Who are these "Tuttle Twins" our John Bircher keeps referencing?

The Tuttle Twins and the Case of the Really Bad Libertarian Propaganda
The Right gets ’em while they’re young.
Rob Larson
filed 29 September 2020 in ECONOMICS
Originally published in our magazine’s hallowed print edition2020JULY/AUGDETAILS

Anyone with kids in their family knows that one of the great things about them is their bottomless gullibility. Until critical thinking abilities (sometimes) develop in later life, children will believe any hilariously phony lie you tell them, for example that a minor deity is so excited to get their disgusting baby teeth that they leave printed American currency for it, with the Treasury Secretary’s name on it. It’s the dumbest thing in the world, but I and probably you believed it for years.

Sadly, some would abuse this adorable nature of kids for sleazy purposes. There’s a whole genre of apocryphal quotations by leaders of authoritarian movements, saying some version of “Give me the child for seven years and I’ll give you the man,” meaning those formative early years can shape beliefs that endure through adulthood. Jesuit leaders, Lenin and others are alleged to have said similar lines, but regardless of the exact provenance, the point is clear enough.

But Church and State are far from the only authoritarians seeing value in indoctrinating guileless kids. I learned this recently when the unscrupulous editor of a popular leftist magazine, let’s call it Present Developments, mailed me a large box of libertarian children’s lit known as the Tuttle Twins series, a series of illustrated stories and workbooks designed to teach youngsters the wonders of the free market. Having now perused all 11 books in the special “Tuttle Twins combo pack,” I can confirm that it’s exactly as bad as you think it is.

From the Mouths of Babes
Each Tuttle Twins book is based on the lessons of a prominent intellectual from the libertarian right, like Friedrich von Hayek, Ayn Rand, or Ludwig von Mises, with a dedication to the figure and a small bio on their work at the end. The author is Connor Boyack, Utah resident, Brigham Young U grad, and president/founder of Libertas Institute, a free market think tank, which is great considering we only have about nine hundred of those. He claims, “In that capacity he has changed a significant number of laws in favor of personal freedom and free markets,” presumably when not writing abominable Ayn Rand propaganda for defenseless kids.

There are many more books in the series, I would estimate about nine hundred thousand more, but I will conclude this review by saying the Tuttle Twins series is among the most wretchedly contrived, grotesquely unethically indoctrinating, cliché-ridden heaps of steaming garbage I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. Written to bring young people into one of the most disgraceful political tendencies in the world before they have the critical thinking skills to recognize it, it is a hideous fraud and an ugly twisted farce.

[currentaffairs.org]