Bringing new meaning to “indoctrinating the children” this is quite possibly the most disgraceful exploitation of a child I’ve ever seen that doesn’t involve actual physical abuse.
Find the gun bit especially disturbing. Can only hope this kid wises up like the CPAC whiz kid once he gets past puberty.
NCSteve
You have to admit, the kid seems to be working at about the same mental age level as the average House Republican Study Committee member.
daverave
Wait a minute, were those granite counter tops???!??
The Other Chuck
Our Republican Leadership, right there.
No, I didn’t accidentally leave out “future”.
Nick
Yeah my thoughts were more along the lines of “Hey look at this, a six-year-old can accurately recite the entire Republican platform.”
Ogami Itto
I wonder if Team Rmoney is considering this kid for the VP slot.
pacem appellant
I can see the six-year-old demographic (for good reason below the age of suffrage) being moved by this ad, but most adults are just gonna see, “aw, cute kid. Too bad he’s parroting his daddy and mommy’s crazy beliefs.”
Matt
Given that the teabagger platform consists of pretty much a couple planks, assorted to issues as needed:
– climate change: “NUH-UHHHHHH!”
– evolution: “NUH-UHHHHHH!”
– income inequality: “BLAH BLAH BLAH I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
– health care reform: “YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”
– the Mideast: “MOM, HE’S LOOKING AT ME FUNNY!”
– reproductive rights: “OMG COOTIES!”
It’s perfectly designed for a six-year-old to articulate. ;)
Smiling Mortician
Seriously? A blooper reel at the end? With the kid getting snagged on barbed wire? ‘Cause that’s funny, amirite?
@daverave: Yes. Yes, I believe they were.
JPL
When my son was seven he was enamored with the current President at the time. Since it was Reagan, I bit my tongue because after all he was the President of the United States and that meant more to me than who was currently in office.
Dork
I didn’t think kids that small should ride in the front seat, especially sans booster seat. I guess in ‘Neckville, car seats are Teh Soshalizm.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well, the GOP seems to have finally found the most appropriate spokesmen for their platform.
SatanicPanic
This reminds me of those annoying Welch’s jam commercials they used to run. Being lectured by a child reciting lines is not cute or endearing. Damn kids!
Randall Gremillion
Barack Hussein Obama, hmmm hmmm hmmm
hueyplong
Years ago, my wife put a nearly life sized, inflatable replica of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” in our foyer with a sign on it that said “Senator Oliver North” on Halloween night. I was stationed there to hand out candy while she took our own kids on their rounds (it being Georgia Bulldog country, my son went as Danny Weurffel).
A fairly large percentage of kids receiving the treats angriily spouted extremist right wing views in response to the blow up. I was impressed with both their ability to take offense and the fact that they were in no way less convincing or articulate than their parents.
Maybe part of the fun in being an extremist righty is that it’s so easy to master the playbook.
Riilism
I fucking hate it when people do this shit to their kids…
The Other Chuck
@hueyplong: Any kid old enough to give you an angry political retort is too god damned old to be trick-or-treating.
cat48
Buzzfeed says Mitt’s making a “comeback.” He’s hired a Lobbyist to clean up his Bain problem. Guess he still doesn’t want to talk about it. Heh
Didn’t watch the little boy–exploitation.
Jay in Oregon
Why would anyone be remotely impressed by a 6-year-old’s political views?
beltane
@hueyplong: What amazes me is that right-wingers are so eager to make their children memorize a playbook in the first place. It must be the authoritarian thing because my six-year old is barely aware of the existence of politics; I’m too busy teaching him basic values like honesty and compassion to have time for political indoctrination.
Woodrowfan
@The Other Chuck: I dunno, when I was 9 I was pretty vocal in my support of Humphrey over Nixon…
Svensker
The geniuses at Patriot Update also give us this:
Jay in Oregon
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It’ll just be more schadenfreude-licious when the kid gets old enough to think for himself and renounces conservatism, the way Jonathan Krohn did.
PopeRatzo
Jerry Sandusky was a loyal Republican, involved in many GOP fundraisers.
That is all.
SatanicPanic
@beltane:
So you are indoctrinating him to be a liberal. Pot meet kettle.
NonyNony
@beltane:
You teaching him tolerance of other people? That girls can do the same things boys do? That he shouldn’t be an asshole?
According to my right-wing brother, that’s all liberal indoctrination.
Jay in Oregon
@beltane:
Well, there’s part of your problem; these parents seem to think that political indoctrination is an acceptable substitute for teaching their kids real values.
That’s how you end up with shit like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Help-Mom-There-Liberals-Under/dp/0976726904
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I saw that and thought the same thing. I was hoping someone would front page it. Ick.
