Friday 7 April 2023

Teaching Kids About Taxes And Regulation

Educational picture books exist because kids brains are forming and taking in and learning from their environment but what is a right wing conservative parent to do when little Tommy or Jane asks what effect does government taxation and over-regulation have on the free market economy?
It's a bind i know but now they can reach for the snappily titled 'An Island Called Liberty Teaches Kids About The Dangers Of Regulation' which the author describes as a cross between Dr. Seuss and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged which uses rhyming verse and full-colour illustrations to teach younger children (and some adults) about free markets and warns against excessive government regulation, bureaucracy and taxation.
Sounds a real barnstormer and one of the four reviews on goodreads says: '...the highlight of the book is that it has very poignantly written lessons that teach freedom principles logically and reminds us the history repeats itself if we don't learn from the past' so let's dive in children.  
An Island Called Liberty tells the story of an isolated free market paradise where everyone worked hard and thrived, and those who couldn't did fine because friends, neighbors, and family always pitched in, and no one fell through the cracks.
Thus, Liberty is a thriving utopia but then this prosperous city is upended by the one thing it cannot handle: taxes.
The citizens have a meeting and collectively decide to pay for nonsense like education, roads, police and hospitals but oh-oh, things quickly snowball out of control and before they know it they are paying towards utterly mad things like environmental research, benefits to people unable to work and regulating toys so that babies don't choke on them.
One citizen of Liberty, Bridget Blodgett, worked in a factory making widgets but she saw her colleagues being lured away to work for the government and soon Bridget can't find anyone to employ because the tax bureau's forced everyone to work for them and soon Bridget has the only running business on the island and is the only one paying taxes.
Bridget, fed up for paying for all that socialist nonsense leaves Liberty Island and the economy collapses so the islanders decide to renounce their taxation policy and businesses flourish once more. Hooray!!
So Children, the moral of the story is if you give people total freedom then they will use it to organise public services for everyone so be like your right wing conservative parents kids and be a selfish bastard who doesn't care about other people, it's the right-wing way.
The book will not be available in any good book stores ever.

1 comment:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...

just use the following pictures
- one working-kid preparing ground as a garden while lazy-kid sits and watches
- same kid planting wheat seeds while lazy-kid sits and watches
- same kid watering and weeding the garden while lazy-kid sits and watches
- same kid harvesting wheat while lazy-kid sits and watches
- same kid milling seed into flour while lazy-kid sits and watches
- same kid making dough while lazy-kid sits and watches
- same kid baking the dough while lazy-kid sits and watches
- government official comes and she takes 3/5s of the bread from working-kid
- same government official shown eating 2/5s of the bread
- remaining 1/5 of bread given lazy-kid that did no work
- lazy-kid screaming 'I ONLY GOT 1/5 while rich-kid got 2/5s"

a book very close to this is titled "The Little Red Hen"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen