Stop using children as pawns to promote adult political agendas

When I was a teen-ager, I thought I had everything figured out. I had strong views about politics, theology and pretty much everything else. Looking back, I was wrong about almost everything.

Greta Thunberg is a mentally ill child from a very dysfunctional family, although her supporters get angry if you point these things out. She has various mental disorders and her family has many serious issues, but we’re not supposed to mention that.

When she was 8, her politically active parents scared her with stories of the world ending because of climate change. She became obsessed with it and now left-wing activists (starting with her parents) are using has as a pawn, starting with climate change but also encompassing a far-left social and economic agenda.

She’s autistic and suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, and she became so obsessive about her climate fears that she quit eating and suffered various physical problems.

Today, her parents and other left-wing activists are using Greta as a political pawn. Media outlets and politicians who already want governments to take over the world economy are going along with the scam, treating what this child has to say as though there is angelic wisdom in her words.

But the truth is that she is a brainwashed and dysfunctional child who is repeating what she’s been told. Taking her sanctimonious words seriously makes no more sense than it would have made to let me set world economic policy when I was 16 and thought I knew it all.

I’m frustrated that media and politicians are treating the pronouncements of a child as worthy of us obeying, but I’m even more annoyed that this child is being abused by adults who should know better. It’s not just the content of her words that is a problem.

The real problem is that adults are once again turning a child into their pawn — as an emotional tool to shame other adults into doing what they want.

I’m also angry that intellectually dishonest media and their political allies are selectively using children once again, just as they do when they try to use teens to campaign for banning guns. But can you imagine these people taking a child seriously if that child were obsessed with a position which appeals to conservatives or libertarians?

Imagine a mentally ill child who became obsessed with the horrors of unborn babies being killed. Let’s say her anti-abortion parents shared with her the pictures of unborn babies that had been cut apart and killed. Then let’s say this child — who had no understanding of the ethical and social issues involved — became an anti-abortion activist.

Can you imagine such an anti-abortion teen being treated with the same seriousness in the mainstream press or allowed to preach sanctimonious sermons to the UN? That would never happen.

The more you know about 16-year-old Greta and her family, the more a reasonable person has to ask why politicians have been idiotic enough to turn her into a celebrity “spokeschild” for their cause.

Her mother writes, “Greta is able to see what other people cannot see. She can see carbon dioxide with the naked eye. She sees how it flows out of chimneys and changes the atmosphere in a landfill.”

Of course, sane people know that carbon dioxide is a colorless and odorless gas which animals produce as a byproduct of breathing and which plants absorb in order to live. Nobody can see carbon dioxide with the naked eye. But her dysfunctional mother claims her daughter can see a gas which is invisible. The family’s supporters are such true believers that nobody questions such irrational and ridiculous statements.

When you point out Greta’s mental health issues or the family’s serious dysfunction — which has been documented quite publicly — her supporters shriek in anger that we’re not allowed to attack a child.

You see, they want to have it both ways. They want to put Greta in the middle of a worldwide movement to seize control of the free economy — and use the power of government to force us to obey — but at the same time send the message that it’s off limits to point out how creepy the whole “Greta thing” really is.

They are the ones who’ve made Greta into a public messiah figure, but they seem to believe she should be untouchable.

I honestly don’t see how anybody could read much about the family and not realize they have serious issues. Even if that were not the case, why are the opinions of one random 16-year-old being taken seriously?

It’s insane.

If this child weren’t a useful tool for left-wing journalists and politicians, nobody would have ever heard of her. Nobody would take the child seriously as a political figure.

But on a more fundamental level, nobody would have ever heard of her if her parents were doing their job and protecting her childhood. Instead, they’re using their daughter to pursue an adult political agenda, with no regard for what this might do for her psychological health.

This is child abuse by her parents and their supporters. And it’s intellectually dishonest that anybody pretends we need to be listening to this dysfunctional family.

Stop using your children as political pawns. It’s obscene.