Bidding My College-Bound Son Good Riddance
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/help-my-son-has-become-an-eco-conscious-monster
RUSH: I got a story here in the Pacific Standard magazine. I guess it's a newspaper in Northern California.
It's a long piece by a mother who can't wait for her kid to get away from her and go to college. She admits her own culpability, but our culture, society, education, have turned this kid into an insane environmentalist, bugging her about everything she buys. For example, the kid is 14 years old. When they go to the grocery store, at a certain time of year she will go out and buy beef. He will harangue her, "Do you realize how much water it took? Do you realize how you're helping hasten environmental destruction by buying beef? Why are you even eating it? You shouldn't be eating it." This 14-year-old kid is talking to her this way.
That's the tip of the iceberg. The examples she gives are five pages long. And she says she bears blame for creating this left-wing lunatic of a son, but you can bet that his high school does, too. She doesn't call him a lunatic. She ends up saying she loves him. She's gonna miss him, don't misunderstand, but there's a part of her that can't wait for this kid to get away because she's tired of feeling guilty for living.
When he was growing up he watched and read the green pabulum on Sesame Street, but he's farther off the cliff than most. But here's a pull quote. "I can do nothing right in my teenage son’s eyes. He grills me about the distance traveled of each piece of fruit and every vegetable I purchase. He interrogates me about the provenance of all the meat, poultry, and fish I serve. He questions my every move -- from how I choose a car (why not electric?) and a couch (why synthetic fill?) to how I tend the garden (why waste water on flowers?) -- an unremitting interrogation of my impact on our desecrated environment. While other parents hide alcohol and pharmaceuticals from their teens, I hide plastic containers and paper towels."
It's by a woman named Ms. Ronnie Cohen, and it's at PSmag.com. I'll have Koko dredge this up and we'll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com so you can check it later. But it's people like that that we're raising. We're raising little environmentalist wackos. They go away to college, they're learning to be victims, it's making them unhappy, it's making them miserable. By definition, when you make yourself a victim, you're making yourself a secondary class person. If you make yourself a victim, it means you allow people to victimize you, which means you really have no self-worth. And this is the kind of thing that's being promoted.
Another pull quote. "A culture of victimhood is one characterized by concern with status and sensitivity to slight combined with a heavy reliance on third parties. People are intolerant of insults, even if unintentional, and react by bringing them to the attention of authorities or to the public at large. Domination is the main form of deviance, and victimization a way of attracting sympathy, so rather than emphasize either their strength or inner worth, the aggrieved emphasize their oppression and social marginalization." Which is exactly right. The offended, the aggrieved, the victims, by definition, allow themselves to think of themselves as second class. They are able to be bullied. They are able to be offended.
I never wanted to give anybody the power to offend me. I think it's such a waste of time to be offended by things. It's the stupidest thing in the world to me. To be offended by something? I mean, it happens. Not often with me. I will admit it happens, and when it does, I catch myself. "It's not worth this." It's not worth giving anybody that kind of power over me or you or however you look at it. But the entire process of victimization is one which purposefully causes people self-loathing. And in that sense, then they allow others to come up with policies, behaviors, regulations that punish the offenders and dictate life for everybody, sacrificing freedom.
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/help-my-son-has-become-an-eco-conscious-monster
RUSH: I got a story here in the Pacific Standard magazine. I guess it's a newspaper in Northern California.
It's a long piece by a mother who can't wait for her kid to get away from her and go to college. She admits her own culpability, but our culture, society, education, have turned this kid into an insane environmentalist, bugging her about everything she buys. For example, the kid is 14 years old. When they go to the grocery store, at a certain time of year she will go out and buy beef. He will harangue her, "Do you realize how much water it took? Do you realize how you're helping hasten environmental destruction by buying beef? Why are you even eating it? You shouldn't be eating it." This 14-year-old kid is talking to her this way.
That's the tip of the iceberg. The examples she gives are five pages long. And she says she bears blame for creating this left-wing lunatic of a son, but you can bet that his high school does, too. She doesn't call him a lunatic. She ends up saying she loves him. She's gonna miss him, don't misunderstand, but there's a part of her that can't wait for this kid to get away because she's tired of feeling guilty for living.
When he was growing up he watched and read the green pabulum on Sesame Street, but he's farther off the cliff than most. But here's a pull quote. "I can do nothing right in my teenage son’s eyes. He grills me about the distance traveled of each piece of fruit and every vegetable I purchase. He interrogates me about the provenance of all the meat, poultry, and fish I serve. He questions my every move -- from how I choose a car (why not electric?) and a couch (why synthetic fill?) to how I tend the garden (why waste water on flowers?) -- an unremitting interrogation of my impact on our desecrated environment. While other parents hide alcohol and pharmaceuticals from their teens, I hide plastic containers and paper towels."
It's by a woman named Ms. Ronnie Cohen, and it's at PSmag.com. I'll have Koko dredge this up and we'll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com so you can check it later. But it's people like that that we're raising. We're raising little environmentalist wackos. They go away to college, they're learning to be victims, it's making them unhappy, it's making them miserable. By definition, when you make yourself a victim, you're making yourself a secondary class person. If you make yourself a victim, it means you allow people to victimize you, which means you really have no self-worth. And this is the kind of thing that's being promoted.
Another pull quote. "A culture of victimhood is one characterized by concern with status and sensitivity to slight combined with a heavy reliance on third parties. People are intolerant of insults, even if unintentional, and react by bringing them to the attention of authorities or to the public at large. Domination is the main form of deviance, and victimization a way of attracting sympathy, so rather than emphasize either their strength or inner worth, the aggrieved emphasize their oppression and social marginalization." Which is exactly right. The offended, the aggrieved, the victims, by definition, allow themselves to think of themselves as second class. They are able to be bullied. They are able to be offended.
I never wanted to give anybody the power to offend me. I think it's such a waste of time to be offended by things. It's the stupidest thing in the world to me. To be offended by something? I mean, it happens. Not often with me. I will admit it happens, and when it does, I catch myself. "It's not worth this." It's not worth giving anybody that kind of power over me or you or however you look at it. But the entire process of victimization is one which purposefully causes people self-loathing. And in that sense, then they allow others to come up with policies, behaviors, regulations that punish the offenders and dictate life for everybody, sacrificing freedom.