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Never too young to indoctrinate - send your kids to tea party summer camp

AdMan

Penultimate Amazing
AdMan
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TAMPA — Here's another option now that the kids are out of school: a weeklong seminar about our nation's founding principles, courtesy of the Tampa 912 Project.

The organization, which falls under the tea party umbrella, hopes to introduce kids ages 8 to 12 to principles that include "America is good," "I believe in God," and "I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable."
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http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/tea-party-group-offers-summer-camp/1175119

Some of the fun "educational" activities:

Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the "banker" will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.

"Some of the kids will fall for it," Lukens said. "Others kids will wise up."

Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World).

Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.

Still another example: Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other's bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles.
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You couldn't make this stuff up.
 
Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the "banker" will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.

"Some of the kids will fall for it," Lukens said. "Others kids will wise up."
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No, after a day, there will be no 'gold' left because the kids ate the candy
 
cwalner said:
No, after a day, there will be no 'gold' left because the kids ate the candy
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That just shows how valuable it is! The one kid who saves his "gold" will have wealth beyond avarice when, due to scarcity, it can by everything!
 
elbe said:
That just shows how valuable it is! The one kid who saves his "gold" will have wealth beyond avarice when, due to scarcity, it can by everything!
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Yeah, but then the other kids will just beat him up and take his 'gold' and eat it. I guess this is what the TP'ers will extoll as the virtue of free-market capitalism.
 
I Am The Scum said:
How is a renewable, consumable resource analogous to gold?
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It will be analogous because there will be an artificial cap on the amount of it available at the camp due to its supply being controlled by the camp staff. There will also be an artificially-created inflation rate on the analog to paper currency, so that the pre-determined outcome (gold standard=good) will arrive, and everyone will learn a valuable lesson.

There is something to be said about the humor and logic involved in creating an artificial scenario to demonstrate the social contract necessary to accept the constructed value in currency with the express purpose of the scenario being to demonstrate the superiority of another currency with an equally constructed value.
 
Really? Sitting quietly = Europe? Shooting soap bubbles with squirt guns = Socialism?

I'm not too concerned, because, due to comic levels of stupidity among those who came up with this curriculum, there is zero chance of the intended lessons being learned. On the other hand, the kids losing valuable summer mornings for a whole week will engender well earned resentment about political crackpottery.
 
Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other's bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles.
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Am I the only one who sees this excercise as promoting masturbation over coitus rather than a capitilist-socialist analogy?
 
hgc said:
Really? Sitting quietly = Europe? Shooting soap bubbles with squirt guns = Socialism?

I'm not too concerned, because, due to comic levels of stupidity among those who came up with this curriculum, there is zero chance of the intended lessons being learned. On the other hand, the kids losing valuable summer mornings for a whole week will engender well earned resentment about political crackpottery.
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Those are clearly intended to be metaphors--

Within the narrative of the Tea Party, social programs and inherently higher tax rates in socialized countries represent a reduction in economic freedom and therefore a reduction in personal freedom overall. Within this narrative context, it is reasonable (not necessarily correct, but reasonable within the narrative, an important distinction) to represent "life in Europe" as "life under Socialism," child-ified by making it boring and lifeless. It may be propaganda, but it is at the very least a coherent narrative.

As for the soap bubbles, it is indeed a weaker metaphor. By having a shared pot, there is a higher likelihood that children will shoot at the same bubble and "waste time," as it were. As for the logistics of counting the number of bubbles popped overall, that seems it would be a nightmare, but let's assume that they count perfectly. That means that there will indeed be fewer bubbles popped when the children share the task. However, is this not also able to be interpreted as an argument against competition within the marketplace, or even business as a social construct? If the task is better completed when each child does each step individually, would not the logical conclusion be for children (and, by extension, society) to do every task in their everyday lives for themselves? The metaphor, in this case, is far more muddled and not as consistent with the narrative.
 
A Laughing Baby said:
As for the soap bubbles, it is indeed a weaker metaphor. By having a shared pot, there is a higher likelihood that children will shoot at the same bubble and "waste time," as it were. As for the logistics of counting the number of bubbles popped overall, that seems it would be a nightmare, but let's assume that they count perfectly. That means that there will indeed be fewer bubbles popped when the children share the task. However, is this not also able to be interpreted as an argument against competition within the marketplace, or even business as a social construct? If the task is better completed when each child does each step individually, would not the logical conclusion be for children (and, by extension, society) to do every task in their everyday lives for themselves? The metaphor, in this case, is far more muddled and not as consistent with the narrative.
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I believe my interpretation was just a specific case of the general from what I bolded..
 