@pacem appellant: Except for those who say – “cute kid – you tell it son!” Or point out that even the kids can see what the elite stupid commie islamofascists liberals can’t.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That’s quite true.
MikeJ
@Jay in Oregon:
Many people like to think that complicated problems have simple solutions. Having a six year old articulate your platform seems like genius to people who think that way.
Chyron HR
@Svensker:
Ubayd… or DUBYA?
the Conster
@hueyplong:
My daughter went to a Halloween party as the backwards “B” girl, with black eyes, a t-shirt that had McCain crossed out and Ron Paul written on it, and a Hi, My Name is Ashley sticker on it. That whole shit show happened right before Halloween in 2008, and the only person who knew who she was was a drunken fucktard who took it personally. They have no humor or self-awareness at.all.
shortstop
@hueyplong: You were in the position of power there. Please tell us you mockingly withheld candy in response to their outbursts, explaining that actions have consequences.
Jay in Oregon
@Svensker:
So there are birther theories even more out there than “Obama’s family placed a fake birth announcement into a newspaper to pave his way for stealing a Presidential election in 2012”? I’m kinda surprised.
Gadsden Flag Burner
I’m surprised they had the Gadsden flag underneath the Stars & Stripes, since teabaggers & their ilk are ridiculously anti-American.
Still, torching that flag would be a pleasure.
Svensker
@Jay in Oregon:
Yes! But you have to go to Skookumchuck to find them!
beltane
@Svensker: Geez, you’d think if he was going to change his name he’d change it to something like John Winthrop Smith rather than Hussein, the last name of a notorious bad guy.
trollhattan
@PopeRatzo:
FXT for updatiness.
hueyplong
“You were in the position of power there. Please tell us you mockingly withheld candy in response to their outbursts, explaining that actions have consequences.”
No withholding of candy, but I couldn’t resist laughing at some of it. No one likes to be laughed at.
Shifting from little kids to the current high visibility types on their end of the spectrum, you could argue that a decent proportion of their continual outrage is the suspicion that they’re being laughed at (“sneered at” is their favorite way to phrase it) by arrogant, know-it-all libruls. I’m usually pretty happy to try to help out on that point.
flukebucket
Looks like he has a brother named Levi. I guess his sister is named Moroni.
MonkeyBoy
Stupid righwingers don’t know to disable rating on their vid. If you visit it at YouTube it currently has:
3,502 likes,
7,366 dislikes
Dork
Wait…so the Kenyan is actually Canadian? And he’s from an Eskimo village? The Onion couldnt dream these up.
ericblair
@Svensker:
Fucking amateurs.
Listen, Mr. Random Tea Party Organization. I’ve got leads on how Obama faked his birth certificate, and I’ll have to go research them in person in: Buenos Aires; Sydney, Australia and the Gold Coast; Hong Kong, Tokyo, and some Vietnam beaches; the French Riviera; Durban, South Africa; Serengeti National Park; Paris, France; and a couple of weeks in Key West. I’ll need a few plane tickets. And oh yeah, business class please, I’ve got a leg condition and can’t take economy. Thanks. I’ll just wait here.
NonyNony
@MonkeyBoy: Why are so many people violating their First Amendment Rights by disagreeing with them?
rb
@beltane: basic values like honesty and compassion
Liberal indoctrination. Just admit it.
Edit: never mind, see that multiple people got there first.
Gravenstone
@beltane: I’m going to guess it starts less as forcing memorization and more as, “Mom and dad say this stuff all the time. Maybe if I say it too, they’ll pay more attention to me.” Which is even worse, in its own way.
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
It reminds me of those even more annoying Toyota commercials with the kid who demands that his parents buy a better car to drive him to school in because their current car is just so declasse.
To which my answer as a parent would be, “You’ve got legs, you can walk. Better hurry, because I’m not writing you an excuse note if you’re late.”
Richard
I see the GOP is taking cues from North Korea.
The Moar You Know
@shortstop: Next Halloween I’m going to have an Ayn Rand Halloween, and explain to all the kids who come to the door that candy is not for moochers and looters, but job creators. If they don’t own their own company, no candy.
halteclere
Just another set of parents using their kids for online fame. At least this kid isn’t crying about some favorite sports start switching teams. While everyone knows that this kid’s mind is being filled with his parent’s BS and is being told what to say, those kids who cry over their sports star appear to really be suffering.
jwest
There’s lots of discussion across the web about Harry Reid being a pederast. Google it.
Apparently, he hasn’t denied anything yet.
