Tea Party Ruins Summer Camp for Kids in Tampa

This is Just Plain Mean

Like many other youngsters of his generation, The Dismal Political Economist has fond memories of summer camp.  No chores, no homework and days filled with athletics, crafts, hiking, fishing, learning how to shoot a .22 rifle (and getting that nice marksman medal from the NRA) are things every kid should experience just once.

For some kids, though, summer camp can be a non-stop horror show.  In Tampa the Tea Party is sponsoring a summer camp, and from the Onion Business Week here is the description.

The 912 Project, teaches 8-to-12-year-olds “the principles of liberty, free markets, and limited government.” Jeff Lukens, 53, whose day job is at an auto auction firm, will run this year’s session. The first lesson will teach campers the difference between European tyranny and freedom in America: After walking into a room that’s “kind of dark and gray and austere … [and being made] to sit down, be quiet, and do what they’re told … we tell them, there’s this other place you can go to called the New World,” says Lukens. Once they’ve crossed an obstacle course representing the Atlantic, the campers arrive in America. “It’s colorful, it’s bright, it’s cheery—they get over there and we pop confetti in the air and it’s a party,” says Lukens. The kids later clean up the mess, so they know that “with freedom comes responsibility.” Other lessons teach campers about the gold standard and that “our rights come from God, not from government,” he says.

Reports have come in that it is even worse than this, that several children suffered severe mental trauma when the came upon Michelle Bachmann and Ludwig von Mises during a trip to the beach (see Michelle Bachmann Takes Dead Economist with her on Vacation). At a minimum several years of therapy may be required just to get that image out of their psyche.