California Puts Kids in Charge of Lawmaking

T housands of years ago, men and women discovered that they had certain differences, some of them extremely obvious, especially if we consider that they walked about the land naked. They also had different tastes. The cavemen liked to play by hitting things, carrying huge rocks, and hunting mammoths. Cavewomen indulged in other types of entertainment, which included making decorative pendants from the teeth of animals previously killed by their mates. Since then, mostly, girls have changed a lot. Men, not so much: We still like to hit balls and lift heavy things, and we hate paying taxes, which is like hunting but in reverse, because you are the prey.

I say this because the fact that there are toys for boys and other toys for girls is not a cultural imposition, as the Left claims, but market assimilation of a real demand, which is intrinsically linked to our human condition, which — I’m sorry to say — dictates that we are men or women. This accounts for why we enjoy different things, even as we have many tastes in common.

For some time now, the Left has been engaged in a seemingly lost cause: reshaping the tastes of each gender from early childhood. These engineers keep trying, however, and California has deployed the gambit of meddling with the commodity most sacred to children: toys. They are determined that toys not target the gender to which they historically have been marketed and will see to this, of course, by way of legislation — which will soon require large retailers to provide a “gender neutral” aisle.

And that is where the problems begin. Because the matter is not only a social-engineering initiative but a bid to take from entrepreneurs the freedom to do what they want with their businesses. If the toy is the most sacred thing for the child, private property is the most sacred thing for the adult. And it’s there, in the most sacred of both worlds, that Californian Democrats have decided to meddle. It is surprising how optimistic they are that something like this will work out for them.

Along with mandating these new aisles in California toy stores, the law imposes fines ranging from $250 to $500 for violations. Of course. It’s interesting to note how the idea came about. Democratic assemblyman Evan Low, the driving force behind this tomfoolery, tells of how he came up with it after learning that the daughter of an acquaintance had asked her mother why she had to seek out the boys’ section to find the toy she wanted. The story is moving and touchingly sentimental, like almost all Democratic politics, although I must confess it doesn’t sound very believable. Anyway, if a child’s question is going to be, from now on, the basis for creating new laws, I suspect we conservatives are in for a treat.

A couple of days ago, a boy (four years old) asked me why his school was full of posters pointing out men as abusers, if he himself had never hit anyone. Weeks ago, another (eight years old) suggested to me that the campaigns against climate change that have infested every official international organization should be submitted to a vote, so that we, the people, could decide whether we want to spend money on them or not. And a friend’s son (also eight years old), when his mother explained to him all the myriad aspects of life and commerce that are taxed, said: “And nobody is going to stop this theft? Let the politicians pay for it, if they want to!” Heavenly music to my ears.

I am a strong advocate of children being in charge — but without tutelage from their elders (so Greta Thunberg doesn’t count). Let them be in charge, and let them naturally express what they think. They have extraordinary common sense. And my presumption is they will feel that forcing toy-store retailers to put up a gender-neutral aisle is just plain silly. I couldn’t resist doing the experiment above, and I even told one of the aforementioned children about the impetus.

His response: “If Low wants a toy store with neutral aisles, why doesn’t he open his own store and set it up the way he wants?”

Kids are great.