Have you ever noticed how you’ll see the same succinct clever talking-point showing up over and over again especially on social media? Oftentimes, that’s propaganda and it’s designed to gradually condition you to accept a concept. When you see it in more than one place, your subconscious mind begins to think it’s a consensus which makes you feel like you need to get on board.

Over the past couple of years I’ve seen this particular bit of propaganda show up periodically on social media:

“When my child hits another child with a stick, I don’t blame the stick, but I still take the stick away.”

Now, we all know this isn’t about sticks, but taking it literally, I’d like to share the following stories:

In the spring of 2008, a nine year old boy hit my nine year old son with a baseball bat just before a Little League game. They were on opposing teams and were warming up before the game. In the spirit of rivalry both teams were yelling back and forth in a typical grammar-school sing-song fashion, "We're gonna win and you're gonna lose." Suddenly a boy who was taking batting practice went into a rage and ran into the crowd of my son’s team swinging his baseball bat and hit my son on the shoulder. Immediately a dozen or so adults intervened, the bat was taken away from the boy, and he was led away. No one else reacted and the episode did not escalate.

My son was okay and went on to play in the game. Remarkably nothing was done to discipline the kid who hit my son. I was pretty upset by that. The kid was out of control, and........

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