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As portrayed in the quite authentic 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, it really was common for 18th and 19th-century naval vessels to have children serving aboard. In fact, one of the youngest midshipmen (equivalent to a petty officer) in American naval history was nine-year-old David Farragut, who at 12 became a prize master. As also portrayed in the film, these boys absolutely were on the firing line and could be hurt or even killed. What wasn’t depicted, because it would have rightly been viewed as ridiculous and never happened, was the adult officers screaming at an enemy, “Why are you firing at us!? There are kids on this vessel!”
Yet this is precisely what happens with the children stationed on the political firing line today. A youngster is put forth (usually by leftists) as a representative of some cause, and ostensibly is an independent little ideological warrior. But his handlers are actually using him as a human shield, hoping to forestall the agenda opposition an adult espousing the same ideas would encounter. They’ll say to critics, “How dare you attack a child!” — after they’ve facilitated the child’s political attack.
Thus was it unusual to see Australia’s Sky News take teen climate scold Greta Thunberg, and other fellow-traveler youth, to task for being hypocritical and ignorant. The Sky segment in question is from 2019, but it went viral earlier this year, was tweeted out by ex-Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore last week, and was in the news again just yesterday — covered by American Thinker — because the commentary is so powerful.
The clip features video of the adolescent Thunberg chastising the adult world at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019. This is followed by Sky News host Alan Jones administering a much-needed and still-relevant verbal spanking, saying:
To all the school kids going on strike for climate change, you’re the first generation who’ve [sic] required air-conditioning in every classroom. You want TV in every room, and your classes are all computerized. You spend all day and night on electronic devices. More than ever you don’t walk or ride bikes to school, but you arrive in caravans of cars that choke suburban roads and worsen rush-hour traffic. You’re the biggest consumers of manufactured goods ever and update perfectly good, expensive luxury items to stay trendy. Your entertainment comes from electric devices.
Furthermore, the people driving your protests are the same people who insist on artificially inflating the population growth through immigration, which increases the need for energy, manufacturing, and transport. The more people we have, the more forest and bush land we clear, the more of the environment that’s destroyed.
How about this: Tell your teachers to switch off the air-con; walk or ride to school. Switch off your devices; read a book; make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured fast food. Nope, none of this will happen because, the [inaudible] is, you’re selfish, badly educated, virtue-signaling little t*rds inspired by the adults around you who crave a feeling of having a noble cause while they indulge themselves in Western luxury and unprecedented quality of life. Wake up, grow up, and shut-up .
If Jones’s commentary seems harsh, refer to my first paragraph: It’s unreasonable putting youths on the political front lines and then expecting them to not take flak. So the dishonor lies not with those firing back to defend Truth, but with Machiavellians who make children human shields.
But adults are at fault in a host of ways here. It’s easy being idealistic when you don’t have to live with your ideals, but we do youths no favors by allowing them to be hypocrites and value symbolism over substance. (If you aim to turn them into leftists, however, this is exactly what you do because hypocrisy and superficiality epitomize left-wingers).
If teachers would teach (Truth) and parents would parent, they’d ensure that youthful sacrifice attended youthful idealism, as that’s the best way to expose flawed ideals. Instead of spoiling the climate-protesting kids morally as well as materially, the fathers and mothers would catalyze character development by requiring them to walk to school, turn off the AC, limit electronic-device time, and/or make other sacrifices. The adults would do this out of love.
For pain is the crowbar that opens closed minds, and such sacrifice might inspire the youths to actually examine their beliefs and make them more receptive to critiques of them. For when something is costing you dearly, you’re more likely to ask, “Hmm, was I really right about this?! Really?!” And what if the child wrongly concludes he is?
Then at least he’ll be living a more sincere life, trying to align his deeds with his words.
Were this done, these kids might be saved from a future where, owing to the tyranny they’d visit upon themselves, they won’t have their luxuries and opportunities at all. Living the “dream” a little now could forestall a nightmare later.
