Jesus Camp 2: Teabaggery Lives!

[SirNitram]

Link

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."

Organized by conservative writer Jeff Lukens and staffed by volunteers from the 912 Project, Tampa Liberty School will meet every morning July 11-15 in borrowed space at the Paideia Christian school in Temple Terrace.

"We want to impart to our children what our nation is about, and what they may or may not be told," Lukens said.

He said he was not familiar with public school curriculum, but, "I do know they have a lot of political correctness. We are a faithful people, and when you talk about natural law, you have to talk about God. When you take that out of the discussion, you miss the whole thing."

Tampa Liberty is modeled after vacation Bible schools, which use fun, hands-on activities to deliver Christian messages.

One example at Liberty: 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.

"What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom," Lukens said.

While the Liberty school is the first of its kind in the Tampa Bay area, Lukens said a group in Kentucky ran a similar school, and he learned from their ideas.

There is room for 40 students in the Tampa school and as of Monday, eight had signed up. The fee is $15.

"We've had classes for adults," said Karen Jaroch, who chairs the Tampa 912 Project. "Now we want to introduce a younger generation to economics and history, but in a fun way."

If the school is successful, Jaroch and Lukens will look for ways to run more sessions, either during the summer or after school resumes. In fact, Jaroch said the group might try to bring its curriculum to the public schools during Constitution Week in September.

"We definitely teach the Constitution, especially during Constitution Week," said Linda Cobbe, a school district spokeswoman. She said the district would need to make sure the organization does not have a political agenda, and that they would need to be approved by SERVE, a nonprofit agency that clears volunteers in the schools.

Lukens said it is too early to speak in detail about what will happen after July 15. But, he said, "we plan on coming back and coming back and coming back."

[Coalition]

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.

This is one thing that I can actually agree with.

The rest of it, probably not. (yes, there is sarcasm present)

[Akhlut]

One example at Liberty: 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.

Will Glenn Beck be there with CandyLine to purchase their candy for large amounts of paper money?

Also, will the kids realize that candy's price is set up by fiat just as much as paper money?

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.

Will they subjugate the kids already there, take their toys, and then bring in black kids to clean up their confetti?

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.

Bwuh?

This word, I do not think it means what they think it means.

[evilsoup]

One example at Liberty: 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.

Wow, I didn't know gold was edible.

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.

LIBERALS! THERE IS NO LINK BETWEEN CONFETTI AND GLOBAL WARMING THEY ARE STEPPING ON THESE CHILDREN'S GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO THROW CONFETTI WHERE THEY LIKE! SOCIALISM!!!!!!

[evilsoup]

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.

Bwuh?

This word, I do not think it means what they think it means.

This is actually the least-insane thing here. It would work better if they told all the kids to pour their solution into one big tank and share it all (but then, that would stop them from cheating by using different concentrations in the socialism!bubbles and the REDBLOODEDAMERICAN!bubbles).

[Akhlut]

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.

Bwuh?

This word, I do not think it means what they think it means.

This is actually the least-insane thing here. It would work better if they told all the kids to pour their solution into one big tank and share it all (but then, that would stop them from cheating by using different concentrations in the socialism!bubbles and the REDBLOODEDAMERICAN!bubbles).

Well, it depends on what the bubbles fucking represent. Is it wealth? If so, then all the original solutions would be collected by the central government then redistributed equally among everyone to use more or less as the children see fit.

Or are the bubbles symbolic of the means of production? However, then we'd get the vat scenario you mentioned, and people would be distributed among what job they're best at (probably).

[Simon_Jester]

I really sympathize with any of these kids who wake up later on and wind up having to mentally deprogram themselves after this.

One example at Liberty: 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.

Wow, I didn't know gold was edible.

Usually not. Heavy metal poisoning is no fun.

[Serafina]

Usually not. Heavy metal poisoning is no fun.

Pure gold is actually completely non-poisonous, tough obviously it doesn't provide any nutritional value. You can have gold-allergies tough, and various gold-compouns are toxic. But pure gold is actually used for food decoration without any ill effects.

On-topic:
I think focusing on the specific exercises/plays is pointless. What matters isn't how exactly kids shoot at bubbles, what matters is what they are told in the process. That's where the brainwashing takes place.

[someone_else]

"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."

