That's it, I'm Not Breeding. Ever.

An eighteen-year-old New Jersey girl is trying to sue her parents for tuition after she moved out. Not just for tuition to continue her 3.5 GPA at a private school (that's it? 3.5? I beat that and I skipped most of my Junior year), but also to support her financially while she attends the college of her choice.
Even the Commie News Network has a field day with this... relatively speaking. The only therapy the parents need is someone explaining to them that being a "liberal, liberal parent" (quote from the father, find the source yourself) isn't exactly a good thing.

Holy heavenly monkey-fuck, how do you go that wrong in raising a child?

If I have to explain to you what's wrong with her lawsuit, we're going to be here all day. Instead, let's focus on how truly and deeply the parents have failed. Let's compare her and her upbringing to me and mine, because I feel like pointing out how awesome I am compared to this miserable waste of carbon whose greatest contribution to society is and shall ever remain the mockery we make of her.

The first time I was kicked out of my father's house, I was twelve years old (give or take; it was the end of fourth grade). Vague allegations of abuse like this girl's making? Nope - I can rattle off a list of abusive things my step-mother did. Damn shame I never mentioned it at school when I was getting into fights, suspended, and eventually expelled. Actual events, though by this point I don't remember the dates - nor do I care to. That's a lot more than this girl's got, apparently. I moved in with my mother in Bowling Green, OH, and my father pulled me back after she moved to Chicago. The second time I moved out, it was all on me and it was my decision. I was fifteen-sixteenish (look, eight years is a long time if you've been in the Army for seven of them and if I was good at math I'd never have re-upped), and wanted to move out because my father was remarrying and I saw a lot of similarities between that woman and my first stepmother. I didn't wait to give her the benefit of the doubt, which it turns out I should have 'cause my mother was a verbally and emotionally abusive alcoholic. The fallout from that is still playing out; our relationship hasn't quite recovered from it. That lasted about a year and a half before I moved back in with my father and new stepmother. That lasted about a year and a half (until I was nineteen) before it became apparent to all involved that I really should get out on my own.

Compared to my backstory, this girl - cheerleader, honors student, attends private schools, has lived in a liberal household where her parents tried to be her friends - has been living a goddamned fairytale dream life. It's time for her to wake up.

While I was living with my father and stepmother, especially after I turned eighteen, there was a contract of sorts - much like, I imagine, these parents provided for their precious little snowflake crotch-fruit daughter. I was expected to (shock! horror!) do the chores in exchange for room and board. Not a bad deal, really; I was pretty much just a live-in housekeeper with no pay but all the amenities you could ask for. Hell, they even helped me with college tuition in exchange for my labor - which I suppose balances out when you compare my story with this girl's, because I never got to attend a fancy private school.
... Well, except for the one I got kicked out of in the first grade. It was a Catholic school, and the nuns thought I was the Anti-Christ.
I got kicked out of a lot of schools growing up.

It never once occurred to me, despite my upbringing being a whole lot less privileged and pleasant than this girl's, to sue my parents. The fact that this case made it as far as it has (the judge didn't throw all of it out, more's the pity) is a disgrace not only for her and her parents, but the New Jersey legal system. Here's the fun thing about being an adult, kids: You are independent. Your parents owe you nothing. They brought you into this world and spent a hell of a lot of money raising you. They don't owe you a goddamn dime after you turn eighteen and become a legal adult. The fact that these parents failed to instill this value in their daughter, the fact that they were incapable of drilling through her mildly-intelligent brain the nature of 'independence' and 'adulthood' disgusts me.

The Dream of America

Every time someone says "I'm not interested in politics", "I don't waste my time voting", or something else to that effect, I am reminded of the Iraqi elections. Displeased that they were losing the absolute power they had enjoyed under Saddam (and I'm simplifying, of course; this is a blog, not a dissertation), the Sunnis boycotted the elections - only to discover that doing so effectively silenced what voice they might have had in their own government.

If you claim to be disinterested in politics and are proud to be unaware of what goes on in the government, you are an irresponsible wastrel upon whose shoulders rest the burden of guilt just as surely as on those who commit those crimes against the Constitutional ideals. You are what has empowered these corrupt politicians. You are what has permitted them to remain in power. You are their accomplice, their willing cohort, their meek servitor.

You are the problem.

America was not founded to be a nation of uneducated serfs who vote by blind allegiance. The idea - the dream of America works only if the voters are educated, intelligent, and above all critical of their elected officials. The Republic is the most precarious of governments because it requires not that the bureaucrats be diligent nor that the rulers be wise, but that the people - the common folk on the street - be both diligent and wise, for they are their own rulers and the bureaucrats work (much as they may wish to deny it) for them. The responsibility for the regulation and maintenance of the government lies on the collective shoulders of the common man. This is not a novel concept, nor is it a particularly difficult one. Ben Franklin remarked on the precariousness of the Republic and responsibility that lay on the individual citizen very nearly as soon as the Constitution was drawn up with his answer of "A Republic, if you can keep it." This was understood on Day One.

Why have you forgotten? Is the eternal vigilance demanded of free men too hard? Are the obstacles too great to overcome? Are the difficulties in setting right what has gone wrong insurmountable? Is there a price too great for the dream of America - for the land of opportunity, for that nation dedicated to the principles that all are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?