Child Labor
By mistermix September 19th, 2010
This strikes me as characteristic of the tone-deaf fringe types who run as Libertarians:
Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate Mike Labno stood in front of the door to the event shaking hands and telling attendees, “You have a choice.”
His 6-year-old daughter, Emily, told attendees her father is “the only pro-life, pro-gun candidate for senate.”
Perhaps I’m oversensitive, but I don’t think 6-year-olds should be taken to cockfights, the dog track, or to teabagger rallies where it costs $1,600 to get your picture taken with Glenn Beck, and where Andrew Breitbart comes out to scream at protesting church members, accusing them of being pawns of SEIU.
Posted in Assholes
Was it an “open carry” event? If so was little Emily armed?
September 19th, 2010 at 9:58 am
And legged!
September 19th, 2010 at 10:00 am
TAKE your children to political events, yes.
PUT THEM ON AS SPEAKERS, no, unless they’re adults (or at least older teens speaking to something directly topical to that age group).
Six is definitely too young for any role except a “here’s my family” show by the candidate.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Emily might have been quite willing to make a speech for her dad. HOWEVER, how do you think Emily is going to feel when her dad loses? Like it was her fault? Like she failed one of the most important people of her life?
What have her parents done to her self esteem?
Losing an election is a REALLY BIG burden that has crushed lots and lots of adults. Children should not be subjected to this.
Emily’s parents are not only exploiting that child, they have set her up for years of pain.
[What was that song, “I wouldn’t want to be like you”?]
September 19th, 2010 at 10:07 am
Of course the irony of saying they are both pro-life and pro-gun escapes them. Admittedly, such recognition isn’t expected of 6 year olds.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Check out his bit on energy policy:
Notice he completely ignores how subsidized the OIL industry is? Or how no one will insure a nuclear reactor other than the government because of the huge risk?
No, the answer isn’t “drill more!”. The entire problem is that we’ve kept oil consumption so artificially cheap that we use way too much of it as it is. If we had to pay the market rate for oil products, alt fuels would have a much better chance.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Politics is on hold for the next 15 minutes. What had been a drab Manchester United – Liverpool match has come to life. 2-2 with about 10 minutes to go.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Enjoy:
September 19th, 2010 at 10:13 am
I agree; that sort of political role is inappropriate for a small child.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:13 am
How do you post a YouTube on this thing? http://www.youtube.com/v/ak8su.....8;hl=en_US
September 19th, 2010 at 10:15 am
I’m actually not so enraged because people take kids to rallies. Unless they’re dragged into something just bluntly freakishly in-your-face hideous while there, they’re not going to be exposed to anything much more influential than what they get from their family each day. Same on left, liberal, right, or single-issue. Plus, a lot of times parents can’t get child care for such times.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:25 am
@Mudge: That is the salient point. She could not possibly understand what she was saying. She was being used by her father as a shill. These people have no
shameconscienceredeeming characteristics, whatsoever.September 19th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Final score 3-2 to Manchester United. Hat trick for Dimitar Berbatov.
Libertarianism is the paradigm case of a philosophy that seems perfectly plausible when considered in the abstract, but falls completely apart when confronted by reality.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:27 am
So I took out my gun and shot her, neatly illustrating the paradox inherent in her position.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Excellent. When the kids of libertarians reach the age that they’re able to speak in full sentences, they can immediately start talking about personal arms and lethal force. I wonder why Emily didn’t include a statement about the elimination of drug laws and the legalization of sex work?
September 19th, 2010 at 10:29 am
@Mudge: Some kids will see through that kind of thing, and say so at some inconvenient moment.
I’m going to guess little Emily is not one of those kids, though.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:29 am
@Linda Featheringill:
I’ve also wondered about long term effects on kids used this way. And your comment brought to mind the children of creepy, sleazy Rick Santorum, who were gathered around him in November 2006 as he gave his concession speech.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Anyone here living in Illinois who wants to forward this article, along with video of Breitbart and the angry crowd spraying each other with spittle, to your child protective services department? It would make for great campaign material for the Libertarian to be locked in a fight to regain custody of his child from the evil oppressive state.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:36 am
i have to disagree w/ breitbart. i was one of the protesters and i’m a pawn of the american federation of teachers, not the seiu.
what a spittle-flecked maroon.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Tea Baggers have no conscience, no remorse, no ethics and no real moral belief system. Any atrocity you can think of, they’ve already done or have at least already thought of.
