Interviewed last week by departing New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, Yale law professor Samuel Moyn sat with Douthat to discuss his new book, “Gerontocracy in America.” Even though the book itself is controversial, since it argues older Americans are greedy and selfish, the interview went viral after the professor shared the idea of “over-weighting” the votes of children to counteract the votes of their parents.
“Why not assign them to those children's parents?” Douthat, referring to the votes, politely countered.
“Well, because there's a divergence of interest between parents and children,” Moyn stated. “I think that it's likelier young people, not people who are raising families, will have the best insight into the interests of children.”
Douthat, known for his calm demeanor, called that comment “daft,” a rather mild way of calling something “stupid" or "silly."
“I think it's absurd," the Times columnist replied, "to imagine that a 24-year-old recent college graduate has a better assessment of the interests of my own children than I do."
Apparently unbothered by Douthat’s criticism, the law school professor doubled down on his statism viewpoint. “Part of our goal as parents, but also as a society,” Moyn opined, “is trying to make sure that children aren't the hostages of their parents as much as we rely on parents to raise them.”
After playing that exchange on American Family Radio, show host Walker Wildmon pointed out anti-parent ideology is a common belief among the political Left. Now you have a law professor, he said, openly advocating for children to vote against their own parents.
"This sounds like a great idea. What could go wrong with this?" Wildmon jokingly said of a weighted voting system.
Such pro-government, anti-family ideology can be traced back to Communist regimes, such as Stalin and Mao. Families under Stalin lived in fear of violating Article 58, a long list of actions that undermined the Communist Party. In families during Mao’s time, children were taught to report parents who were counter-revolutionaries.
In more recent times, the best example of that belief might have come from MSNBC, in 2013, for the liberal news network’s “Lean Forward” campaign. In the 30-second network promo, show host Melissa Harris-Perry stated that “we have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities."
The big difference in that Leftist ideology, Wildmon told the AFR audience, is liberals only hold that view for children living in a politically conservative household.
“If you're a left-wing radical,” Wildmon said, “that wants to gender transition your child, and do cross-sex hormones, and radical LGBT propaganda, and take them to pride parades, we don't have a problem with that.”
A related Not the Bee article about Professor Moyn's belief said traditional norms such as marriage, family, and religious faith have been hated by communists going back to Karl Marx.
The Bee article linked to the story of Pavlik Morozov, a Soviet youth who turned in his own father in 1930.
