Democrat Perspective: Shape Our Children

During her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama declared: 

This election ... is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives.

Of course she says that as if the obvious response would be, "Oh, you're right. We must vote for Hillary!" And from the faithful delegates of the DNC - who not incidentally  booed loudly during the invocation opening the convention - no doubt Michelle evoked that response.  

But reading her statement (of course I did not listen to any of the convention!) inspired a couple of thoughts in me as well.

1. Who has the power to shape our children? In the mind of leftists, the government. Not parents. Not pastors. Not aunts, uncles and grandparents. No, the federal government "shapes our children." This is the fulfillment of the vision of Marx, John Dewey, and other proponents of centralized control. Was any Democrat delegate in that convention hall the least bit disturbed by this concept? Apparently not. The fact that half of our nation embraces this concept is alarming.

2. On another hand, she is right. The President does have an ability to influence the lives of our children. For example, the President can direct his Department of Justice to threaten all public schools in the nation with legal action if they keep boys out of the girl's locker rooms and restrooms. The President can choose not to enforce immigration laws, and thus allow (a) illegal aliens to roam our country robbing and killing innocent people, and (b) non-tax-paying aliens to flood the public school system and rob it of the resources available to law abiding citizens. The President can veto good laws, and arm-twist legislators into passing bad ones, which deprive you of freedom to choose your doctor, which wreak economic devastation on the country, which reward non-workers and punish workers, and which shift the burden of today's vote-buying expenditures onto the backs of our children as the next generation of workers. We could go on, of course. So yes, perhaps Michelle was right. The President does have an ability to shape our children's lives.

3. Finally, perhaps she understated the case. Not just for four or eight years, but the next President will appoint federal judges who will support the constitution, preserve the liberties expressly stated in the Bill of Rights, and enforce the laws enacted by our representatives (such as Thomas, Alito and the late Scalia) or re-write laws against the will of the democratically elected representatives (think of more justices like Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotomayor, Kennedy and Breyer). That means the President gets to shape the world in which our children will live for at least 25 - 30 years.

The stakes in the election could not be higher. Trump was not my choice. I would have preferred any of at least a dozen of the original Republican candidates. But I am voting #NeverHillary in this election. And anything other than a vote for Trump would be a vote for Hillary.