Mountain Views News          Saturday, July 11, 2015

Mountain Views News Saturday, July 11, 2015 
B7OPINION Mountain Views News Saturday, July 11, 2015 
B7OPINION 
Mountain 
Views 
News 
PUBLISHER/ EDITOR 
Susan Henderson 
CITY EDITOR 
Dean Lee 
EAST VALLEY EDITOR 
Joan Schmidt 
BUSINESS EDITOR 
LaQuetta Shamblee 
PRODUCTION 
Richard Garcia 
SALES 
Patricia Colonello 
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John Aveny 
CONTRIBUTORS 
Chris Leclerc 
Bob Eklund 
Howard HaysPaul CarpenterKim Clymer-KelleyChristopher NyergesPeter Dills 
Dr. Tina Paul 
Rich Johnson 
Merri Jill Finstrom 
Lori KoopRev. James SnyderTina Paul 
Mary CarneyKatie HopkinsDeanne Davis 
Despina ArouzmanGreg WelbornRenee Quenell 
Ben Show 
Sean KaydenMarc Garlett 
Pat Birdsall (retired) 
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Free-Range Parenting Getting Costly 

TOM Purcell 


Ah, summer. We all know what that means for 

young children. 

If your kids are seen walking without adult 
supervision, somebody will call the cops, Child 
Protective Services will conduct an investigation 
and charges will be filed. 

That is what happened recently to Danielle and 

Alexander Meitiv, two Maryland parents who 

allowed their young children to walk home alone from a park near their 

home. 

“The Meitivs say they have gradually allowed their son, Rafi, 10, and 
daughter, Dvora, 6, more freedom to walk on their own in areas they know,” 
reports The Washington Post. “But police twice picked up the siblings as 
they made their way home in Silver Spring, and CPS neglect investigations 
ensued.” 


What were these parents thinking, you ask. They were thinking about the 
well-being of their kids. You see, the Meitivs have embraced the “free-range” 
kids movement, which encourages childhood independence. 


“When you let children out, all the good things happen — the self-
confidence, happiness and self-sufficiency that come from letting our kids 
do some things on their own,” says columnist and blogger Lenore Skenazy, 
founder of the free-range kids movement. She caused a firestorm in 2008 
when she wrote, in the New York Sun, about letting her 9-year-old son ride 
the New York City subway alone. 


Free-range parents are the polar opposite of helicopter parents. According to 
The Washington Post, helicopter parents have “watched their (child's) every 
move, checked their grades online hourly, advocated for them endlessly and 
kept them busy from event to activity to play date ... .” 


Helicopter parents would never allow their children to walk home from a 
park alone. 


According to The New York Times, it's routine for such parents to drive 
their kids to and from school — even if they are 10, 11 or 12 — and even if 
the school is only a few blocks away. 


At some schools, there is a rigorous process for picking children up. Parents 
display their kids' names on their dashboards. A school official radios to the 
building and the kids are escorted, one at a time, to the cars. 


Prison inmates receive less monitoring than the kids of helicopter parents. 
Why are so many parents obsessing over their kids these days? 


According to WebMD, “if you grew up in the '70s and '80s (and earlier, of 
course), you probably remember going out to play after school and being 
expected to return home only when the street lights turned on. But as more 


LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 
MICHAEL Reagan

HOWARD Hays As I See It 


“Germany is the and a 15% unemployment rate. Just over a year

THE CONFEDERATE 

country that has neverago, it fantasized that with a little tinkeringrepaid its debts. It has with interest rates and maturation dates, 

FLAG FLAP 

no standing to lectureGreece could make payments while enjoyingother nations.” 4% annual economic growth. Instead, the 

- Thomas Pikettyeconomy contracted by 17%. Unemployment
You can tell it’s presidential election season. 