For instance, how’s this for an atrocity? A Tea Party lobbyist who writes a tellall confessional for Playboy and bragging about wreaking havoc on the political system with fake 9/11 families, fake grassroots organizations, using political terrorism and even publicly scorning his own tea party clients almost as much as he does liberals.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Being a glibertarian means anything that you do for yourself is good and anyone who says otherwise is trying to take your freedom away. It’s his kid and he will use her as he sees fit.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:43 am
@burnspbesq: Ugh. It’s going to be another rough season for Liverpool. I blame the American owners. Their stinginess when it came to buying players ultimately led to Xabi Alonso leaving, which deprived the team of their top playmaker, and to no first-rate defenders coming in to replace Sami Hyppia and the lion-hearted but aging Jamie Carragher.
Little kids shouldn’t be displayed onstage by their candidate parents, let alone made to parrot political utterances things beyond their wisdom. That’s exploitation. I believe that they shouldn’t be at a political rally at all, except in the audience.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:44 am
@befuggled: My father-in-law was the manager of a large collective vineyard and winery in Communist Romania. As such, he was the big cheese in the local area. This meant that my wife and her sister were always picked to be the stars of school programs, etc. Romanian state radio and TV would do interviews of children in these circumstances. At one point, my wife (maybe five or six y/o at the time) was asked if she wanted to be an important agricultural manager like her daddy when she grew up. She answered emphatically, “No, it’s dirty and hot. I want to be a hairdresser.” She did not get further interviews.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:46 am
@RSA:
Because she’d clearly have to be pro the elimination of drug laws but anti-inhaling and pro the legalization of sex work and anti-masturbation and a statement that long cut into her nap and cookie time.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:47 am
@Amir_Khalid:
Sorry to thread jack, but do you think the blog gods will put up an open thread for the Barca vs Atletico Madrid game @ one on ESPN2? Messi, Iniesta, Forlan et all, it hopefully will be a good show. I’m just so excited it’s actually on an american sports channel.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:50 am
@scav: If the parents were properly Randian, she would have been rewarded for such a long speech with cookies and nap time. If she did not learn the speech, she would only be a parasite and, therefore, not worthy of receiving the benefits.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:51 am
@Sharl:
Too bad he didn’t include the still born baby he and his wife brought home to show the kids.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:51 am
@Omnes Omnibus: True. Good thing we exposed these namby-pampy false flag lax child-indulgers for their weak on terror upbringing methods. Where are these kids bootstraps and why aren’t they hanging from them ? ! !
September 19th, 2010 at 10:58 am
@mellowjohn: Good grief, I followed the link and saw that this took place in Hoffman Estates. How embarrassing (I’m in Chicago).
The article made it sound as though Breitbart got the better of the protesters, and that the protesters didn’t push back against him very effectively—they “had no answers” for him, etc. Was that the case?
September 19th, 2010 at 10:59 am
@burnspesq:
ManU—the Yankees, but in short pants.
My heart bleeds for the Scousers—the club doesn’t deserve the ownership they’ve got, and the punters don’t deserve the team that they’ve got to watch.
Jerzy Dudek’s miracle save seems very, very long ago.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:00 am
@Davis X. Machina: Kalou at 1:13. Wow.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:04 am
@Darcy: I’d like to see that too. And, by the way, where has Randinho been hiding?
September 19th, 2010 at 11:09 am
@Amir_Khalid: I from now on just ‘Machinaça’.
Brazilian football name generator here.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:14 am
I love how Republicans are now calling themselves “Libertarian” after more than a decade of failure… and expecting different results.
Maybe they should be listening to 6-year-olds. They might come across some of that “common sense” they’re always on about.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:16 am
@Davis X. Machina: Omnibezo
September 19th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Perhaps a little older.
I have a large family, and when mom went off to have another baby, we got farmed out to the relatives. I always wanted to go, and often did get sent, to my uncle’s. He had the custom of taking his charge at least once during the stay—and you got a week in hospital for a normal delivery in those dear, dead days – to the track.
So I draw the uncle—10 or 11 at the time—got to ditch school for a day, go on the subway to the track, and learn cool stuff – how to read the tout sheets, the principle behind pari-mutuel betting (and the stock market), English traditional measurement (I went back to school and told Paul Furlong where his name came from.) But most importantly, I learned to box, key and wheel, I learned trifectas, perfectas, exactas—all the suckers and exotics.
Five years later, I got D’s in freshman HS math for 3 quarters—algebra is still a closed book to me. But quarter four was probability and combinatorics—and i aced that sucker by sixteen lengths.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:23 am
@Davis X. Machina: Amildo!
September 19th, 2010 at 11:24 am
That’s because you’re operating under a pre-9/11 mindset!
September 19th, 2010 at 11:27 am
@Davis X. Machina: I think it is important for uncles to take their nieces and nephews off to learn odd things. Both of my uncles would do it. As a part of one uncle related adventure, I, as an eleven year old, found myself performing a Vivaldi concerto on an old violin taken off the wall in Northwoods Wisconsin tavern. While fishing earlier in the day, my uncle had described the Battle of Jutland and explained the concept of crossing the “T” in naval warfare. You can’t buy that kind of experience.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:33 am
So we now know that an exploited child delivers a similar level of analysis to Megan McGargoyle.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Reminds me of when I went to the state Democratic convention in ‘04. We were greeted outside the venue by a an anti-abortion protester with a bullhorn, he and his three children all holding large pictures of mutilated fetuses. Ugh.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:39 am
@Sharl: That was world class weird. Especially since this kind of thing is bad enough even when it’s not focused on you as a small child.
