How Does Republican Platform Help Middle Class?

Here's a Canadian example:

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A Manitoba court has ruled that a couple won't be able to keep their two children because of racist beliefs that were taught in their household.

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http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100211/custody_100211Closer to home:

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"Father Shall Not Use Profanity or Racial Epithets in the Boys' Presence or Within Their Earshot":
That's from a Delaware Family Court order that came out in 2002, JJ.W. B. v. K.A. B., 2002 WL 31454072 (Del. Fam. Ct.), but that I just came across. If the father used such words in violation of the court order, he would be subject to criminal prosecution for contempt (though practically speaking it seems likelier that the court would further reduce his visitation time with the children).

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http://volokh.com/posts/1247177815.shtml

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An appeals court in New Jersey has denied Deborah and Heath Campbell custody of their three young children, Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. (Honszlynn Hinler is meant to honour Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer of the SS.)

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http://familyjustice.wordpress.com/...-parents-lose-childrenIn this case, custody was ultimately retained by the racist parent, but only because the other parent had his own history of abuse and alcoholism. The court ultimately did not have to rule on the legitimacy of seeking sole custody due to racism of the custodial parent:

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There was bitter custody battle Friday in a Valley courtroom with two young white supremacists at the center of it all. The twins have gained national attention for their hate-filled concerts.

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The parents of the Gaede twins have been in a bitter custody dispute. The girls' father thinks they are being poisoned by their mother, a self-professed white seperatist.

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http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?id=4231273The founder of racial terrorism group "National Vanguard" lost custody of his children due to his racism and association with the white supremacy group:

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(Strom's former wife Kirsten) Kaiser said she was contacted the same month by Elisha Strom, the outspoken neo-Nazi activist who Kevin married after losing custody of his children to Kaiser and returning from Minnesota to live on the Alliance compound in 2000.

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http://www.splcenter.org/...ssues/2007/spring/family-mattersAs I've said, parents have all the right to exercise free speech that they like. But they don't have the right to force a child to be subject to that speech. You simply don't have the right to say anything you want to your own children - verbal abuse is as much grounds for loss of custody as physical abuse. Who's in the KKK, Rahvin? Be specific.Given that the KKK, for obvious reasons, keeps its membership secret can you see why there might be an explanation for how children of KKK members fail to receive CPS protection besides a sweeping right of parents to abuse their own children? Abuse of a child, as defined by the California code of justice:

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Physical Abuse
Citation: Penal Code 11165.6; 11165.3

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Child abuse or neglect includes:
Physical injury inflicted by other than accidental means upon a child by another person
Willful harming or injury of the child or the endangering of the person or health of the child
Unlawful corporal punishment or injury
Willful harming or injuring of a child or the endangering of the person or health of a child means a situation in which any person willfully causes or permits any child to suffer, or inflicts thereon, unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any child, willfully causes or permits the person or health of the child to be placed in a situation in which his or her person or health is endangered.

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The Centers for Disease Control defines psychological/emotional abuse as follows:

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Psychologically abusive behaviors may include blaming, belittling, degrading, intimidating,
terrorizing, isolating, restraining, confining, corrupting, exploiting, spurning, or otherwise
behaving in a manner that is harmful, potentially harmful, or insensitive to the child’s
developmental needs, or can potentially damage the child psychologically or emotionally (Barnett,
Manly, and Cicchetti 1991; McGee and
Wolfe 1991a, b).

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That is incorrect. Isolation of a child from contact with others is defined above as child abuse by the CDC. Home school laws don't provide for a right of parents to abuse their children, I'm glad to say. Right are limited to those things that don't infringe on the rights of another person. Children, being people, have their own rights, including the right not to be criminally abused by their own parents. Where that is occurring, the government is empowered to step in, potentially with the result that the parents lose custody of their children. The right of parents to parent is not absolute, Rahvin.Both of those example definitions clearly include emotional/mental abuse, by which racist brainwashing certainly applies. You'll see that I've provided several such examples, above. In one case, a parent lost custody merely because his child appeared at school with racist imagery drawn on her arms in Sharpie; in another case, the founder of "National Vanguard", a white supremacist hate group, lost custody of his children due entirely to his views and associations. Good thing, since he turned out to be a pedophile as well (though that was not a factor int he custody hearing, as he'd not yet been caught.)

