We are bombarded with images these days, given the ubiquitous cameras on every cellphone and many lamp posts, showing us the many thousands of isolated instances of wrong doing that were easily deniable before. But few images had as strong an impact as this photograph posted by Radley Balko at The Agitator.
No, these aren’t the newest LAPD SWAT team trainees. These are the children of the Explorers, an arm of the Boy Scouts of America, from Imperial, California, as profiled in the New York Times.
Many law enforcement officials, particularly those who work for the rapidly growing Border Patrol, part of the Homeland Security Department, have helped shape the program’s focus and see it as preparing the Explorers as potential employees. The Explorer posts are attached to various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police and fire departments, that sponsor them much the way churches sponsor Boy Scout troops.
I generally reject comparison’s between anything that happens today with the Nazis, because it’s an offensive comparison,it’s facile, hyperbolic, cliché and almost invariably not illuminating in the slightest. This time, I cannot ignore the comparison. To do so would be foolish. Rick Horowitz at Probable Cause drew the same conclusion. It’s inescapable.
Regular readers know of my deep concern for children, probably more so than most of the brethren would like since I probably give greater weight to the safety of children than many others. But it’s this concern for the welfare of kids that makes my heart break seeing this photograph. Kids love uniforms. Kids love weapons. Kids love belonging to a group that bolsters their self-esteem. Kids are not prepared to be pawns in geo-political causes.
To allow impressionable children to be indoctrinated into a nationalistic, paramilitary cause scares the hell out of me. Radley called this “jackbootery”. The word is too cute by far. This is how a free society is murdered.
I might make a joke about the sort of merit badge one obtains by the accurate shooting of a wetback, but I can’t muster the will to find humor in this photograph.
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They remind me of those 10 and 12 year old “soldiers” in some parts of Africa. Except that surely our purpose is totally justified and benign and it’s voluntary, no? But note the Western enlightenment feature: It’s equal opportunity. Looks like a girl in the middle.
BTW SHG, from all I’ve studied on the subject, the Hitler Youth was not paramilitary. One aim was certainly to steel minds and bodies in preparation for military service, but there wasn’t any reglemented, centrally organised weapons training, aside from occasional partnerships with local military. Even after HJ, when young men out of school served their year in the Labour Service (RAD), their weapons were spades. It is true that from 15 years of age, as of 1943, service on AA guns was widespread, but that was to free soldiers for the front lines. There are a lot of misconceptions around on the reality of HJ, see the repeated controversies involving the Pope. But you’re right, of course; the spirit was totalitarian.