Our News Junkie posted the link, this morning, to Big Lizard's piece "It takes a village meathead." Rob Reiner has apparently used taxpayer dollars to purchase PR and advertising to promote one of his personal political agenda items: the necessity to expand government child care.
The consultant, also hired with taxpayer dollars, advised thusly (highlights from Big Lizard):
"We must create demand by creating awareness of the problems caused by insufficient attention to the early years. Currently, not enough people see the need for the state to do more, because they don't see a problem. If we offer people the solution to a problem they are not aware exists, they will reject it. We must educate people that there is a problem, thereby leading to demand for improvement....
We must continue our efforts at parental education. It is crucial that we continue to build upon the work we've already done in educating parents and caregivers about the difference they can make in the way their children develop, not just because it is important in and of itself, but also because it will also help to create more demand for improved programs from the state. The more we communicate about the relationship between the early years and future outcomes -- especially in K-12 -- the more we will create demand for a greater level of service from the state...."
That advice on how to extract more money from California taxpayers cost California taxpayers $110,000.
It seems so simple. Create an atmosphere of crisis, and create a "need" - or, if they can get away with it, a "prescriptive right." Then the State can ride in on its white horse to save the day. Thus government expands incrementally, and freedom and autonomy and self-reliance diminish proportionately, with the ultimate goal being, I suppose, a nation of emotional pre-schoolers as in Europe supervised by a supposedly benevolent tyranny of nannies, bullies, know-it-alls, and sanctimonious busy-bodies.
Interestingly, there is no evidence that so-called "early childhood education," such as Head Start, does any good whatsover. Other than to give mothers a break from their kids. Young kids are probably better off just banging around and following their natural noses in unstructured ways. AKA "playing."
We can see this same pattern of operation on the subject of medical care, climate, gun control - you can name the others. The MSM is typically a willing useful idiot for these efforts, and the cherry-picking of statistics is fairly obvious to those who know anything about statistics.
It is easy nowadays to identify when this crisis du jour process is happening. It is usually fairly-well coordinated, with all sorts of advocacy groups, hungry for grant dollars, on board in advance - and it always requires more government power and control. There is never a freedom solution - never.
