Young people – especially teens – have enormous energy and vitality. They can be very passionate and enthusiastic. Unfortunately, many people take advantage of that. It is, if not a form of child abuse, certainly an example of taking advantage of their youth, inexperience, and naivity.

We have in particular, Greta Thunberg of Sweden as the current poster child for this problem. An excellent response, ‘Greta, Go Home‘ can be viewed at YouTube, explaining some of the problems this young woman faces.

I believe that Jason Siler has accurately characterized the situation regarding the way her family, her teachers, and her society has treated Miss Thunberg. Their exploitation is not untypical, and has been done through history.

One of the worst examples of this is the Children’s Crusade of AD 1212. Up to 30,000 people, reportedly most of them under the age of 12, were motivated by “prophets” who had visions in Germany and France. Both of them were children; one just ten-years-old. They went first to Rome and then tried to go to the Holy Land. Reportedly most of them died or were sold into slavery – none actually made it to what is now Israel to retake the lost city from the Islamic armies which had driven the earlier Crusaders from what is today Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.

The Hitler Youth movement from 1933-1945 is yet another example of the exploitation and abuse of children, that time for political purposes. Those old enough were ultimately cannon fodder for the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS in World War Two (1939-1945), and even some of the youngest were used as soldiers in the last days of the war against both the Russian and Western Allied invasions as “werewolf” and other last-gasp efforts. I was fortunate enough to know a German man whose parents were able to hide him from the authorities to prevent him from being inducted into the Hitler Youth in the 1930s, but many of his contemporaries were and were first corrupted and then ultimately died or were wounded.

During the War between the States, both sides had problems trying to keep the very young out of their Armies (although the Navies DID enlist very young men). It is known that boys as young as eight were used as drummers, and runners, in combat. While honored for their patriotism and loyalty, they were never put on tour to raise morale and promote acceptance of either Union or Confederate aims in the war.

Supposedly, there are federal laws protecting youth from excessive work, regardless of whether it is voluntary or required by their parents or others. Obviously, there are limited exceptions to these (witness Hollywood child actors). But is it not interesting that the regressives (leftists) who always are so much in support of prohibiting child labor seem to have little or no problem with Miss Thunberg’s use as a shill for one of their causes.

In reality, it is not just this one young lady who is being abused by the insane socialist-communist aligned climate change movement. Indeed, most American children, forced into government-run, tax-funded institutions, are fed a daily dose of climate change propaganda, together with praise for mental illness (transgenderism), perversity in the eyes of many parents (homosexuality), and the general run of green environism and socialism. Given that public schools are, at their heart, socialist in origin, nature, and intent, this is no surprise.

From their origins in Germany in the 1830s and 1840s, government-funded, tax-funded schools were brought to America by the fleeing key members of the failed socialist revolutions in Germany, France and elsewhere in the late 1840s. Used to mold children into conformity and prevent the preservation of ethnic and cultural and religious customs (especially of Roman Catholics and AmerInds), they were promoted especially by the then-new Republican Party. Among their several purposes and uses, they inflamed childish passions. First for the abolitionist cause and the War Between the States (as cannon fodder for “Honest Abe”). Then for other causes: Prohibition, the Great War (the “War to end War”), and many more.

Other groups than government and the public schools have tried to harness children’s easily-molded passions and lack of experience and wisdom. The target of Bellamy’s statist and socialist Pledge of Allegiance was, of course, children. The Republicans, Democrats, Progressives (as a Party), Socialists, and Communists all had their youth leagues and groups. As did Unions and the Klan. Even religious and similar groups have done such: the Masonic Job’s Daughters and DeMolay organizations are two of many such groups.

As we are here at Halloween, we should not forget UNICEF, with its own uniquely American youth movement revolving around collecting money donations for UNICEF instead of traditional trick-or-treating. Thereby promoting, among other things, one-world government, expansion of government, and massive intervention in every place on earth.

For too long, we’ve not realized just how important this wholesale (and individual) exploitation of children is, especially for political causes. It is time to prevent current and future children from being abused by governments and political parties this way.

We start by not pushing children into government-run, tax-funded schools.