Yeah, believe in God but I don't follow the parts of the bible that you don't like (like the parts that tell you to give to the goddamn poor). Follow the rules damnit.

Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.

The fact that it works only in a specific place should make this exercise pointless. Thankfully children should be still too innocent to link that game to something they totally don't understand nor care much of (world economy).

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.

This is insanity. What the hell is socialism for these idiots?

Besides, the family can be used as a much more effective way to explain why this heavily retarded idea of socialism is "bad", although you just have to wait some more years for them to reach puberty to have the best effect.
Although it can potentially backfire as they eventually grow out of puberty.

"What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom," Lukens said.

Nah, they'll just have tons of fun.

What teaches a children something is example and daily repetition of the right behavior (when they grow up more you can start trying to tell them things and hope they will remember them), not some symbolic games once in a while. They need to see that the world goes like that. This thing does not last enough to qualify. It also seems way too rhetoric for 8-12 children.

Besides, children going here are already doomed in any case, since parents that decide to send their children here are *already* nuts. That's what matters in the end.

My solution? Point and laugh.

Pure gold is actually completely non-poisonous, tough obviously it doesn't provide any nutritional value. You can have gold-allergies tough, and various gold-compouns are toxic. But pure gold is actually used for food decoration without any ill effects.

THat happens because pure gold reacts with more or less nothing (only aqua regia reacts with it), so there is no fucking way for it to get into metabolic processes like other more reactive heavy metals do.
For this same reason pure gold is always shiny.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. My mistake then. Thank you; I hadn't made the connection between extreme non-reactivity and extreme non-toxicity.

[Covenant]

Oh, CANDIES, I thought it was CANDLES.

And then I was very confused when people said they were going to eat it. How insane is this stuff? Teaching kids bad economics sounds like a pretty idiotic thing to do. These people and their obsession with gold-backed currency never ceases to amaze me. Also, Europe being a gray, bland room? Austere? Colonial Europe?

They'd be more accurate making it a dense, cramped room with tons and tons of different, competing musics going on at once, huge splashes of conflicting colors etc--and then making 'America' a large convention hall full of building blocks. People didn't move to the fucking frontier because it was a bouncy party room. If you wanted that you stayed back home in the happening big cities.

If any other nation took their own mis-information this seriously--no wait, North Korea does. We are now North Korea.

[Simon_Jester]

No, they are now North Korea.

They're also a dying breed in my opinion; the very existence of institutions like this is the act of a sociopolitical demographic that knows that, by default, their children will not grow up to share their beliefs about how the world ought to look.

To oversimplify the argument a bit:

My parents didn't need to send me to Reasonable Camp to make me reasonable, but these parents apparently need to send their kids to Crazy Camp to make them crazy. To me, that suggests that the next generation will have a large number of people who were made reasonable by unskilled labor and by default, along with a tiny minority who have been made crazy by intense, laborious effort.

I repeat, that's an oversimplification; it's the best I can come up with at the moment because my sleep/caffeine balance is rather bad.

[The Spartan]

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.

"What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom," Lukens said.

What ever happened to learning teamwork and what not? I remember emphasis being placed on that when I was a kid even in a religious and conservative school.

That aside, it's ridiculous. Working together they can pop more bubbles. We had to do an exercise in my manufacturing class where we used Legos to run different setups for manufacturing facilities. Guess which one was least effective?

Idiots...

[PainRack]

I should probably open up a thread to discuss with this but why the hell are these people so obessed with the gold standard?????

[Starglider]

I should probably open up a thread to discuss with this but why the hell are these people so obessed with the gold standard?????

That's their least unreasonable principle. The basic idea is that inflation is either stealth taxation (when the government prints money) or outright theft (when the Federal Reserve does it).

[General Mung Beans]

"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."

Yeah, believe in God but I don't follow the parts of the bible that you don't like (like the parts that tell you to give to the goddamn poor). Follow the rules damnit.

That's a laughable strawman, they certainly don't oppose giving help to the poor although they think private charity is the best way (which I do not agree with for the record).

[Simon_Jester]

If they actually were generous enough souls to give to the poor in line with what the poor need, to pay really serious attention to the example of Christ in this respect, that would be great. Realistically, they just toss a few dollars in the general direction of whatever fraction of the poor they deem worthy, while rejecting all those they unworthy due to being too brown/drug-addled/unholy-lifestyled/whatever, then pat themselves on the back and say that they've done 'good works' when the works are trivial compared either to the problems they're working on or the resources they have to work with.

