What Hippies Have in Common With Child-Molesting Nazis.

There’s a kid in my Judo class named Ezekiel. If you are, perchance, asking yourself why someone would name their child "Ezekiel," all you need is one look at this poor kid’s ropey, granola-fed, patchouli-funk parents and it would all become painfully clear.

Ezekiel is about five years old, and is what can only be described as a joyless child. I know it sounds harsh, but there’s really no better way to put it. Before class starts, when all the other kids are burning off the energy from those afternoon cookies, he can generally be found sitting in the corner trying to keep his shoulder-length hair out of his eyes, hiding behind his mother’s vastly oversized, hand-knitted, fair-trade wool maternity tarp. We can presume he didn’t get any Chips Ahoy! when he got home, his parents most likely opting for the whole-grain, "celebrate diversity" rice cake with soybean butter, or something equally inappropriate and sad.

In addition to being the smelliest, Ezekiel is one of the more timid kids in the class. As such, the requirements are put upon us, the senior students, to engage the poor bastard and try to force him into having some fun and not dwelling on the four-hour speech about "sustainable living" his dad gave at the dinner mesab the night before. In Judo, the easiest thing to do to engage someone on the mat is to open your arms and ask, "Onegashimas?" (Roughly translated: "Will you teach me?).

I was tying get Ezekiel to play with the rest of us, when the instructor noticed that he wasn’t really responding. He immediately came over to Ezekiel and asked, "Onegashimas?" Ezekiel, being not only a white-belt but a five-year-old, had no idea what this meant. Seeing an opportunity to make the kid laugh, I tried to inject a joke and said, "He’s asking you if you want some french fries!"

I know, it’s not very funny, but the kid is five, should I have tried my Benny Hill routine?

Ezekiel paused, thought on this a moment, and in a very serious and practiced tone said to the both of us, "I don’t eat that kind of food."



Now, there is no doubt in my mind that this poor bastard’s parents have him practice that response on a nightly basis. "Now Ezekiel, what do we say when someone offers us food that isn’t green and organic?"

"I don’t eat that kind of food."

"Now Ezekiel, what do we say when someone insinuates that free markets and unbridled capitalism is the best avenue for freedom and individual rights?"

"You’re a fascist!"

One of the many things that makes this country the greatest on Earth, and the reason just about everyone else in the world wants to come here, is that fact that everyone has the right to live in any way they see fit, barring minimal restrictions involving property damage and public decency laws. By extension, you also have the right to raise your children in any way you see fit, barring child welfare/ endangerment statutes (or as I like to call them, the "Leonard Maltin laws). If, by some strange and cruel sociological experiment, I wished to raise my son to believe that he’s the bastard child of Jesus Christ, Garth Brooks, and a cheddar cheese log with almonds, that’s my right to do so, as long as I feed the little bugger and clean out his litter box every now and again.

The downside to this virtually inexhaustible loveable fuzzball of freedom is that, yes, in fact, everyone gets to raise their children anyway they see fit. Ezekiel’s parents have decided to shield their child from the joys of empty calories, and we can presume, Saturday morning cartoons, which no matter how bad they are these days, is tantamount to child abuse. This is, however, their right. Take for example, the dynamic and inimitable musical powerhouse known as Prussian Blue.




Prussian Blue consists of sisters Lamb and Lynx Gaede, from Central Valley, CA. They write catchy tunes, are said to have angelic voices, and are described by their manager (their mother) as "White Nationalists." In case you haven’t gotten the memo: Intelligent Design = Creationism, White Nationalism = White Supremacism.

An excerpt from PrussianBlue.com: (grammar has been unaltered)

"Recently they received international media attention because Prussian Blue is a White Pride band. The songs they the girls sing reflect their White Nationalist beliefs. Today, if you are White ,and proud to be White , it is considered Politically Incorrect by the media. The music that Prussian Blue performs is intended for White people. They hope to help fellow Whites come to understand that love for one’s race is a beautiful gift that we should celebrate."

One point of contention: these girls did not receive "international media attention" because they’re white supremacists. They received "international media attention" because they’re cute, thirteen-year-old-girl white supremacists.

One must, of course, question the origin of these beliefs. Are we to presume they sprung from the womb with the "beautiful gift" of "love for one’s race?" Of course not, just watch five minutes of video of the girls’ mother and you couldn’t pity these sweet darlings more if she was wearing a cucumber mask with metal coat hanger in one hand and a scotch in the other.



I find it particularly amusing that the fans of Prussian Blue denounce claims that they’re racists, when manifestos like "Defensive Racism" and "Dissecting the Holocaust" are proudly promoted on their website. Oh, yeah, and the Hitler t-shirts don’t help, either.



A debate that’s been raging since time immemorial is the question of nature vs. nurture. Is Arland gay because of his genes, or because he was raised with three sisters? Did Yanni hit his girlfriend because he’s "programmed" that way, or because he was hit when he was a child? Does Linsday Lohan not respond to my letters and telephone calls because she’s a lesbian? There’s a very good chance that we may never receive satisfactory answers to these questions.

My boss is a CASA here in Portland. As a Court-Appointed Special Advocate, he is injected into the lives of troubled families to make common-sense suggestions regarding the welfare of the children. Over the course of the last few years he’s been involved, he’s seen some fucked up shit. The other day, while detailing his newest case file involving a horribly abusive, pathetic excuse for a man, he mentioned that the man’s parents had been overly protective and routinely dismissive of his abusive behavior, making it easier for him, as an adult, to use violence to exact control over his wife and children.

My problem with this analysis I this: Who gives a fuck?

The debate of nature vs. nurture doesn’t even enter into this conversation. It doesn’t matter if his daddy touched him or if he was born that way, any man pathetic enough to physically and emotionally abuse his wife and children the way this man has, deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Case closed.

We can talk about genetic vs. environment until we’re blue in the face, but one thing we have to be very careful to avoid is the common pitfall of moral equivelancy. Hitting your children is wrong, and is against the law, and there is simply no justification for that type of abuse. It may be helpful in the long run to determine why he hits his kids with extension cords, but no amount of reasoning can change the facts of what he did. A half-assed reason like a history of negligence in his own childhood is no excuse and should not be viewed as one.

The fact of the matter is that we, as citizens of the greatest representative republic in the world, have the right to raise our children in virtually any way we see fit, the same way our parents had the right to raise us in any way they saw fit. Granted, some people do better jobs than others, but regardless of how it went, there comes a time when you, as an adult, have to assume respobsibility for your actions and your behavior. You can’t beat your wife just because Uncle Joey touched you in the back of his Buick back in 1958, it doesn’t fucking matter, and no amount of limp-wristed psychobabble can make it matter, at least not to this guy's wife and kids.

At thirteen years old, those poor little Gaede girls can’t be held responsible for being held hostage by their parents’ twisted views of the world. There will come a time, however, when they will be responsible for what they do with their talents, and what they choose to offer the world.

Lamb, Lynx, if you happen to be reading this, "Defensive Racism" is not the way to make your mark.

Little Ezekiel came to class recently and all his hair had been shaved off. Not only did I notice he was having more fun, he was talking more and running around like a five-year-old supposed to. I mentioned that I liked his new haircut and he looked at me and said, "I was tired of everybody thinking I was a girl."

Ezekiel: 1
Hippy Parents: 0