Labour likes them young

Clare Curran at Red Alert proudly blogs how a seven year old has been indoctrinated by her parents to believe that John Key will sell our fish and treasures and toys.

The fact that Clare thinks this is a great things tells us a lot. she even boasts how this is the future – indoctrinating seven year olds.

Her commenters are less impressed. Extracts:

Your kidding right? You should know that at 7 most children mirror their parents or their teachers attitudes. You might not think it is bad, but I take special care not to pollute my son’s attitudes with my political views. Teach them right and wrong i.e. good values and leave the rest of the indoctrination stuff out of it. …

I could tell my kid what to write as well!! Doesn’t mean they comprehend what they are writing..and don’t try to tell us that a 7year old has ANY understanding of politics(most adults have enough trouble understanding it all)…you can’t be that naive surely.

Is this what Labour means by own our future?

Curran responds to the criticism:

I think at seven (it may be eight) that most kids know the difference between right and wrong.

You right wingers can write as much venom as you like. The fact is that many many kids know when their family is poor and their mums and dads are struggling. And they can see the difference between their family and other families which are well off.

This sums up to me what is all so common in Labour. I do not think those who support policies of the left are evil or wrong. I just think their policies generally won’t achieve what they want, because they have too much confidence in the Government making better decisions than individuals. But to Clare and many in Labour, politics is good vs evil and right vs wrong. She thinks that Labour’s policies are so obviously good and National’s so obviously wrong that a seven year old can judge.

A letter commenter points out:

Clare, knowing that it’s wrong to kill or steal doesn’t mean that 7 or 8 year olds have anything interesting ir worthwhile to say on the subject of economic policy. For you to suggest that asset sales are as straightforward a moral problem as murder, for instance, is every bit as infantile as the drawing by your 7-year-old acolyte.

and another:

Clare, a 7 or 8 year old can probably see the difference between their own poor family, and another better off family. But that child definitely is not capable of forming their own opinions around the main causes of that, much less identify policies (and promoters thereof) that either improve or worsen their situation.

This is digusting.

This is why Labour will have no hesitation about running a much dirtier campaign than other parties. Because if you truly truly think that your opponents are evil and wrong, then the ends justifies the means.

Finally I love this comment by Matthew Hooton:

But Clare, “Gracia” – if she exists and hasn’t been dreamed up by you as a PR exercise – doesn’t write and draw about poverty and issues of social equity, but about asset sales.

And it is very difficult to believe that, at 7, someone could have developed an informed opinion about that. Phil Goff, for example, says that he didn’t reach the correct conclusion about that topic until he was in his 40s and 50s, having participated in asset sales in his late 30s.

Heh. Yes a youthful Phil Goff from age 31 to 37 was a fervent fan of asset sales. He changed his mind he says in the 1990s yet Goff at 49 voted to sell 25% of Air New Zealand to Qantas. Goodness knows what his policy will be in his 60s.