Erick Erickson: Let's All Hit Other People's Children With Belts!

We've all been there. Some baby is hopped up on goofballs and sucking Mountain Dew from a bottle. And he is running around the grocery store like a Hell's Angel at Altamont while his pilled-out mom manages to whisper a couple times, "Jaaaden ... um ... honey? Where am I?" And we have wanted to it-takes-a-village that child by being stern and setting boundaries and speaking in a kind but clear and no-nonsense voice that will get the child to stop and listen and stop its mayhemming all over the place. Perhaps you have even done this! (We have. We are the strange-child-in-a-grocery-story-or-airplane-whisperer.) Or maybe you just grabbed the kid, took your belt off, and hit him "dozens of times" with it. It's all good, right? Well, yes, according to Erick Erickson, the peach of a guy who founded "RedState" and whose greatest achievement will probably remain getting douches to take pictures of themselves holding signs explaining how they are awesome makers, not drooling takers, even though most of them are totally on federal student loans and flat-out welfare.

Right! So some kid was being an asshole, running around a grocery store like a crack baby, and he threw a cookie at Amelia Graciela Bell, a store employee, who quickly sussed things out, grabbed the kid, and calmed the situation by beating him over 25 times with her belt. Why, you or I might have grabbed his arm, and even given him a swat on the bottom to get his attention! (No, we would not have given him a swat on the bottom; he is someone else's kid. But it could happen without too much outrage unless we were in the People's Republics of San Francisco or Santa Monica.)

Cue the mighty mouth of Erick Erickson:

We have no problem believing Erickson would be "racing" to hit his own child with a belt before anyone else could. But does this frequent inveigher against the nanny state really believe other people should be hitting his child, more than 25 times, with a belt?

But let us hear from little Logan Ivey. "She called me a ding, so I picked up a cookie, and I threw it at her."

Wait a minute. And people have a problem with this kid? She called him a word! If anything, he is an eight year old living in Georgia. He should by all rights have shot her with a gun! 

THE KID WAS STANDING HIS GROUND, DOLLAR GENERAL!

[ MediaMatters / 11Alive ]