I figure when your child demands to make a statement, the time has come.
Shoutout to @Linda. I’m sending text messages to grocery stores where I have an in, getting a box big enough to adopt a 4 week old kitten into. Excited.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:40 am
My dad drove the tractor on our family farm at 6 during baling season (the throttle is by hand so it was ok for someone with short legs), but he made me wait until I was 11, which I think was appropriate.
Thankfully though, he kept me out of political rallies until I was 15.
But then, he’s not a libertarian.
September 19th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
@Omnes Omnibus:
Indeed.
My uncle taught me to appreciate trophy wives and Porsche 911’s at the tender age of eight.
Even today at 43 I still like both even though I don’t have the income to support either one. :)
September 19th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
@Davis X. Machina: Asiiano. Which sounds like a cheese to me. My real name generates Hinhosa Pau. Me likey!
Six-year old Emily is gonna be very pissed-off when she grows up. I don’t mind if they take her, but to have her spouting that shit….
September 19th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
It’s impressive that little Emily is proficient at wingnut talking points. At her age I was still busy perfecting how to tie my shoelaces.
September 19th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
What the fuck is wrong with Breitbart? There’s really something badly wrong with him. He strikes me as the kind of guy who’s going to snap sometime and lose it and beat some old man to death in front of his grandchild or something at a protest. He’s fucked up and strikes me as dangerous—physically dangerous—in a way that even somebody like Beck isn’t. I think Limbaugh is crazy in the same way that Breitbart is, only he’s too fat and out of shape to physically threaten anybody.
September 19th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
@Ash Can:
i thought we held our own. and keep in mind that the same reporter who wrote the linked article about beck’s whitestock also wrote a long piece (almost all the front page and a 2-page spread on pp. 4-5) about rick santelli, “the father of the teabagger movement,” in the same edition of today’s sun-times.
September 19th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
@Davis X. Machina: Williisco—which was better than Bildo.
Shouldn’t she also have been protesting labor laws that don’t allow her to go work in the mines and earn some money for daddies campaign? I mean laws regulating who can work (and what they can work for) are unconscionable intrusions in the workings of the free market
September 19th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I’m massively pissed at Time Warner. We were supposed to have espn3 starting yesterday. Still don’t have it.
September 19th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
@Omnes Omnibus: And you’ll recall from the Vanity Fair article that one of the Palin children rebuked her mother in front of others as a phony for insisting on yet another moment of prayer. Sadly, no reporters were present, or else they had tire-swing fragments stuffed in their ears and missed it.
September 19th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
@Mumphrey: This anecdote distills Breitbart’s precious bodily fluids.
A wonderful compendium of his rageaholism can be found here.
September 19th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
@mellowjohn: Suggest you write letters to the paper about the disparity between your experience and the reporting. Key point you should emphasize is that the “questions” Breitbart was “asking” were actually screamed at the protestors in an environment where serious dialogue was simply impossible.
To characterize them as unanswered questions is to say that, because no commuter rushing by even tried to answer the homeless man’s shouted questions about the whereabouts of his shopping cart, he had stumped them with the power of his rhetoric.
September 19th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
@jrg: @jrg: @jrg Many liberals think libertarians are Republicans, and many Republicans think libertarians are liberal. The fact is, the Libertarian party was formed partially, to spite a REPUBLICAN president, Nixon, for imposing price controls, and taking the dollar off of the gold standard.
September 19th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
@Davis X. Machina:
Sigão. Nice, but I’m afraid, I’m gonna have to decline, coz a Portuguese keyboard is not in the budget and ESC coding it is a pita.
September 19th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
@Allan: “So I took out my gun and shot her, neatly illustrating the paradox inherent in her position.”
If you want to apply the position consistently, you would also note how you were subsequently plugged about five times by several, nearby concerned members of the citizenry.
After your murder of a 6 yo hit the headlines, along with the instant karma that ensued, more intelligent people, and even people of your intelligence level would probably be very reluctant to repeat your fate.
September 19th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
@Bill Murray: You snark, but I’ve heard Objectivists make that point in all seriousness, although they focused on the interfering with parental choice aspect.
September 19th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
@LibertyWatchdog: Re-read the quote from Labno. He’s attacking his opponent’s social liberalism. Labno is no “Libertarian”. He’s a Republican. Social liberalism is supposed to be the difference between Republicans and Libertarians.
