When love was a warm toy gun

By Selwyn Duke

In a way, commercials can tell you more about how we've changed than history books. The other day I came across the following 1960s TV commercial on YouTube; it's for a toy set called the "Gung Ho Commando Outfit" by Marx. And it's a perfect snapshot of the America that, sadly, no longer exists.

Despite this fact, watching it is hilarious. It is unabashedly politically incorrect, featuring a group of young boys running around playing war games, all decked out in the most authentic military gear a 10-year-old could imagine. It's enough to make any suburban soccer mom's head explode.

Every toy gun in the commercial looks (gasp!) realistic; there are no sissified colors, no orange plastic piece at the end of the barrel. Yet, in the times that it aired, you never heard of a child being shot after pointing one of these toy weapons at a policeman. You see, even when I was a boy in the 1970s, we were taught enough respect for elders to understand that a certain necessary wall existed between adults and children. You would never take the liberty of "playing" with an adult stranger in the street, whether he sported a badge or not. It never even entered our minds. As for policemen, they could assume that a child wouldn't target them with a real gun. And it was a safe assumption.

The commercial's creators also didn't feel compelled to include a girl in the spot. The girls were in the doll commercials. And people instinctively understood that sex "stereotyping" is actually a good thing: It is simply a negative term applied to the process of cultivating each sex's characteristic virtues.

Today, of course, parents worry that allowing their son to play with guns will turn him into a murderer. In traditional America, parents knew that this was about as logical as the concern that allowing him to play with trucks will turn him into a truck driver. I played with realistic-looking toy guns as a child, and all my friends did, too. And I don't remember any mother ever batting an eye at it. It was simply what boys did.

We had toy soldiers as well — and warplanes, tanks, battleships and submarines. Yet, if, as some leftist cynics say, commercials like the one I cite and our activities were training us to become tomorrow's soldiers, it didn't work. To the best of my recollection, neither I nor any of my friends ever aspired to join the military. This is similar to how I built model rockets but never yearned to be a rocket engineer and blasted them off but never thought of being an astronaut. It was play, and I was satisfied to be the four-star general of my lilliputian living-room army.

Amazingly, none of us ever shot up our school, either. It also never entered our minds. So could it be that guns cause violence as much as cars cause crashes?

The difference, of course, lay in the moral foundation that prevailed at the time. People were more likely to believe in objective morality, as the left's favorite rationalization, moral relativism, hadn't yet taken hold to the degree it has today. The last 40 years of the defining of deviancy downwards, however, has had its effect. So the conclusion is obvious:

Guns don't kill people; liberals do.

Speaking of which, YouTube's audience is quite young and liberal, but it's interesting to read their comments under the commercial. A great number of them wrote things such as, "Wow, I was born too late" and "How come they didn't have cool toys like this when I was a kid?" The answer to this is obvious to the discerning, but how many of these young people will make the correct associations between cause and effect? How many will realize that our cultural upheaval is the handiwork of the very statist civilization-destroyers for whom most of them vote?

And this is why it's great that they stumbled across that commercial. They certainly won't learn in their schools that traditional America was both a freer and more secure place; all they'll get from their leftist madrassahs is that it was a misbegotten land populated by racist, sexist, homophobic, slave-owning, Indian-killing, civil-rights-quashing, polluting, knuckle-dragging bigots. And maybe the Marx that once made millions of children happy can help counteract the Marx that today makes them twisted. Then, hopefully, a few of these Obama Youth will realize that it is the liberals who kill freedoms, kill cultures, kill goodness, kill futures and — as evidenced by girly-color guns — are killjoys.

                                  © 2011 Selwyn Duke — Selwyn Duke

Comments

[Robert Berger]

A lot of conservatives are guilty of equal stupidity and silliness in the other direction.
Just as liberal PC frowns on the things you describe, conservative PC frowns on kids reading things as harmless as Harry Potter, and makes the idiotic assumption that if gay people appear in public schools to urge kids to be tolerant of gay people and not do violence to them,this will automatically "make their kids gay". Which is idiotic.
Kids who are gay will be that way anyway, and having gay people appear in school can't make any one gay.Likewise, NOT having gay people appear in schools won't stop any kid who IS gay already from being that way.
Conservative PC assumes that if a teenage boy gets a hold of a Playboy or Penthouse magazine,it will corrupt him for life and turn him into a sex addict who can't control; his urges to use porn. Ridiculous. Conservatives are so terrified of any young person being exposed to nudity it's ludicrous. Their minds are still stuck in the ridiculously prudish attitudes of the Victorian era.
When one of Janet Jackson's breasts was accidentally exposed on TV for A SECOND , America reacted as though this were a national emergency worse than 9/11 ! Unbelievable !
Conservative PC holds that you can't be moral and virtuous unless you are religious, preferably an evangelical Christian, and that if you're a liberal, or an atheist or agnostic, you must be a "moral relativist" who thinks that there is no such thing as right and wrong, and that they have the right to do anything they want with no regard for others. If you're not a devout Christian, you must be a wicked,Godless, hedonistic,sexually promiscuous, baby-killing monster. Idiotic ! And that's just the tip of the iceberg of conservative PC.

[A high school student]

Very good article Mr. Duke. This is a good allusion to the lack of common sense that is apparent these days. I like the lighter-hearted message that you gave and it makes me feel better to know that you are in better spirits. Be strong, and remember that it always gets darker before the dawn.

[jubilee]

IT ALWAYS GETS DARKER BEFORE THE DAWN!!! but Dawn happens anyway. I see a change coming soon. Highschool and college women arent getting the dates they thought might happen. Women are going to start getting feminine again, and get out of the MILITARY..when we are in there, most men who are raised right will try to protect them and get SHOT; a guy is a comrade but a lady should be protected, cause shes a potential mother, etc.

[jubilee]

Mr Berger- the "victorian era" as bad as it was, was to preserve the family from going deeper into immorality!! Porn is BAD. PERIOD. ALL KINDS. what it happening now, i believe because of the pornified culture, little girls are being made to look like teenagers and the APA is looseing the DISORDER OF PEDOPHILIA!! (watch your sons and daughters gentlemen!)Child 'love' is coming next.....Ive heard it said, that many men are 'atheistic' so they could have their share of PORN. and 'free' sex

[Alex Galletti]

Toy guns are okay to give to children as long as there is a parental control. Just like you, I was taught by my parents to respect elders. With proper control and guidance, kids will never lose their way growing up. One good thing about a toy gun is it can instill a sense of confidence in a child, a sense of bravery and courage when it comes to facing life's challenges.

[Douglas J. Bender]

"By Marx." Something seems suspicious about this.