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Health & Fitness

Teaching Children To Do The Right Thing

If you have kids, or have already raised a few, you understand that at some point – famously, the “terrible two’s” – the child will do what you want, if you tell him or her to do the exact opposite. It’s an old fashioned way to get two-year-olds to do the right thing.

“Do not eat the strawberries,” you might say, “They’re prickly and might tear your throat out.” As soon as you have turned your back, guess who’s eating the strawberries.

It seems illogical, but it works. To the child, he or she has won whatever was being contested. To the adult, the child has done what you intended, and time will tell if the result is beneficial, or the strawberries hurt the kid’s throat.

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This might not work in the animal kingdom. Wild animals usually do what they want to do – period! They need enticements.

Let’s change the metaphor. It’s not a child we’re having trouble with, it’s a political party. Let’s say it’s the Tea Party. And it isn’t strawberries; it’s war.

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The party is very young, stubborn and unwilling to compromise, or behave like an adult. It wants its way. It doesn’t care about the consequences. It will get its way, or kick down the slats in the playpen.

Republicans are usually the first in line to vote for war. They love what wars do for the economy – as long as it’s not their kids doing the fighting! Republicans, led by the Tea Party, don’t want to pay a cent in taxes that doesn’t go into the military-industrial complex – or into their own pockets.

So, Obama suggests, let’s do something really bad to that dictator in Damascus. Maybe even drop a bomb on his oil refineries. Let’s do something drastic to stop that animal – from gassing his own citizens!

And, guess what the Tea Party says:  “Hell, no!” They’re suddenly against “boots on the ground” or bombs on the runways in Syria. They are against war – Praise God! They say “No” to anything Obama suggests.

Don’t you think the President knows what to expect from stubborn, willful, uneducated tea-drinking racists? Do you think maybe the President has another plan altogether, and he’s just not letting the children in on his strategy?

Let’s hope that’s what’s happening.


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