Children's Book Writers and Speech Writers

According to Sarah M. Pickert's 1978 article Repetitive Sentence Patterns in Children's Books [Language Arts, 55, 1, 16-8, Jan 78], using sentences and phrases over and over again helps children develop language skills. By having a base pattern upon which the author builds into different ideas, children to whom the book is read begin to follow along--expanding their vocabularies.


Such a technique has also been known to help adolescent hockey players come from behind to beat their larger, stronger Icelandic rivals. Many of you remember the scene where Emilio Estevez, the teacher, the old guy who sharpens blades and the team all take turns describing their fears. Each of their negative scenarios is followed by: "Ducks fly together!"


The complete opposite of this technique was used by Thomas Paine as he wrote Common Sense. I don't bring that up to discredit repetitive sentence structure in teaching children, but rather to illustrate the differences between the audiences of children's books and that of Thomas Paine. Common Sense was a brilliant pamphlet designed to help American Colonials realize that neither the Crown nor Parliament had America's interests in mind as they passed legislation that essentially tied the hands of the American settlers in governing themselves.


Common Sense was filled with logical arguments that were substantive and compelling. The publication and proliferation of Paine's pamphlet has rightfully been considered one of the major factors in America declaring her independence from Britain. One of the main justifications for this claim is that the pamphlet was written in a way that stirred the hearts and minds of both the educated and less-than-educated citizens in America.


One of my favorite books ever (besides Common Sense) is George Orwell's 1984. It is eerie and exciting to me. In this book, "the party" has taken over government, which it uses to control the thoughts and actions of its citizenry. Every room has a screen in it that can see and hear everything. Within the government are three ministries: The Ministry of Peace (which wages war), The Ministry of Plenty (which determines the minimal amount of rations to give out to the people) and The Ministry of Truth (which was the Party's propaganda machine). The Ministry of Truth--or in newspeak, minitrue--controls the news, language and history of the country. In an effort to weaken the already destroyed minds of the party members, Minitrue will occasionally switch historical documents in an attempt to rid the people of their memory. One month the country will be at war with Eurasia and the next, the same war will rage on against Eastasia.


Now in an attempt to tie these things all together, I reference Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Convention this evening. This is not the first time that I've seen a Democrat rally reduced to repetitive group chanting. As Joe spoke of his kindred relationship with John McCain and followed it with all the ways they disagree with each other, the masses brought out their props--red signs that read: "McCain: More of the Same". This pattern went on for quite sometime before I was called upstairs by my wife to say our family prayer with the children. As far as I know, they're still in the arena in Denver simulating a public school's kindergarten.


For years I have heard that Democrats and Socialists alike exercise power over their electorate to ensure dependency, which leads to more power and control for them. I've also heard that they think people are stupid. That has been confirmed tonight. They think that we are idiots. Grown men and women being reduced to the intellectual equivalent of kindergartners and first graders. It sickens me. They really believe that they are superior to anyone else. No wonder Joe Biden chose not to answer a challenging question from a reporter and instead responded with:

I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect! I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my -- in my class, uh, to have a full academic scholarship. And the first year in law school I decided I didn't want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class and then decided I wanted to stay, went back to law school and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I won the international moot court competition. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits -- I only needed 123 credits -- and I'd be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours, if you'd like, Frank. (None of which is actually true.)


Later on in that same Q&A session, Biden declared: "It seems to me that if you can speak you're a liability in the Democratic Party anymore." So, tying these things all together, I bring up one more point he made in his speech tonight. He told everyone at that convention that "No one is better than you. You are everyone's equal, and everyone is equal to you." Which sounds like the epitome of America: equality. Put into context with everything else he and his party represent, it sounds a lot more like 1984. The party becomes the government and everyone whose IQ does not match Joe's becomes equal to everyone else. No one is better than anyone else. This means: sports, math, science, professions--no variation. We all need the government to help us. Here is another zinger from this speech:


"But today that American dream feels as if it's slowly slipping away. I don't need to tell you that. You feel it every single day in your own lives. I've never seen a time when Washington has watched so many people get knocked down without doing anything to help them get back up."


Again, it's the doom and gloom scenario followed by "Ducks fly together!" Democrats have no faith in Americans or in America. They only have faith in themselves, their agenda and their ability to control your life better than you can. They treat you like you're a child. They speak in nuances. They offer no substance. Their political correctness is the same as newspeak.


After seeing the delegates get so excited about being spoken down to, I worry that if any one of them were to pick up Common Sense they wouldn't be able to get through it without pictures and without rhymes. I hope it isn't too late for them--I know it isn't too late for America!