How Does Republican Platform Help Middle Class?

You've shown no such thing. CPS is not taking children away from racists. Racists are allowed to pass their reprehensible beliefs on to their children. What I quoted and read specifically demonstrated that the children were taken away because the parents were recklessly endangering their children by not seeking treatment for their own disabilities, and because the father was specifically trying to incite violence from the children. The ruling was not made over the ideology of the parents, who are allowed to be racist and retain their children, as that is a matter of free speech.You know what, Crash, let's focus in on just one example that you posted, because it demonstrates exactly why you're wrong. Except I'm going to post the entire article so everyone can see.

quote:

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June 2, 2006 -- 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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The battle over the twins came to a head Friday inside a Fresno courtroom.

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The father of the girls admits he hasn't been the best dad and wanted a second chance, but the judge ruled the Gaede twins would remain in the custody of their mother, the woman who manages their career as a white separatist singing group.

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They've been billed as a valuable recruiting tool for the white nationalist movement.

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Lynxe and Lamb Gaede the 13-year-old twins from Fresno County perform at white supremacist gatherings around the country. Together, they are called "Prussian Blue" and are managed by their mother, April Gaede.

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In 2002, she admitted being part of a local group, "The National Alliance" that distributed racist leaflets in Fresno.

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"I'm a racist ... I believe there are differences in races. Everybody's a racist. There are two kinds of people. Those who deny being racist, and then the honest folks," said April Gaude.

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She divorced the twins' father in 1997. The divorce papers accuse him of domestic violence and drug abuse.

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But Kris Lingelser says he's a changed man, and wants custody of the girls to teach them there's a better way to live, "I would hope that they could see a white separatist attitude, where whites and blacks and Mexicans and everybody needs to live in their own separate universe is not healthy."

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"It's not what this country is about, it's not what I'm about. I would just hope that they could see that," said Lingelser.

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But the judge ruled their mom, April Gaede would retain custody and could keep the girls at her new home in Montana.

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Gaede wasn't talking to the media, but last year she claimed to be raising her girls like any other parent according to her beliefs.

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"All children are espouse their parents beliefs. If we were Christians, they would maybe be singing Christian rock songs. But we're not. We're white nationalists and so of course, that's a part of our life and I share that part of my life with my children," she said.

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For Kris Lingelser, there was some consolation. The judge ruled he could have limited visits with the girls in Montana.

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Friday's custody hearing had been scheduled last week, but the attorney representing the girls' father, Kim Aguirre, is the same attorney who claims he was shot and wounded on his way to court in another custody case.

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I added the bolding. So what do we have here?1) twin girls who are white supremacist singers. They;ve been raised to be hardcore racists, not just everyday "i feel nervous around x race" or "given a choice and all else being equal, I wouldn't pick the person of x race" or "people of x race (insert racial stereotype here)." We're talking racism on the level of the Klan or the Nazis.2) the girls' racist singing career is managed by their mother, a "white nationalist separatist," who believes basically that whites should kick out everybody else and create a "pure" society, from what I can gather.3) Mommy and daddy are divorced. Daddy has reformed from his racism, or at least is pretending to have done so, but has a history of physical abuse and alcoholism4) Now pay attention here, Crash, because this is the msot important part: the mother retained custody, while daddy has visitation rights only.You seem to have concluded that the only reason that they're with their mother is because daddy was physically abusive and an alcoholic. And if this were a binary choice of mother-or-father, where the judge was restricted into one of those two choices, you might be right. But it wasn't. The judge also had the option of ordering the girls to be removed from both parents. This is what would have happened if promoting racist views and "brainwashing" children into the same beliefs were counted as abuse or otherwise illegal. that's not what the judge did. The only rational conclusion is that passing racist beliefs on to your children is perfectly legal and not at all grounds for the termination of parental rights.That's a definitive case, Crash. If it were actually counted as abuse to "brainwash" children into the racist views of the parents, then those two girls would have had to be taken away from both parents and immediately put into the foster care system. Letting the mother retain custody would not have been an option. In a world where your hypothesis were true, we would never even once expect a case like this, where a judge is aware of the parent's racism and the family is already in his courtroom, and the judge allows a vehemently racist parent to retain custody. It wouldn't be a matter of "well, daddy would be worse for the kids 'cause he'd hit them," it would be a matter of "sweet fucking Christ get those kids out of that house and into the system before either of their fucked up parents can continue to do more harm!"Reality directly contradicts a near-certain prediction from your hypothesis.It's a direct falsification of your hypothesis, Crash. End of story. You're wrong, deal with it.I don't like it either. I don't like the fact that parents can teach their kids known lies. I don't like the fact that parents can raise their children with no intellectual defenses against all manner of charlatans and bullshit. I don't like the fact that parents can raise their kids to believe absolutely any wacky nonsensical woo-woo they want before the kids are even old enough to understand that mommy and daddy can sometimes be wrong.But that's reality. Unpleasant as it is, cops don't look for kids at white supremacist rallies and take them immediately to CPS for processing (which is what would happen if racist indoctrination were really grounds for the termination of parental rights). The freedom of speech covers raising your own kids. Children do not have the same rights as adults, because their parents or guardians retain many of those rights for the kids until they reach the age of majority. Parents decide whether a child accepts medical treatment, not the child. Parents decide what clothes the child may wear, not the child. Parents decide whom the child may associate with, not the child. And so on, and so forth. All of which is perfectly legal.

