Well, Melissa Harris-Perry decided to double down on her comments claiming that American's needed to break away from the idea that kids belong to the family and need to embrace a collective attitude towards children. Glenn played the latest audio on radio this morning along with another cable news host who is showing the true colors of the progressives.
Harris-Perry said, "I can see that some people are generally upset about what I actually said, especially this phrase: We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families. So let me just say that this, I stand by that statement. Families have first and primary responsibility for their children. The private sphere of our homes and families deserves a great deference in policy and in practice only in the most extreme circumstances of violence or deprivation should institutions remove children from families. But I believe our children are not our private property. They are not just extensions of ourselves. They are independent individual beings. Allow me to quote the poet Khalil Gibran: 'Our children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.'"
She continued, "Listen, this is an existential argument. People can disagree and one which has been more influential in poetry than in policy. And honestly remote philosophical debate rarely drives relentless news cycles. Unless, unless it is the core philosophical issue of our entire history, the balance between individual rights and collective responsibilities. And that is my bet about what is happening. This isn't about me wanting to take your kids. And this isn't even about whether children are property. This is about whether we as a society expressing our collective will through our public institutions, including our government, have a right to impinge on individual freedoms in order to advance a common good."
Glenn told audiences not to dismiss this as a clever apology, but to recognize that she is doubling down on her radical comments.
"Don't dismiss this as a clever way to apologize. Don't dismiss this as a clever way to get out of what she said. She is telling you exactly what she believes. 'I believe that the family belongs to the collective.'"
He explained that Harris-Perry only claimed that in "extreme" cases would government interfere, yet for months conservative values and view points have been portrayed as extreme.
"Remember, you're a TEA Party member, you're an extremist; you believe in the Second Amendment, you're an extremist; you believe in the Bible, you're an extremist; you're a Christian, you're extremist. Unless you redefine the word "extremist," which they already are doing. And then it's only in the cases of extremism that we would ever want to break up those families. As long as you teach them exactly what's good for the collective, as long as you teach them everything that those of us who have power in the collective, we're not going to break you up. Why? You're doing our job for us. You're teaching them that they ‑‑ this is the collective, that they don't have really any rights, that they don't have anything given from God, that they have all of these things given to them by the government. Why should we break that little system up? Only in the case if they're with some extremists."
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