing gaps in income, opportunity, and achievement. Those, he believes, create class segregation that numbs the haves to a sense of empathy for the have-nots. Naturally, he envisions a government role to reverse that.
Yet nowhere in his speech did Duncan discuss the lack of personal responsibility or generational welfare self-esteem gaps that lure and trap many of the able-bodied have-nots.
Yeah that’s the way liberals think, especially a certain liberal who has announced her run for president, all the while raking in money hand over fist from anyone who will hand it over.