If you refuse to discuss the matter further then, Crash, using an example that you yourself brought up, then I'll accept that as your concession.I have no interest in being Gish Gallopped by you with dozens of examples when the first several that I looked at failed to support your position in the first place, and the one I specifically delved into was a direct refutation of your hypothesis.It's very simple, Crash. The example of the singing white supremacist twins featured rabid racist indoctrination of the most extreme sort; the judge had the option of removing the children from the households of both parents; the judge opted not to do so, clearly establishing that merely "brainwashing" children with the racist views of the parents is insufficient to terminate parental rights. If you honestly believe that a judge cannot order the children to be removed from both households entirely during a divorce custody dispute if he/she believes that abuse is occurring in both, you're simply delusional.

See above, Crash. Subbie has verified that judges do indeed have the ability to remove children entirely from homes in custody disputes if both households are unsuitable. Jor provided the specific law that says so.We have here a full falsification of your hypothesis. A mother was allowed to retain custody of her children despite "brainwashing" them with reprehensible racist ideas (their status as white supremacist pop singers fully establishes that they have embraced the ideals of their parents and become racists themselves). Despite her disgusting racism and association with white supremacist movements, her parental rights were not terminated, despite the judge most definitely having the ability to do so.This refutes the hypothesis that "brainwashing" children with racist ideology is grounds for termination of parental rights, pure and simple. "Aggregate" means nothing - a single clear example like this is all that's required to falsify your hypothesis. The only reason you're refusing to discuss this particular example, one that you brought up I might add, is because it destroys your argument utterly.ABE - just to reiterate the point we're refuting, Crash, the quote from you that I originally took iss with was: They do have that right, Crash. That's why the 13-year-old white supremacist twin sisters are still in their mother's custody instead of foster care. That's why the police don't round up any and all children at white supremacist rallies and take them from their parents.You're just wrong, plain and simple, and we've all provided more than ample evidence to prove it. Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

"Brainwashing" children is redundant. They come with instinctual trust of their parents and a desire to please them; there's a reason kids believe in the tooth fairy and santa claus.Literally any beliefs held by a parent is extremely likely to be attached to by the child. The longer the child is exposed to the belief, the more likely they are to hold it, and the more strongly.Normal parenting is functionally identical to "brainwashing" in children. Rote repetition of information and tasks? Restricting contact to those of similar beliefs? Instruction to obey the Authority unquestioningly ("because I said so")? Establishment of the group (family/church/racist organization, doesn't matter) as "us" and everyone else as "them?" Physical punishment for disobedience to Authority? These things happen in normal childhoods, to kids raised in virtually any environment. Christians expose their kids primarily to other Christians, force the kids to go to church, tech the kids that Christians are good and non-Christians are at best wrong and at worst evil...and you can show virtually the same thing for any group, I'm not just picking on Christians.I mean, there's a reason Christians tend to have Christian kids, Muslims tend to have Muslim kids, Republicans tend to have Republican kids...and racists tend to have racist kids. The age where you can make decisions differently from your parents comes long after you've already absorbed your parent's beliefs; those beliefs can be changed later in life, but it's uncommon, and the stronger the family ties, the more closely the child will cling to the beliefs of the parent. Human beings are not rational by nature, beliefs are as much influenced by environment (who believes what among your family, friends, community, etc) as they are by accuracy, and the environment has an even stronger influence on children who aren't yet able to address the issue of accuracy.

Worse - he says it's a clear, objective line, yet is unable to describe that line in words when asked. When pressed, he uses yet more subjective, circular definitions ("harmful is that which causes harm") that still don't let us clearly define what the hell he's talking about. If Crash were the first person I;d ever heard the word "brainwashing" from, after reading this thread I'd have no idea what "brainwashing" is beyond that it can apparently be done to kids.That's a clear sign that something is wrong.

Says the blowhard who refuses to even discuss or acknowledge a direct refutation of your hypothesis from a source you chose.I think the matter is sufficiently clear to everyone. Except yourself, of course.