So, you think there's no limit to a parent's prerogative to raise their children; but you think their rights are not absolute.Do you know what the word "absolute" means? Or maybe the word "limit" is what you're having trouble with. By the courts, presumably, who are already making these determinations. That which causes harm would be harmful; that which causes no harm would be harmless.These aren't difficult concepts to get a handle on, Jon. Determination of "harm" is already well within the purview of the courts and has been for hundreds of years. That doesn't answer my question (and indeed, public education is public, it's right there in the name!)

Nobody's claimed that liberty doesn't exist in the US because Thomas Jefferson had slaves. Nobody's made that claim at all, and since you lied about not talking to me anymore I'd like to challenge you to show even a single place where a "liberal" in this conversation has asserted that.We're talking about parasite, welfare queen Thomas Jefferson because you brought him up as an example of someone who, I quote, "someone who didn't expect his living expenses to be paid for by someone else." Except that's exactly who Thomas Jefferson was - someone whose living expenses were paid for by someone else - his slaves.As always, what we're talking about is your incredible and stupefying ignorance of the subjects on which you hold forth. I'm sure that was a great comfort to the roughly 200 human prisoners he personally worked to death. In fact nearly every Western democracy with a national health care system is better off than the US; in terms of living standards, the United States regularly ranks behind those nations - tenth, worldwide, on the UN's Human Development Index, an objective measure of quality of life for residents of UN-affiliated nations. It's largely a function of the poor health of Americans in general, massive income inequality, and widespread poverty particularly of children.The US has not been anywhere close to the top of the "Quality of Life" list for some time, now. Despite what you may have heard from conservative propaganda outlets.

Courts arrive at that determination, just as they have for hundreds of years.I don't see any particular problem of ambiguity for the term "harm"; if there were, both criminal and civil justice would be completely impossible.

That's what I've been talking about from the get-go:

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I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in the US membership in racist organizations, a history of racist demonstrations, involvement in racially-motivated violence - all can be grounds for termination of parental rights.

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If you've been misunderstanding me from the beginning, that would go a long way towards explaining why I was suddenly and inexplicably challenged on something I would never have believed was in any way contentious: that courts would look dimly (to say the least) on a parent's involvement in white supremacy organizations or their attempts to indoctrinate their children into racist ideologies, and that those might be justifications for the loss of custodial rights (as in several of the cases I presented.) Racism would certainly be unjustifiable. I think you're packing a bit more into "justifiable" than is meant to be there; for instance, a parent attempting to defend repeatedly calling their own child a "dummy" would not be justified by any evidence that the child was, in fact, not very smart. I'm sorry but that's simply not the case. Just as you enjoy the right not to be held against your will and inducted into loathsome ideologies that you detest, so do children. Children are not the property of their parents, and the parent's right to raise a child "in their image" is subordinate to society's interest in protecting children. Obviously there's a level of "racist uncle" racism that the law is simply powerless to interdict. But the law does not grant a sweeping and universal right for parents to parent as they see fit. Children are people to, and they have rights all their own, and one of those rights is the right not to be abused by their own parents.

I'm aware, but we're speaking of general legal principles, not specific US law. And as I've shown US law is hardly unique in this regard. You never said that you were. Right. And the sense in which the father's custody was viewed as not being in the "best interest of the child" was that he was a vulgar racist. It's never been a matter of freedom of religion or free speech, that's been my point throughout. It's a matter of children not being chattel property, and therefore having human rights. No, that was not the finding of the court. The finding of the court was that the parents recklessly disregarded the best interests of the children by, among other things, naming them after Nazi leaders.The parents did not lose custody on the basis of mental defect; they lost custody on the basis of exposing their children to harm as a result of their racist ideology. That's made absolutely plain in the material you yourself quoted.It was interesting. Maybe you should have read it first? I mean, here's the part you quoted that proves me right:

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He teaches my son how to kill someone at the age of 3," the letter read in part.

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Ideology - teaching, in other words - was the basis for the loss of custodial rights. No, it doesn't. As I said, the court did not reject the argument that inculcation into racist ideology was demonstratively harmful to the children; they merely determined that it was not as harmful as physical abuse and alcoholism. It hardly speaks well of you to announce that you're rejecting evidence you've not even considered or read, yet. Is there somebody I can speak to over there who isn't an ideologue, please?

