13 Comments

Good article Mike, much needed, and relevantly focused on what should be researched and acted upon but is not: the coercive, authoritarian relationships between parents/society and their younger ones, Aka, children, Aka, slaves and pets.

Yes, it SHOULD BE about the ABUSE OF PARENTING POWER and how younger persons--those considered by governments to be "minors" and not responsible for themselves or accorded Human Rights as so-called "adults" (sometimes) are--MUST be controlled for their own good (my beating you hurts me more than you), of course.

"A big part of that may be long-outmoded prejudices against adolescents combined with the feeling that adults in power must be flattered."

Here is my post on this topic viewed as trust:

24.Free Friends Forum: TRUSTING OUR CHILDREN, TRUSTING OURSELVES

Human Rights for All Ages: Youth as Self-Determined Persons Not Trained Pets

https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/trusting-our-children-trusting-ourselves

As John Holt and Richard Farson pointed out in the 1970s, society--so-called “adults”, that is, those above the “age of consent”, especially parents--treat their children like slaves and/or pets.

The recent Australian legislation banning under 16s from social media

https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au/p/breaking-australia-passes-landmark

Unfortunately, the Chinese have been controlling their youth much earlier and more severely than the West

INTERNET ADDICTION: CHINA ROLLS OUT MOST COMPREHENSIVE REGULATIONS YET Oct 26, 2023

https://daoinsights.com/news/internet-addiction-china-rolls-out-most-comprehensive-regulations-yet/

CHINA'S CYBER ABUSE REGULATION TO TAKE EFFECT IN AUGUST June 15, 2024

https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202406/15/content_WS666cce2bc6d0868f4e8e823b.html

Such is just more proof (if it were needed!) that paternalistic governments and authoritarian parents believe they have the legal right to act immorally and use physical force upon the younger to make them obey authority—because it is for “Social Harmony” and the “Greater Good”.

If you think the West has traumatized its youth go view what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its indoctrinated and traumatized parents are doing to their youth in their Internet Addiction “Treatment” (torture) camps following along what the CCP has done even more horribly so to the Uyghurs and Falun Gong.

“In the developing consciousness of a civilization which has for four hundred years gradually excluded children from the world of adults there is the dawning recognition that children must have the right to full participation in society, that they must be valued for themselves, not just as potential adults.” Birthrights byRichard Evans Farson, 1974

FREE FRIENDS FORUM 25: PATERNALIST POWER CORRUPTS, PARENT POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY—INTERGENERATIONAL CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

Chinese Internet Addiction Brainwashing Camps as Symptom of Collective Trauma Re-Victimisation

https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/free-friends-forum-25-paternalist

Mike, I hope you and your readers will join us today Saturday 9PM or tomorrow Sunday 9AM New Zealand time for our Free Friends Forum discussion on this topic.

Get free, help others get free.

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Thanks for comment, Jack. It's fascinating that governments are attempting to crack down on teens' social media use when, after 15 years of rising hullaballoo wildly exaggerating internet dangers, the vast majority of U.S. parents impose no restrictions on their own teens' smartphone or social media use. A disturbingly high proportion of today's American adults (higher than in any other country) have become so debilitated from drug/alcohol epidemics, rising social fragmentation, and reactionary politics. Teens are now the stabilizing factor in tens of millions of troubled families, a rising reality that our political and health authorities are not capable of addressing -- hence, the repressive mentality. By the way, Richard Farson was an initial member of the YouthFacts board, great guy.

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Yes, Richard and John are voices still to be heard along with ours.

I am convinced that the root of all human violence and wars is child abuse/neglect. Lloyd deMause's last book title "The Origin of War in Child Abuse" says it all.

If you have not read him and his Psychohistory group (www.psychohistory.com), I recommend you do and you will discover the overwhelming objective evidence supporting the claim that only peaceful parenting will bring us a peaceful world.

As a Voluntaryist we say "Statism Begins at Home".

Keep up your good work and join us one weekend on Free Friends Forum.

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Well-said. And now the zeitgeist has turned restrictive once again, despite a brief period of quasi-permissiveness in the 2010s.

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Well-said. It's LONG past time to revive the Youth Liberation movement, and pick up where we left off in the 1970s. I have always had a sense of "fauxstalgia" about the 1970s as a time of "peak liberty", despite me not having been born yet until that ominous year, 1984, by when the first wave of the Youth Rights movement had collapsed.

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The most oblivious possible take. Social media and porno. There you go. Couldn’t be more obvious. Have a great day.

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You're joking, right?

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Indeed, if Brian is being serious, he is the one who is being oblivious, or perhaps didn't even read your article at all. (A quick look at his Activity would suggest he is being serious, not joking or satire.)

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Teens have always gone through a phase where they’re interested in the grotesque and the extreme. But this interest and curiosity is now exploited for clicks, without regard for the consequences to the most psychologically vulnerable population. It’s criminal.

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I am in no way doubting that today's porn has a very dark and disturbing side. Granted. But the idea that it is THE cause of the problems facing young people today, or even one major cause, kinda strains credulity IMHO.

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It takes a little wisdom and a little empathy to see the truth. You guys have a good one tho.

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Well-said as usual, Mike. Shout it from the rooftops!

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