It didn’t take long to politicize the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, and Sheriff Scott Israel became household names in no time flat. As darlings of the media, the trio’s itineraries have been filled to the brim with astonishing speed. But there is a reason Colton Haab, another a survivor of the Florida shooting, hasn’t enjoyed quite the same level of coverage.
Haab, a Junior ROTC cadet, protected his fellow classmates from the shooter. He is by every conceivable standard a hero, yet he is not the face of this burgeoning youth movement about which we’ve heard so much this week. Haab was instructed by CNN to write up a speech and some questions for the network’s recent “town hall” meeting in the wake of the shooting.
Haab did as instructed, much to CNN’s chagrin. Haab advocates employing veterans as armed security officers at schools across America and, well, that idea just didn’t jibe with CNN’s vehement anti-gun message.
“I expected to be able to ask my questions and give my opinion on my questions,” Haab said, adding, “CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted.”
Of course, CNN denies any wrongdoing (because that’s what they always do), and they’re sort of just hoping we let slide the fact that they’re only allowing people who go along with their message to appear before the cameras. If that’s not “manufacturing consent,” then Noam Chomsky is a patriot. Judging by Emma Gonzalez’s performance, particularly when she refused to hear what a very gracious (and patient) Dana Loesch was saying, pressing Loesch to confess to positions neither she nor the NRA support, I would have to agree with Jack Kingston—these kids are being coached.
If it wasn’t the case that CNN and its cohorts were waging a children’s crusade against the Second Amendment, if this conversation was truly about keeping our kids safe, Haab wouldn’t have been given a script and David Hogg wouldn’t have had rehearsed lines to forget. Although it’s available to viewers elsewhere, YouTube took down the video of Hogg stumbling through lines he was coached on, citing the violation of its “harassment and bullying” policies.
If we suspend disbelief for a moment, supposing it’s even logistically possible to “ban all the guns,” the notion that law enforcement can keep us safe should have gone out the window with the story of the first deputy sheriff (it now appears that there were four) who waited outside of the school a full four minutes during the shooting. Four minutes is a lifetime during a shooting, as most are over in just a matter of minutes. Come to think of it, the idea that we can rely on authorities consistently should have been disregarded when it was revealed that the FBI failed to intervene against the Florida shooter not once, but twice before he carried out his heinous crime.
Now here’s where a little glimmer of what’s behind this youth movement is revealed to us, something that might help make sense of CNN’s deliberate censorship. Barack Obama shot out a nod over Twitter to the revolutionary youth brigade, tweeting:
Young people have helped lead all our great movements. How inspiring to see it again in so many smart, fearless students standing up for their right to be safe; marching and organizing to remake the world as it should be. We’ve been waiting for you. And we’ve got your backs.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 22, 2018
Marching, organizing, a “remaking” of the world—why does this have such a familiar and such a Bolshevik ring to it? Because this is, at least in part, a Marxist movement, or else it is one that unconsciously resembles the ideas and strategies laid out by cultural Marxists.
Specifically, Adultism, a Marxist sociological concept wherein young people are perpetually oppressed by adults and the institution of parenthood in general. Parental guidance, discipline, and even teaching children are all mechanisms of oppression. The solution? Elevate children to the position of the parent, to the status of the expert from whom the adults should learn. This looks a little bit like the Washington Post gushing over Gonzalez, asserting that the teenager’s “clout level on gun-control is insane.” The teen is the expert, so we grown-ups— meaning politicians (a flaccid Marco Rubio comes to mind) and the president—need to respect their “clout.”
So it goes. These children were subjected to a traumatic event, which the anti-gun progressive crowd seized upon to advance a long-held agenda. CNN and company selected the kids who were most eager to fill the role of anti-gun spokesmen, while pushing dissenting victims like Haab out of the picture. Then, a tremendous amount of infrastructure and organization was rapidly deployed to put these children on tour—though only those children who align with the anti-Second Amendment agenda.
Now, these youths have been elevated to the status of arbiters of our laws, and anyone who questions their authority is patently hateful, perhaps even apologizing for a murderer. Sheriff Israel argues that these children cannot be told by adults that they are wrong in their reasoning, yet asserts that no 18-year-old is fit to own a rifle. We are being asked to believe that children are capable of statecraft and dictating the direction of this nation, but simultaneously are utterly unqualified to own a hunting rifle. The contradiction in qualifications reveals the real agenda behind this movement.
I know, it seems a little kooky. But this is the reality of the culture war and understanding the strategies behind the movements is imperative. Children are precious, we are instinctively driven to protect them, and it is clearly not beyond the progressive camp to exploit that instinct to their ends. It doesn’t take away from the real tragedy that occurred to say that these kids are being used, or that they are fundamentally wrong in all of their assertions and need be reminded of it.
Americans need to stand their ground. They need to remain the adults in the room, and not be afraid to tell their kids, “No.”