Obviously, protecting children - who, after all, are citizens - is a part of that program. Regardless, it was in Goss vs. Lopez where the courts explicitly affirmed a controlling legal interest in the protection and welfare of children. In re Gault was the case where courts explicitly rejected the argument that children are chattel custodial property of their parents and thus entitled to no rights of their own. In that case, the US Supreme Court ruled that children are persons under the Constitution and therefore entitled to Constitutional rights. It's a function of mental and emotional abuse, since the harm is mental and emotional. How you choose to equate mental and physical harm is up to you.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

By being harmful and abusive.I guess I don't understand the question. Can you elaborate? Can you explain how naming a child "Adolph Hitler" would be conducive to mental and emotional wellness?

Jon -Hit me back when you're actually ready to have a discussion.Thanks!

CPS is taking children away from dangerous racists, as I've demonstrated; racists are losing custody of their own children due to their racist viewpoints, as I've demonstrated. Only in so far as they're able to avoid scrutiny in doing so. All attempts in the US to assert a universal right to pass on dangerous, harmful, abusive beliefs have been rejected by US courts because children, being human beings, have the same right to resist and avoid undesired, harmful brainwashing that you do. But you didn't quote or demonstrate that. You demonstrated that the court found that the parents acted with "reckless disregard" for their children. That finding isn't consistent with developmental disability because the legal standard for "recklessness" requires both the opportunity and ability to act responsibly, along with the conscious choice not to. Someone who fails their responsibilities due to their own mental defect is not someone who can be found to be "reckless". Politely, no. We can go example by example once you've researched the examples - all of them - but I'm not prepared to play a game with you where you cherry-pick my weakest example and ignore the strongest ones (as you admitted to doing.) Not in a divorce custody dispute. No, you're wrong, as I've amply demonstrated with multiple examples which you admitted to ignoring.Maybe when you can bestir yourself to actually engage with my examples, you'll have the opportunity to discover what everybody else already knows - you asserted something that, in fact, turned out to be completely wrong. What an amazing standard! So, the example of OJ Simpson proves that murder is not illegal?Really, Rahvin? Any time the courts can be found to have failed in their duty to protect children, that's "reality contradicting the hypothesis" that there are laws against the abuse of children? I trust you don't need me to walk through the fallacies contained in that argument. Except that, they can't. Abuse of children - mental, emotional, physical - is illegal in every US state. Attempt to raise your children under the ideology that (for example) fathers and daughters should have regular sexual intercourse, and you'll rapidly find yourself behind bars. And yet courts frequently override the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children when they determine that it's in the child's best interests.I can find a dozen examples of that, too, but based on your recent and unreasonable history, why on Earth would I believe that you'll ever admit to being wrong?

And profound, militant racism, as demonstrated by an extraordinary level of animus, membership in racist terrorist organizations, provocative racist symbology (including swastikas), and militia-style activities (weapons drills, etc) has been found sufficiently dangerous by courts to justify measures including loss of custody, as I've amply demonstrated.We're not talking about "racist uncle" racism; we've never been talking about that. We're talking about racism being a justification for the loss of custodial rights to children, which it frequently has been, as I've demonstrated. Rahvin hasn't even looked at most of the examples, as he's admitted. Did you? Jesus, what was the point of asking me for evidence if none of you assholes were ever going to read it?

Right. The racist acts. Do you think that the Winnepeg man would have lost custody of his daughter if he had drawn smiley faces on her, instead? Of course not. I never said otherwise. I've never claimed that being racist was a justification for losing your children. I've never even claimed that engaging in racist speech was a justification for losing your children.My claim throughout is that children, being human beings, have a right to not be brainwashed into dangerous and loathsome ideologies just because that's what their parents decided to do. Courts have and continue to intervene when a parent's decisions are not in the best interests of their children.Parental rights are not absolute. Children are human beings with individual human rights. Never in a million years could I have suspected that position would be contentious to supposed liberals. You've not convinced me that you've looked beyond even a single example.

I never claimed that it was. Are there any other claims I've not made that you'd like to attack? I'm sure it's much easier than grappling with my point.

I'd love to discuss all of my examples, at your earliest convenience. As I said, I'm not going to play a game where you cherry-pick my weakest example and ignore the strongest. The judge did not have that option. If it's your contention that he did, then by all means, present the evidence.

Since my point is that it is common, my point can only be demonstrated by the plurality of examples.Picking any single example defeats the purpose of having provided any at all.