Bringing Up Baby

Is it hard to believe that Osama bin Laden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and for that matter Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Benito Mussolini were once cute little babies and darling little kids. Can you imagine little Adolf in his Lederhosen and Benito with spaghetti sauce on his face or Idi shooting his toy spear in the backyard? There is one exception; it is hard to imagine Kim Jong-un as a cute little baby. Now it’s indeed possible that Osama bin Laden was colicky and it would be interesting to find out and also to explore if the parents of these tyrants followed the philosophy of comforting the crying infant or letting him or her cry themselves to sleep. Perhaps we have to conclude that the problem is not with the adult form of tyranny but with the babies. It’s surprising that Donald Trump in all his advocacy for taking extreme action against ISIS hasn’t talked about going to the source and hitting the babies. Wordsworth famously intoned, “The Child is the father of the Man.” Babies are treated with kid gloves because they’re babies, but if you’re going to go after every Muslim who enters the country, because of the actions of a few, why not go after all the babies, since some of them are likely to grow up to be dangerous terrorists. Is it a sensible plan to prevent babies from coming into the country and order surveillance of some babies who are already here, but exhibit suspicious behavior, with body cameras to keep track of their crying?