Originally Posted by
GunnyFreedom
In the 1770's kids had access to horses, which could carry you more places than a car. Communicating 'faster' is not automatically communicating 'freer.'
Do you really think America is more free in 2012 than we were in 1962? Say instead 1952 to make it easier. Seems to me the more freedom individuals had, the more respect kids had. Not less.
Tolerance of disrespect is not an indication of freedom, it is more an indication of being cowed into submission by an overarching and interventionist state apparatus. Teaching kids respect will make them far more free over the course of their lives than letting them be disrespectful and feral. We as a society are too consumed by the moment that we fail to take into account the long vision. The first 18 years of your life are but the blink of an eye compared to the remaining 70 years you live as an independent adult. Respect and discipline teaches responsibility. Without responsibility there can be no liberty.
Any parent who cares about their kids freedom and liberty will do whatever it takes to teach them respect and discipline for that very reason. I would argue that parents who let their children run wild and feral do so because they specifically do not care about their kids freedom and liberty, or else they do not know enough about what freedom and liberty is in the first place to understand that you can't have it without responsibility.
No, you said, "Disrespectful kids are a sign of a free society," and I will say again that is categorically untrue. If we actually lived in a free society, then parents would feel free to discipline their children without fear of being sent to prison and having their children seized by CPS. Parents don't fail to discipline their kids because they respect their freedom, parents fail to discipline their kinds for 2 major reasons - 1) fear, they are afraid of government repercussions for disciplining their children, and 2) lack of knowledge, since the tyranny of fear started some 20-30 years ago, there are parents today who were not raised with discipline and therefore do not know how to discipline their kids.
No parent wants their child to grow up and be a failure or a mass murderer or such. Most everybody knows that discipline is the primary key to success. If parents knew how to discipline their kids and weren't too afraid of the government to do so, then they would, precisely because they respect their kids' liberty in a free society.
The flip-side of liberty is responsibility. The primary component of responsibility is discipline. If you really want your kids to be free and you respect their right to liberty, then you should be doubly adamant to teach them discipline as a child so that they can in fact grow up free.