Chyron HR
Awww, somebody’s upset that the Messiah’s dancing horse didn’t win a gold medal.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I bet his parents are smug, self-satisfied turds cruising around in their big, ol’ manly pick-up truck and returning home to their McMansion. The joint looks flawlessly clean (especially considering a couple of very small children live their). Probably have poorly-paid hired servants keep the place clean.
Okay, okay, I know I’m reading a lot into it, but the thing smells of very Christian, very smug money-pigs.
Jennifer
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): Yep. I noticed the whole McMansion thing. That servant is probably named Consuela and is one of the “bad guys” that Obama is letting into the country.
I had a funeral-fan mask of Kenneth Star that I used one Halloween some 14 years ago. It frightened small children.
As for the whole political indoctrination thing, I gotta hand it to my conservative dad. He was a gun nut and though I like to think he would have been immune to the teatard lunacy, I’m not at all sure. But one thing he was clear about – he wanted his kids to know how to think for themselves. This caused him no end of grief when we did just that, to which I would always respond, “well, dad, you always said you wanted us to think for ourselves, so you’ve been successful in achieving your goal.” I remember one time at dinner when I was home from college, I asked mom if she had tried the Paul Newman salad dressing, and dad starts grumbling about Paul Newman. I said, “what’s the matter, dad, did Paul Newman do something way back during the Vietnam War to PISS YOU OFF?” Then it was off to the races. Dinner time at our house was always entertaining.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
#1, 2, and 3 seem to be the same thing,i.e. birtherism. (although I couldn’t hear one of them very well and wasn’t going to replay it). So there’s really only eight items on the kid’s top ten list. Hope he does better in the future but I’m afraid we’re looking at a next gen meth addict.
Woodrowfan
I bet that kid is the joy of his teachers. oye…
Catsy
@Gravenstone: I think it’s worse only in that the example they’re setting is terrible. Pretty much all children that age want to be like their parents and do and say what they do; they imitate us. It’s how they learn.
MattR
@MikeJ:
Sadly, it’s that belief that allows Romney to get away with releasing a tax plan with no details. These people think that the frameowrk is the difficult, important step and the details are trivial (even though Romney’s frameowkr is so warped that there is no possible set of details that will make it work)
Rena
I thought at the end, the kid wasn’t going to be able to open the door, try another, then look sheepishly at the camera. Now THAT would have been a good video. It would have had some substance and depth. Instead, it’s just stupid, regardless of where you are politically.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Damn, I feel sorry for that kid. It’s hard to see how he has much of a chance to grow up to be a decent person.
I have a fairly good way of summing up what kind of character somebody has. It’s kind of a shorthand thing, but it works pretty well most of the time. I ask, “Is this person (overlooking such things as age and sex) somebody I’d be happy to see my daughter marry?” If you don’t have a daughter a son works as well; if you don’t have either, you can use a hypothetical child. In this case, the answer is a big damned “No!” And the sad thing is, it isn’t even this poor kid’s fault. he’s only spewing what his mother and father told him to spew. But it’ll sink in, and he’ll likely grow up to be one of 2025’s teabaggers. The odds are that he’ll go to his grave voting for the people who are dicking him sideways and he’ll never even know it. Sad.
joes527
@Svensker: Somebody got punk’d. Mounir Ubayd is an anagram of I mourn Dubya.
This one was new to me. I didn’t see how it fit in with Obama telegramming the birth announcement with the name Barak Obama from Kenya to Honolulu. I guess there is some retroactive stuff that went on that I just don’t understand. (I don’t even know what tense to use in that sentence)
In any case, it is amazing (and quite frightening) what you can find on the intertubes.
flukebucket
@Woodrowfan:
I guarantee you that kid is home schooled.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Re: Jennifer @52 (sorry, gals & guys, I haven’t figured out how to refer to another post and put it in a blue-lined box and such)… My late parents were conservatives but missed the whole tea party nonsense (they passed away in March ’08). My father insisted he was independent because he had voted for JFK in 1960. I am mortified to say that my mother fairly adored Shrub and told my father that if W came knockin’ on the door, she’d run off with him.
I can recall arguments with my father about the treatment of Japanese/U.S. citizens during WW II, Jane Fonda, unions, etc. It’s odd because he was an intelligent man in so many ways other than in his politics. He was kind, generous, quite tolerant, did not suffer from religiosity… Oh, well. I greatly miss him.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I wonder if I killed this thread… damn, I seem to do that a lot.
debbie
Too bad he’s parroting his daddy and mommy’s crazy beliefs.”
Ha! My dad got me to cheer Nixon and boo Kennedy when I was about this kid’s age. I think he later had regrets when I was old enough to think for myself and do a 180-degree turn in my politics.
Maybe it will be the same for this kid, when he brings his husband home to meet the folks.