If people like this really were generous enough to qualify as heirs to the charitable traditions of Christianity (which were well-established in ages past, though a lot more discriminatory than anyone today would or should care for)... well, then there would be much less need for welfare.

But they are not that generous, nor will they become that generous if the tax burden they pay to support social programs goes away. They just bullshit about charity and generosity as an excuse to get out of paying for civilization.

It's just... so fucking self-righteous, with effectively zero willingness to be compassionate to anyone outside the tribe, that it's unworthy of any of the good things that can be or have ever been associated with the Christian tradition.

[Crossroads Inc.]

No, they are now North Korea.

They're also a dying breed in my opinion; the very existence of institutions like this is the act of a sociopolitical demographic that knows that, by default, their children will not grow up to share their beliefs about how the world ought to look.

To oversimplify the argument a bit:

My parents didn't need to send me to Reasonable Camp to make me reasonable, but these parents apparently need to send their kids to Crazy Camp to make them crazy. To me, that suggests that the next generation will have a large number of people who were made reasonable by unskilled labor and by default, along with a tiny minority who have been made crazy by intense, laborious effort.

I repeat, that's an oversimplification; it's the best I can come up with at the moment because my sleep/caffeine balance is rather bad.

Oversimplified perhaps, but also SPOT ON.
I mean let us be serious. these "Camps" aren't about making these kids better people, about installing in them a sense of how to bring about a better world, or help humanity, or help one another... It is purely about Indoctrination and Inoculation. As you say later on, If these people WERE serious about how others, about being "Good Christians" they would be teaching them about helping their fellow man, about "how you treat the least among you is how you treat me" or "Cloth the naked and feed the hungry" They wouldn't be teaching them about how to recognize the evils of socialism, or having "The Government" taking what doesn't belong to it.

I mean this goes beyond Indoctrination, this is giving these kids "Inoculations" against trying to hope they don't every loose their ways and actually turn away from being mindless fundies. You are right in saying these are desperate acts. When oyu reach a point where you think that, in order for your kinds to continue believe as you believe, that you have to send them to special schools to have them brainwashed and taught to reject all other forms of thought, you are really going into a dark place there.

[Shroom Man 777]

They can't hope to beat the Commie Camp in terms of candylicious goodness though.

[evilsoup]

What the fuck is that (sigged btw)?

[Tanasinn]

They can't hope to beat the Commie Camp in terms of candylicious goodness though.

The hilarious thing about this is that the Christ-crazies make a point against themselves. God doesn't answer prayers. Man does.

[evilsoup]

Get your rationalism out of my religion!

[CaiusWickersham]

I should probably open up a thread to discuss with this but why the hell are these people so obessed with the gold standard?????

That's their least unreasonable principle. The basic idea is that inflation is either stealth taxation (when the government prints money) or outright theft (when the Federal Reserve does it).

Apparently they missed that day in high school economics when the concept of inflation was properly explained. The point of a capitalist system is that wealth is increased through the free market. An increase in wealth means dilution of already existing wealth. The new wealth is then put back into the market to make more and so on. Inflation is thus part of their vaunted plan and yet they don't get it.

[Simon_Jester]

Not quite that either, I'd say. Capitalism should, in theory, increase the amount of valuable goods in an economy without necessarily increasing the money supply. On a gold-standard economy, capitalism will increase the amount of wealth while keeping the money supply fixed, and you get deflation: money becomes more valuable because there's more for it to buy, unless someone out there is mining gold at a ridiculously fast rate.

Deflation is bad for a lot of things because it means you can literally stick your money in a hole in the ground, wait five years, and it'll be worth more than it was when you started. That's bad for investment, it's bad for people who borrow money... in general, not good.

Capitalism will only produce predictable inflation if there's a way for capitalism to rapidly expand the money supply. Arguably the modern financial sector is guaranteed to do this because of the way loans and leveraging work, I would think, but it's not a strict one for one relationship- we got deflation during the Gilded Age, a period of unbridled capitalism and minimal bank regulation.

[Alyeska]

So much wrong with what they are teaching the children. I especially love the Gold Standard masturbation. These people don't appear to read the history books considering gold has crashed more than once.