I don’t write much stands at 25%; a third of its citizens are in

Once again, politicians and the mainstream 
about international poverty, 75% of bank loans are nonperforming,

media are being stupid and irresponsible.
happenings; it’s hard and the government survives by not paying its

They are wasting our time on minor issues that get 
enough trying to figurebills. This comes after a cut of 30% in the public

both sides of the conservative-liberal divide riled 
out what’s happeningworkforce since 2009 and a 48% cut in pensions

up at each other, but prevent us from focusing on 
here at home. And – with 45% of remaining pensions providing

what really matters.
We have a mess of serious problems we have to fix or deal with at home 


with the big storyincomes below the poverty line.

and overseas. 

over the past week inAs it is now, what money Greece is offered is not

And what have the media, the politicians and the whole country been 

Greece, it seems even the Greeks are conflicted so much to bail out the country, but to bail out

yapping and arguing about for two weeks? 

as to what’s at stake. With that referendum the banks and investors who gambled on buying

The symbolism of a 150-year-old Confederate battle flag.

last weekend, Europeans were framing it aspieces of Greek debt. It’s like the approach

Jeb Bush – as predictably as Donald Trump and the others – said on 

a choice for Greece of either agreeing to moreseen when our own cities, from Detroit to 

Monday that the flag is “a racist symbol” from the past that divides people 

austerity demanded by the creditors or leavingSan Bernardino, went through bankruptcy: 

and causes disagreement today. 
the Eurozone and going back to the drachmainvestors aware of the risk in investing in

He said the Confederate flag should be removed from South Carolina’s 
for their currency. After the vote, it seems the municipal bonds have to be taken care of, while

statehouse grounds, just as he removed it from Florida’s capitol when he 
overwhelming consensus among the Greeksthose assured there was no risk in investing

was governor.
was to stay in the Eurozone, keep the Eurotheir working lives towards a pension get stiffed.

I agree. 
as their currency – but to vote “no” on thoseOf all that tens of billions in aid, as of last 

Though it was originally designed to prevent southern soldiers from killing 
each other in battle, the flag has been a symbol of both heritage and hate 

demanded austerity measures, anyway.January only 11% of it has gone to help Greece

since the beginnings of the civil rights movement.

It’s not like the Greeks won’t accept blame for thedirectly, with the rest going to pay off creditors.

Sadly, it took a horrible tragedy in Charleston to make the country and our 

mess they’re in. They don’t hesitate in calling outSen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) commented, “At 

leading politicians realize that a state government has no business giving 

the corruption and nepotism that had crippleda time of grotesque income inequality, the 

the Confederate flag a place of honor. 

their government. And, as the owner of a smallpensions of the people in Greece should not be

Like it or not, in 2015 the Confederate flag we all saw on the roof of those 

Athens restaurant put it in a BBC interview,cut any further to pay back some of the largest

1969 Dodge Chargers on the “Dukes of Hazard” is no longer so innocent. 

when the foreign loan money was offered, theybanks and wealthiest financiers in the world.” 

Now it symbolizes two totally different and incompatible things to whites 

took it - “not to put in a business”, she said, “butDays after the election of Greek Prime Minister

and blacks. 
to go on a holiday”.Alexis Tsipras early this year, President Obama

Many Southern whites still see it as a symbol of the battlefield bravery of 
One thing is clear, though: With few exceptionsweighed in; “You cannot continue squeezing

their ancestors, or as a roman-tic symbol of their Southern heritage and 
(maybe Spain and Ireland coming out of thecountries that are in the midst of depression.”

culture. 
Recession), austerity only makes things worse.Greece’s debt amounted to 175% of its entire 

Meanwhile, for obvious reasons, the exact same flag is an insult to blacks. 
Many of their ancestors were slaves when the flag was first waved in battle. 

And, much as some would hate to admit it, debtannual economic output. In his book “Capital

And then, though freed, for the next 100 years their grandparents and 

forgiveness is often the only way to get somein the Twenty-First Century”, Thomas Piketty

parents were treated as second-class Americans by racist state governments 

countries, like some people, back on their feet.figures a debt of 200% of output would take 50

that incorporated the Confederate symbol in their official flags.