And what about the kid who calls mom and says I ate all my gold can you bring me some, which mom of course does.

In that case the kid represents Wall Street banks and mom is the Fed. Then the kid uses his new found wealth to gorge himself on milk shakes. The kids learn how to play both sides of the game.

BTW: Since when is Europe "austere"?
 
I thought there already was a camp where obese Americans sent their obese children.

Countdown to the Tea Party using photos of the Tea Party camp to prove that Obama is rounding up white people and putting them in concentration camps.

I found a copy of the daily schedule:

7:00AM: Wake up call, Pledge of Allegiance
7:30AM: Breakfast, Pledge of Allegiance
8:00AM: Class #1-lessons from Jesus on how to ride dinosaurs
9:30AM: Pledge of Allegiance
10:00AM: Class #2-"Aren't white people the real victims of racism? How to cloak racism in euphamism and self-indulgent victimization"
Noon: Lunch
1:00Pm: Class #3-"Why no one will believe you if you tell them what the camp counselor did"
3:00PM-9:00PM: Class #4-David Barton lies to you about American history
 
Spindrift said:
BTW: Since when is Europe "austere"?
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If I had to guess, the idea is not that the government is austere, but that the government spending and tax rates that come with it force the regular citizens into a life of crushing poverty and/or boredom.
 
A Laughing Baby said:
If I had to guess, the idea is not that the government is austere, but that the government spending and tax rates that come with it force the regular citizens into a life of crushing poverty and/or boredom.
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So they think Europe is the inverse of Mississippi with the same result?
 
TraneWreck said:
I thought there already was a camp where obese Americans sent their obese children.

Countdown to the Tea Party using photos of the Tea Party camp to prove that Obama is rounding up white people and putting them in concentration camps.

I found a copy of the daily schedule:

7:00AM: Wake up call, Pledge of Allegiance
7:30AM: Breakfast, Pledge of Allegiance
8:00AM: Class #1-lessons from Jesus on how to ride dinosaurs
9:30AM: Pledge of Allegiance
10:00AM: Class #2-"Aren't white people the real victims of racism? How to cloak racism in euphamism and self-indulgent victimization"
Noon: Lunch
1:00Pm: Class #3-"Why no one will believe you if you tell them what the camp counselor did"
3:00PM-9:00PM: Class #4-David Barton lies to you about American history
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You forget the class on how the founding fathers really wanted to put the words 'under god' into the pledge of allegience but then decided it would be best to leave some work for the 'real Americans' that would not be born for another 100 years.
 
Spindrift said:
So they think Europe is the inverse of Mississippi with the same result?
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You joke, but the buzz on the local talk radio here in the South yesterday was that a recent study by George Mason University professors had ranked states from "most free" to "least free," and when asked to speculate on what the most free state would be, the hosts agreed that they thought it would be Mississippi. If you look at the whole camp exercise in the lens of "freedom" (in the abstract way that the Tea Party tends to view it, at least in their public events), it makes sense why they would portray Europe as 1984 For Children and America as a party room.

edit:

cwalner said:
You forget the class on how the founding fathers really wanted to put the words 'under god' into the pledge of allegience but then decided it would be best to leave some work for the 'real Americans' that would not be born for another 100 years.
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And you forget that the pledge of allegiance wasn't composed until 1892.
 
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A Laughing Baby said:
You joke, but the buzz on the local talk radio here in the South yesterday was that a recent study by George Mason University professors had ranked states from "most free" to "least free," and when asked to speculate on what the most free state would be, the hosts agreed that they thought it would be Mississippi. If you look at the whole camp exercise in the lens of "freedom" (in the abstract way that the Tea Party tends to view it, at least in their public events), it makes sense why they would portray Europe as 1984 For Children and America as a party room.
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It was New Hampshire and South Dakota:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/hampshire-south-dakota-ranked-free-states/story?id=13791773
 
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