Jesus Christ. Do words not mean anything anymore?
September 19th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
@jrg: I think you are confusing the writer’s comments with Labno’s. It is not Labno who mentions the socially liberal kirk, only that he dismisses him. Perhaps words only mean something when twisted to your satisfaction…
September 19th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
I am absolutely certain that when I was six years old I did not understand that holy trinity stuff, and I was pretty certain that those Romans were awful for nailing Jesus to that cross every year, although I wasn’t sure how, because I thought he died on that cross the first time they put him up there. I guess my parents should have shielded me from all of those paradoxical things!
September 19th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
@Mumphrey:
Too lazy to google, but I remember anecdotes about Breitbart claiming he was diagnosed as bipolar “but taking medication for it would ruin my creativity”. Being “righteously outraged at injustice” is one of the coping mechanisms. After one of his kids was diagnosed as bipolar, Kurt Vonnegut wrote something like “I always figured it was the injustices of the world that put me off balance, until someone I respected pointed out that my perfectly logical rages just happened to occur at 28-day intervals.” Of course Breitbart is not Vonnegut, but try telling him that…
September 19th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
@politicrat:
Once again:
You think she came up with that on her own?
I stand by my assertion that “Libertarian” is being mis-used as “Republican, but ashamed to admit it”.
September 19th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
@Mumphrey: I know what you mean, in that Breitbart’s rage is so close to the surface, and it’s quite real. Unlike Beck, he’s not a dry drunk, so I fully expect violence to erupt at some point.
September 19th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
@jrg: “Let’s face it — there is no Republican in this race,” the older Labno said, dismissing socially liberal Republican senate nominee Mark Kirk.
The quote was “Let’s face it — there is no Republican in this race” That was his quote. The socially liberal bit was inserted by the author, and you misattributed those words to Labno.
The fact is libertarians are socially liberal (marijuana legalization, anti-war, etc. ) and fiscally conservative (low government spending and taxes). Mike Labno rightly calls out Mark Kirk on his big-government agenda. He and the rest of the Illinois LP, are, in fact, generally more socially liberal than even Giannoulias or Obama.
You should probably take a look at a Nolan Chart to better understand the differences between liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. The traditional left-wing, right-wing spectrum model is overly simplistic.
September 19th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
@Anya: “wingnut talking points”
Libertarians are not right-wing or left-wing. Consult a Nolan chart to understand why the traditional left-right political model is a false dichotomy.
September 19th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
@LibertyWatchdog: In Glibertarianville, there are never any negative consequences to exercising your free will, so stop being such a realist poopypants and join the free-wheeling nihilistic joyride!
September 19th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I know for some reason* libertarians are enemy number 1, but using kids as political props is not particularly rare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so-ggvEyvmk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5_MpgIwg6o
*ha see what I did there?
September 19th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
@LibertyWatchdog: If in fact Labno is pro-life in the sense of desiring to restrict access to abortion—as those who call themselves “pro-life” in the political sense generally are—that’s one way in which he is not libertarian. And if in your view “’there is no Republican in this race’” equates to “Mike Labno rightly [calling] out Mark Kirk on his big-government agenda,” you’re kidding yourself with regard to Republicans. ALL Republicans have big-government agendas. It’s just that their big-government agendas are focused in different areas than are Democratic big-government agendas. And, in fact, Republican big-government agendas tend to be even bigger than Dem ones. Wars run up bigger bills than Head Start programs and school lunch subsidies do.
September 19th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
@Ash Can: You’re preaching to the choir. I’m well aware that the GOP is also a party of big government. They couldn’t be such warmongers otherwise. BTW, I wouldn’t include Ron Paul or anyone in the GOP Liberty caucus in the same blanket statements about big government.
As far as abortion goes, there is a split in the Libertarian party itself. I would estimate about 55% of the LP are pro-choice, defending it as a property rights issue.
But if you check out this blurb,
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/sto.....id=7675901
Labno was just noting that Kirk is not a conservative, libertarian, nor genuine Republican; all true. This doesn’t mean he likes Republicans, this just means he wants to appeal to people who would normally vote GOP, since he is more “conservative” than Kirk on the above mentioned, key hot-button issues.
Of course, I’m sure he does not prefer to talk about marijuana, prostitution, or blowback when addressing this demographic.
September 20th, 2010 at 12:27 am
@Allan: “In Glibertarianville, there are never any negative consequences to exercising your free will”
More accurately, your rights end where others’ begin.
The Libertarians believe you own your own body, which is a radical departure from the two-party dictatorship currently in place. They also believe that all transactions should occur through mutual, voluntary consent. So if you want to work hard, and earn the respect of people around you, good things will happen for you. If you want to sit around and do drugs all day, not producing anything for anyone else than bad things are headed your way.
September 20th, 2010 at 12:51 am