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The “Murphy’s Law of Bigotry” might go like this: “If humans can be bigoted against an outgroup, they will be bigoted against that outgroup.” After 200,000 years of evolution and 60+ years into an ongoing “civil rights era” in which many former outgroups have gained power sufficient to punish those who stigmatize them, you’d think leaders would finally conclude that prejudice should be rejected in all its forms on principle. But no. Across the spectrum, we see it’s perfectly acceptable to utterly demonize young people with no hint of fact, fairness, or basic decency. The articles below go more in depth to examine just how crazy and hateful leaders’ anti-youth bigotry has become — just because they can be.

Minimum ages should be rolled back. Advocates of easy, popular minimum ages of 21 for a big, increasing array of behaviors fail to acknowledge the downsides affecting millions of young people: more arrests and punishments, denial of employment, destruction of age-integrated venues, greater hazards to young adults denied normative experiences, and prevention of discussion of far more effective policies.

Guns, round 2: Let’s try reason this time. The president and gun control advocates surely learned from Round 1 of America’s latest gun non-debate that they can’t out-emotionalize the National Rifle Association’s wild insanities. So, Mr. President, in Round 2, to be ignited by the next bullet-spraying massacre, how about leading with reasoned arguments that depict modern young people not as crazed video-game-incited killers, but factually as displaying the largest declines in gun violence, firearms fatality, gun ownership, and intimate partner violence of any age or generation?

Do “teenage mothers” actually reduce welfare costs and save taxpayers money? Contrary to interest groups’ propaganda claiming that teenage mothers impose “social costs” on society, the best long-term studies (including one commissioned by officials and quickly ignored) are finding either no costs or actual savings for taxpayers. Why? The reasons are logical once analyzed.

“Teen dating violence:” the invented “epidemic.” Despite the huge clamor by politicians, sensational news stories, and wildly exaggerated “surveys” by self-promoting interests that define “violence” to include even mild behaviors, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ most recent Intimate Partner Violence survey finds 3.4% of teens age 16-19 experienced intimate-partner violence, a rate similar to adults in their 30s and 40s, while 12-15-year-olds experienced the lowest levels of dating violence of any age except 65 and older. And — surprise — those teens who are violent come from violent families.

Banning youths from streets may make us less safe. Why curfews fail. Bloomberg News published our op-ed on why cities’ response to newly manufactured panics over “flash mobs” and ongoing fears of “youth on the streets” resurrected a self-defeating curfew stampede that wastes police time removing law-abiding youth from the streets.

The Associated Press fabricates and juvenile sex-crime panic. There’s plenty of despicable journalism about teenagers, but the AP’s blatant falsifications of data that even their “experts” warned against using to manufacture the image of “sex offenders getting younger” is one of the worst. I wish the younger generation could sue the press and its phony “experts” for stories like these.

The “middle-aged brain” is ‘way scarier than the “teenage brain.” The wild exaggerations, leaps to judgment, and stereotyping surrounding new and largely uninterpretable brain imagings shows its the rashness and cognitive limitations of the grownups we should worry about.

New York Times Public Editor to scrutinize “fake trends.” In response to a YouthFacts complaint regarding a sensational story by reporter Jan Hoffman, The Times’ Public Editor found the story inadequately documented and promised to examine his paper’s contribution to a journalistic epidemic: “fake trends” stories variously and falsely alleging teens today are more violent, endangered, promiscuous, immoral, suicidal, mean, etc, than ever.

“Underage” Americans pay a heavy price for “overage” drinking privileges. Legal-drinking American grownups kill 800, injure 80,000, and traumatize a quarter-million “underage” children and teenagers every year in traffic crashes caused by adults age 21 and older. It’s the least we can do, Prof. David J. Hanson argues, to bring young adults into the legal alcohol system, which involves profound employment, cultural, and human rights issues.

Not “youth violence” again… President Obama launches his 2012 reelection campaign with a triple attack against young people, a legacy of former chief of staff Rahm Emanuels cowardly Clinton-era politics of generational fearmongering. The White Houses calculated efforts to win values voters support by cynically trashing Americas young as bullies, rapists, and violent criminals and its conspicuous silence on genuine but impolitic issues like youth poverty and child abuse demonstrate the growing dishonesty of an administration that promised change and hope to win young peoples enthusiasm, then delivered the same old bigoted anti-youth cliches and exploitation.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and the middle-aged drug epidemic. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death from opiates reveals America’s giant middle-aged drug abuse epidemic that has cost hundred of thousands of lives and devastated families and communities for 25 years — but all the drug-war authorities and “experts” can talk about is “young people.”

A modern history of youth bashing – with Mike Males. Author, sociologist and outspoken youth advocate Mike Males joins me share his insights on the social, political and cultural problem of blaming, shaming and framing youth with Brett Veinotte. I have referenced his work several times in the past, and it was a pleasure to have him on the show. To hear the podcast, click here: http://schoolsucksproject.com/212-a-modern-history-of-youth-bashing-with-mike-males/

 

 

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