Anchoress, attacking politicians through their children is wrong, period

I know I am late to the discussion of the “Family Guy” episode that took a shot at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin through a character with Down’s syndrome identifying herself as the “daughter of the governor of Alaska.” But I have to say my piece.

The dear Anchoress — I am never ironic or sarcastic when I use terms of endearment — went to great lengths to condone the scenes aimed at Gov. Palin through her son Trig, who has Down’s syndrome and is not quite two years old. She also chided Gov. Palin, and her oldest daughter, Bristol, who also is a mother, for springing to Trig’s defense.

I am shocked that I have to keep explaining the following point to conservatives: the families of our politicians are out of bounds, period. There is NO SUCH THING as a rationale for attacking a politician’s family in any way. They are civilians — non-combatants. It is against the rules of war.

The MAFIA does not attack rivals through their civilian family members. The MAFIA!

Gov. Palin ALONE, of ALL politicians, is expected to be gracious and/or silent when her children and husband are attacked by the Left. Then, regardless of how she responds, she is then attacked by everyone else. Basically, everyone thinks it is safe to attack Gov. Palin through her children. No, no, a thousand times, NO! We are entering the campaign season — we must not permit the tactic of getting at our candidates through their children to go unchecked and unpunished.

Instead, what conservatives must do is commit to protecting our politicians’ families. Making a big show at the beginning of such an enterprise saves untold labor later. So I suggest we vaporize anyone and everyone who even looks at our candidates’ children funny until the correlation between unacceptable behavior and immersion into a world of pain is clear to all and sundry.

We must protect our politicians children and families not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because our best candidates will leave public service and its marketplace of ideas, or never enter it, if we do not protect their loved ones. They simply cannot do this alone.

Additionally, there is something evil and corrupting about failing to stop abuse. It gives permission. And research suggests that the people witnessing abuse feel it as if it were being done to them. When no one stops the abuse and they cannot stop it, it creates feelings of powerlessness in the abused and correlating feelings of omnipotence in the abusers.

To give a specific example, some time in the 1980’s, my late life partner Margaret and I listened to the autobiography of Judy Carne, who was the “Sock it to me” actress on “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in,” which I watched when I was a teen. She would say, “Sock it to me” and then get doused with a bucket of water, or otherwise assaulted. In her book, Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside, she described how seeing her assaulted on the show made people feel safe — entitled, even — to throw water in her face everywhere she went. These constant assaults destroyed her life.

We cannot give permission to any form of assault on the children and families of our politicians. We must vaporize the people who assault the children and families of our politicians until they stop. This will be tough to do because nothing makes Lefties go psychotic faster than setting a boundary. But it must be done.