It’s ironic that Germany, the country taking theto 60 years to repay.

If you can’t understand why the black citizens of the South might consider 

hardest line against Greece today, is the countryAs economist Paul Krugman explains, the

the old Confederate battle flag an insult today, ask yourself how a German 

that benefited most from debt forgivenessproblem with austerity is that it shrinks

Jew would react to seeing a swastika fluttering proudly in front of the 

over the last century. At Versailles followingeconomies faster than it shrinks debt – with that 

Reichstag in 2015.

WWI, President Wilson argued against pilingdebt then comprising an ever-larger portion of

The Confederate flag deserves no place of honor on government property 
on a defeated Germany by saddling it with anthe economy. The effect on Greece has been 

in America. It never did. 
essentially unpayable debt of war reparations.to transform the Recession of 2009 into a full-
Our allies disagreed and got their way, however,blown Depression.

But, as usual, some have gone overboard with political correctness. 
and through the 1920s we loaned Germany theThere’s speculation that recent demands on 

Amazon and Wal-mart made fools of themselves when they announced 
money to pay its war debts. This spigot wasGreece have been made not so much expecting 

that because of the Confederate flag flap they were going to stop selling 
products that carry its image. 

turned off when the Depression hit in 1931,to see them accepted (documents show the 

The TV Land channel was just as idiotic when it pulled episodes of “The 

we were stuck with the bad loan, Germany’sIMF regarding them as impossible to meet,

Dukes of Hazard.” NASCAR hasn’t banned Confederate flags at its races, 

economy tanked and the breeding ground foranyway) but rather to get Greeks to dump their

but it still might.

Nazism was laid. new, leftist government. That didn’t happen, as

At least the Confederate flag hasn’t been outlawed. And the First 

We weren’t going to make the same mistakevoters resoundingly made clear. Now it’s time 

Amendment hasn’t been repealed. 

after WWII. In 1953 we got our allies to cutto get real and weigh the consequences of a

If Confederate flag worshippers want to fly their colors, they are still free 

Germany’s war debt by 60%. Repayment ofGreek default. 

to do so on their own property. Or they can make their own flags and put 
the remainder was tied to Germany’s economic“We need to look ahead,” says Piketty.

them on their T-shirts or pickup trucks or sell them at flea mar-kets and 
growth – giving others an incentive to buy“Europe was founded on debt forgiveness and

gun shows.
German exports. Despite the devastating lossesinvestment in the future. Not on the idea of 

Meanwhile, let’s try to get back to things that really matter in this election 
incurred by the war, European countries agreedendless penance.”

season. 
to forgo reparations due them - includingOne of the things the Nazis did when occupying

Our economy is still a wreck. We have too few good full-time jobs and way 
too many people on unem-ployment, food stamps and welfare.

Greece. What resulted was the “economic a country would be to go to its treasury and

We have to come up with sensible ways to reform immigration, health care 

miracle” of post-war Germany. As economic extract “costs” incurred by the occupation. It 

and Social Security/Medicare. High debt and heavy taxes are going to turn 

historian Albrecht Ritschl put it in Spiegelwould then arrange “loans” from that country

us into Greece. 

Online, “No one in Greece has forgotten thatto the government in Berlin. Greece was among

We don’t know yet how our presidential wannabes plan to fix immigration 

Germany owes its economic prosperity to thethe countries that later forgave these loans, to

or healthcare. 

grace of other nations.”help Germany get back on its feet. But perhaps

Or how they plan to defeat ISIS or get the economy back on track after eight 

In 2010 the International Monetary Fundit could resurrect some old I.O.U.s, if need be. 

years of Obama.

predicted these new austerity measures would

All we know for sure so far is what they think about the Confederate flag. 
cost Greece a 5.5% contraction in its economy 

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