A few years ago, Hillary wrote a book titled "It Takes a Village."  That was a palatable notion. The family had the primary responsibility, but there was also community environmental impact as well.  Hillary's observation was mostly reasonable, acceptable, and very politically correct.

But the gradual morphing of the Liberal Progressive message is suddenly obvious.

MSNBC's

Melissa Harris-Perry said...

"...break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities."

Where in the world would parents get the "private idea" that that child was actually theirs?  How old fashioned and backward thinking.

What is more bothersome is that the notion, the "private idea", is easily dismissed by the single parent, especially when they are encouraged to do so by the likes of Melissa Harris-Perry. The child is of the community they are told, and hence becomes the community's responsibility.  The notion is welcomed.  Maybe the mother and the child are both somehow victims too.  We await Melissa Harris-Perry to tell us.

From the New York Times..

"73 percent of black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites."

And when the unwed woman gets pregnant, we are led to believe that it was due to a shortfall in women's healthcare, i.e. the availability of contraceptive products, that is the real culprit.  So the community is responsible for providing "women's healthcare", i.e. contraception....but the community is also responsible for the child born out of wedlock.

Right Sandra Fluke?

There is also the troubling disconnect between the "pro choice" camp and the "communal child" camp.  "It is my body", but it will be "your child".  The choice is mine alone,  but the child "belong(s) to the whole community". Asking a liberal to logically square these positions is futile.

As the child grows, the notion that "how they do in school is solely up to the teacher" is a natural extrapolation of the communal concept.  And what else?  Where they are and what they do in their spare time is also more of a community issue then a familial one. 

If the child ends up in a "flash mob" certainly this is not poor decision making or an underperformance of parenting but a failure of the community.

Is there a clearer depiction of the liberal left's attitude on individual responsibility?  

How convenient and how easily received and embraced is this notion that your mistake is now 'our' mistake.  Spread the wealth and spread the responsibilities, or more appropriately the irresponsibilities.

Notice the precise word selection.  The "private idea" is a bad idea...kind of like "private industry". "Private" is suggested a bad word. "Communal" and "collective" are offered as good words. Communal...communism.  Collective responsibility....collectives.  These terms are right out of the Marx-Engels dictionary.

These ideas, these concepts of shedding and then spreading responsibility are easily sold to a certain strata of our population.  It is born, pardon the analogy, in the same womb as "victimhood".

But the grand subliminal suggestion is that because the child is of the community, and the community is reliant upon the Federal Government, we can now read, "It takes a government" to raise a child.  That is the actual mantra. Forward.

Bruce Johnson