Hitler Youth 2.0

I was a boy scout. My son is a cub scout. I don't know what these kids are. Technically I know who they are- Explorers, the little cops in training. You've probably heard of them, I have. But I've never known anyone involved or truly cared to. I thought they were just kids that rode in the back of cruisers to watch cops break skulls, alá McLovin. Like hall monitors with a few more summers under their big shiny black belts. A recent New York Times article on the Explorers has me thinking differently.

There's nothing wrong with becoming a policeman, I suppose we need them. It's one of those quaint notions many of us grow out of when they see the pay rate, along with firemen, soldiers, and cowboys. It's one thing to encourage a young child that says he wants to become a policeman when he grows up. It's another to issue that kid fatigues, an air rifle and toss him into a training course on counter-terrorism complete with simulated poison gas and hostages. And all before his first pimple.

Of course it makes sense they do it this way, filling out accident reports or learning to sniff out white collar crimes on a ledger just doesn't have the same addictive cachet as storming a bus to “kill” a bomb-toting tango with plastic BB guns. Get them young, give them a thrill, swell the ranks of the Man. Another generation to address the previous' failed policies on substance use, international relations and border control. But listen to me, I sound almost pinko. What proud American wouldn't want his pre-pubescent versed in the intricacies of taking down a lookout before raiding a marijuana field?

Yeah sure, terrorism and border violence and all that can be a problem. Yet one can't help but wonder if we as a society are planting the poison seeds of our own overblown fears into the most impressionable. Do any but the most paranoid and jingoistic of minds really imagine a turban-sporting “terrorist” will be a likely quarry for one of these boys as was in a recent Arizona training?

Do we really want to address these ills by turning out armies of Dwight Schrute over-achievers too young yet to even hear a dirty word at the theaters? Let these kids get laid before setting them irrevocably on the path of crew cuts and authority trips. I for one don't want to be stopped by the smug future officer who first learned to point their gun and expect total obedience from the civilian populace at the wizened age of 13. Teach liberty and empathy and sense first. Then for those still itching to save mankind one misdemeanor at a time, knock yourselves out.

The title of this article is a bit misleading. No one in the Explorers program to my knowledge is promoting the tenants of the National Socialist party. Nor are they required to undergo any oaths of omertà beyond a rote recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The Law and America are more subtle overseers than pledging your life to a leader on posters in every room, albeit not totally lacking in their own brand of sinister overtones.

United Russia party has its Youth Guard, Africa has long fostered the child soldier. Maybe it is in our own best interests to not fall behind in the field of brain-washed youth in support of the state. In this fair nation, humanity seems to be losing ground to the “yeah, but it's effective” crowd. Torture isn't wrong if it's “effective”. Letting the weak and destitute rely only on the strength of their bootstraps is “effective”. Mandatory sentencing laws are “effective”. Old ethical dilemmas are shrugged off as a luxury for simpler times. Of course times never become simpler, only our responses to them.