Swift Reactions 3

For the third edition of "Swift Reactions" (in which I highlight what you, the reader, have to say and feign interest), I would like to talk about our nation's youth. Like President Bush I've been thinking a lot lately about America's young people and the future of our country. In my pieces "Are We Tasering People Enough?" and "Bush to Kids: Grow Up!" I pointed out how spoiled and disrespectful many of our children are and how ill-prepared they are to fight the wars of the 21st century. And judging by some of the comments I've gotten here and reactions to my pieces in the blogosphere my fears are well-founded.

I've been writing about how lazy and coddled students are from the earliest days of this blog. One of the first pieces I wrote for this blog, "Financial Aid: Welfare for Students," in which I described how schools are turning kids into taxpayer-leeching liberals, is still getting a response. It received a comment just this week from someone named Jared, whose disrespect for his elders is equaled only by the arrogance of his youth. In response to my question "The better educated you are, the more likely you are to be liberal. What does that tell you?" Jared responded: "What it tells me is that die hard conservatives like your self just aren't educated enough to understand something as complicated as student aid."

But Jared's deep-seated, Supreme Court-worthy anger and lack of respect are nothing compared with that of the young Harry Potter fans who recently found their way to this site to excoriate me for writing "Harry Potter Is a Brat." (For a very thorough point-by-point denunciation of my piece, see this post at Ioannus de Verani's blog.) "Many thanks for the unintentional humor," said a cheeky commenter named Alyssa. "ITS A FRIGGEN BOOK! probably the best and most interesting book ive ever written, i saw harry potter when i was 5 and you dont see me doing witchcraft? i was young? CAUSE I WAS SMART ENOUGH TO NO IT WAS FAKE! and unless you think the world is entirely stupid to understand this you have a problem, and must be a sh---y writer for picking on an innocent book," said another young fan who apparently thinks she's J.K. Rowling, while another fan concludes, "I've always been told that conservatives were stupid ignorant prats, of course i've never belived them but now i do. You are downright stupid." Of course, I deeply regret giving anyone the wrong impression of conservatives, but my biggest concern is with the torturous relationship these young readers have with the English language, as I pointed out in a comment on a post by Two Knives. Harry Potter fans are apparently literary geniuses compared with Bratz doll fans, and Bratz doll lovers had Two Knives contemplating censorship of tween comments to spare the illiterate tykes embarrassment, though I think a little embarrassment might do them some good -- if they are able to feel embarrassment.

Who is to blame for the poor language skills and potty mouths of our nation's tiny tots? Perhaps Samuel at Desk Full of Clutter, who is an advocate of homeschooling, might know the answer. Here is his response to "Bush to Kids: Grow Up!" edited slightly to make it safe for the reading enjoyment of the entire family: "Assuming this [expletive deleted] is serious, I've got a nominee for the world's biggest [expletive deleted]. Go here, bring a garbage can up next to the computer in case you need to vomit. I really wish I could convince myself it's a spoof, but sadly, I think he actually thinks all this [expletive deleted] that tumbles out of his cold, bastard soul. Thanks to Daryl [Cobranchi at HE&OS] for linking to this [expletive deleted] and making my night less pleasant than it might otherwise have been."

You can imagine what a relief it is after reading such a vituperative attack to return to the protective bosom of my own blog and my (mostly) supportive readers who are coming up with real solutions to the problem of our wayward youth. "All kids should be left 'Home Alone' and they will learn how to fight off burglars using only household tools. Later these skills can be applied to hold terrorists outside the entire country!" Roderick suggested helpfully.

Malagent lent support to my argument that more young people should be tasered by pointing out that tasers don't kill people, people kill people. "It's kind of like saying automobiles caused the death in car accidents, it may be a factor but it's not the cause," he wrote. And they only hurt for, like, a millisecond, he added. Thank you very much for bringing your "aggressive common sense" (as your blog's tagline puts it) to my blog, but I hope I am not being too rude if I say that the even more aggressive feature on your site which redirects you to a page that tries to force you at virtual gunpoint to download Firefox if you happen to wander over there using Internet Explorer is not only extremely annoying but quite possibly un-American.

However, perhaps all this talk of bratty children has had a deleterious effect on some of my adult commenters, who appear to have regressed into attention-starved two year olds. Lord Higham-Johnson of the always fun to read blog Nourishing Obscurity was quite enthusiastic about the first edition of "Swift Reactions," calling it a "nifty scheme." But by the second edition of "Swift Reactions" he seemed miffed that I hadn't yet mentioned him: "Eagerly having written about you last week, Jon, I eagerly came over to look at the second edition and zilch - nicho, nix, not a sausage. Sigh. And it was a labour of love too," he wrote. Apparently, it all comes down to "me, me, me" (and by "me, me, me" I mean "you, you, you") for His Grace, or however one is supposed to address a Lord. But never let it be said I don't give my readers what they want and so this edition of "Swift Reactions" is dedicated to him, with my apologies for depriving him of the attention he craves. I wonder if I should start a new series consisting solely of reactions to "Swift Reactions," which I could call "Swift Reactions Reactions."

Before I leave you, I just want to point out that this modest blog has had the great fortune of selling three ads this week instead of the usual zero, although no one has bought the special discounted $65,000 ad yet (which I only need to sell one of, as MW astutely points out). I hope you will all take a look at what our fine sponsors are proffering, which must be worthy since they have had the good taste to support this blog. And if you have even more time to while away this week, head on over to the 2007 Weblog Awards site and reward some of your favorite blogs with a nomination.