Summer has finally come and if you're a kid that means fun in the sun, cookouts and using hard candies to buy summertime sweets. What — using hard candy as currency to symbolize the gold standard wasn't part of your summer experience growing up? Then you weren't one of the lucky few to go to Tampa Liberty tea party camp.
Thanks to the Tampa 912 Project, an organization under the tea party sphere, your children can experience a week-long seminar on our nation's guiding principles. Children ages 8-12 will be introduced to core principles such as "America is good," and the more important value, "I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable."
Clearly community service is not part of this itinerary. So, what are some of the activities your children can look forward to at tea party camp?
The St. Petersburg Times gives a rundown of typical acitivities:
Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the "banker" will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value."Some of the kids will fall for it," Lukens said. "Others kids will wise up."Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World). Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.
Like any concerned parent, you're questioning whether these activities go far enough in teaching the dangers of socialism. To combat that rational fear, Tampa Liberty came up with this activity that will be sure to make all those kids playing baseball outdoors jealous.
"Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other's bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles," details the St. Petersburg Times.
Ahhh yes, the well-respected give-kids-squirt-guns-to-destroy-their-friends-creations teaching method. Everyone learns that group-building activities just hold you back at summer camp. So long trust falls!
A heads up to Tampa Liberty camp counselors: a summer camp without any government oppressive types was already made into a film, the 1994 classic "Camp Nowhere." Unless Tea party camp gets a loveable Christopher Lloyd figure, these kids are going to be missing out.