this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Using "think of the children" type arguments in political debate should be punishable by loss of passive voting rights (the right to be elected) for life. And the same for "If you have nothing to hide" type arguments.
Essentially the whole climate change debate centers around the wellbeing of future generations aka "the children". How is this not valid?
I am not talking about arguments about future generations, I am talking about "we need to watch everything you do because some bad people do bad things to children" type arguments. Or, for that matter, the arguments from conservative and religious people who claim we can't talk about LGBTQ+ people existing because it might scar children to see two guys kissing.
Basically using children as an argument to further your political goals that you had anyway, regardless of any children because nobody wants to be seen arguing against the well-being of children.
To be fair it’s not just children. There are plenty of mass shootings at concerts, movie premiers, random gas stations. It’s just that the us has 288 school shootings from 2009-2018. The next highest would be Mexico. At 8 in the same time frame.
So it’s not so much “think of the children” as it is “hey guys, so many people get shot, and it’s worse in America than anywhere else. What can we do to make it not so bad? Maybe make it harder for idiots or unstable folk to get guns? And since most people who advocate for less gun CONTROL (not banning, just controlling who can go get an AR-15 off the shelf) tend to be the same folk saying “but we can’t let LGBTQ people exist! Think of the children!” But then children get shot at school and the cops are like “I’m not going in there. I’ll get shot!” Or “yeah you have to give birth because “think of the baby!” But the moment that child is born we don’t give a fuck about them. Let’s slash welfare because poor people don’t WANT to work!” But also those children we were thinking of? Let’s slash their welfare too. Damn poor babies. I bet their parents are drug addicts!
Nobody arguing against gun rights use “because of the children” as their main argument. The US does have way too many school shootings though, and we should probably address that somehow.
I own a gun. I have nothing against guns. I enjoy target shooting. Gun control isn’t about taking away guns. It’s about controlling who gets guns based on how likely a gun in their hands is to cause a bunch of people to die. Even one person dying is not okay. So I think more stringent requirements for who can own a gun are reasonable.