I responded to what, the first three or four cases you copy/pasted. I addressed the fact that not a single one of them supported your assertion - in not one case did we see "racist brainwashing" leading to the termination of parental rights. Instead, we saw multiple examples of custody battles where the judge chose the custodial parent based on physical abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, incitement to commit violence, and recklessly untreated physical and mental disabilities.In every case you presented that I responded to, racism was incidental, not causal.One case was notable, where we had a clear case of "racist brainwashing" that resulted in a pair of twin sisters who sing white supremacist music at rallies. Their mother is a "white separatist," and they're all Nazi-level racists. In the custodial battle, as has been shown by actually quoting the law, the judge did have the option of completely removing the girls from both parents. He opted not to, which definitively falsifies your hypothesis that "racists don't have the right to raise little racists."I declined to read the remainder of your copy-pastes based on the fact that I am a human being with limited time and resources, and the fact that the established track record of the evidence you were producing was directly disproving your hypothesis rather than supporting it.Now you refuse to even discuss or acknowledge a case that definitively falsifies your position unless you're allowed to Gish Gallop me and force me to respond to all of your evidence.In other words, you're trying to ignore falsifications and seek out supporting evidence instead. Apparently you see no problem with that, but I'm going to continue to focus on the case that you brought up that utterly falsifies your position. If a case that you brought up is not fair game, then you aren't here for discussion at all.

Parental rights obviously differ from one country to the next. A discussion of parental rights necessarily must be restricted to a single nation. A discussion on the right to bear arms where we simultaneously discuss American, British, and Canadian law will have the same results. In America, racist parents have the right to raise racist children. When you made the following statement: in message 197, you were wrong.

Hi Crash, I responded to them, in order as you posted them, until I ran out of reasonable time to make my response. I didn't cherry pick - I used the order you gave, without first examining their relative strength or weakness in making your case. You've already provided a definitive piece of evidence for me, Crash. The white supremacist singing twins case is a definitive falsification of your hypothesis and a vindication of my argument that racism is not grounds to remove children from a home, that racists have the right to raise little racists just like Christians have the right to raise little Christians. No, Jar did. Do I need to quote what others have already quoted in the same thread? Subbie also mentioned that judges do have the option to remove children from both homes in a custody case, though she did not specifically quote a law. I;ve responded to nothing but cases you brought up. If you won't even acknowledge a case that you brought up that utterly falsifies your argument, why should I bother to continue discussing with you?You're like a Creationist arguing that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, and who brings up Archeopteryx as an alleged hoax; then, when told that Archeopteryx was not a hoax, you refuse to discuss the evidence that you yourself brought up and which falsifies your position until I respond to your other arguments.If you won't discuss evidence that you bring up, Crash, you aren't interested in any discussion at all. If your argument is falsified, none of your other evidence is relevant.

You claim that a coin toss will always come up heads. You toss coins, and ignore the results that come up tails. Your argument that the coin toss will always come up heads is supported by the other examples.

I think conservatives approach poverty-assistance programs like food stamps, unemployment, etc as "free handouts" to people who "don't deserve it" or "didn't earn it." They feel like "I have a job, Homeless Hank over there does not. I pay taxes, and the money I earned through my labor is taken from me by the government and just given to Homeless Hank. It's not fair that I should work for a paycheck, but Homeless Hank gets money to do nothing but (insert homeless stereotypes here)."I can wrap my head around that, I really can. I can understand why, if the argument is phrased correctly and lots of information is left out or distorted, it can come across as a form of institutionalized "theft" to "force" normal working people to give some of their hard-earned money to people they perceive as simply lazy and worthless, or people gaming the system like the mythical "wellfare queens."I don't think any of us want to encourage people to be a "drain" on society, to be "lazy," to live off the labor of others. We'd all much rather that everyone got a productive job, paid their own taxes, and never needed or asked for help from the government.But despite the popular conservative stereotype that liberals are all dreamers and idealists, this is a case where the conservative position is based entirely on wishful thinking.In the real world, people lose their jobs. It happens. Some of them are fired, some of them get laid off, sometimes companies go under, sometimes people get sick or hurt, etc. Some people with jobs are unable to make ends meet and unable to take an additional job, whether that's due to the minimum wage being too low, having children or even special needs children to take care of, a sick spouse, a spouse who died and left the family with no income, a "deadbeat dad" who isn't paying child support, or a hundred other possible reasons. To get our of that economic pit-trap, you need to get a better education - but you need to pay for that education while still paying to survive and support your family. It becomes a catch-22 - in order to afford school, you'd have to stop paying your living expenses, or get so many jobs you wouldn't have time for school.One of the major assumptions of the conservative perspective is that being poor is somehow the fault of the poor person. Sometimes this is the case. Not always, or even most of the time. The myth that "working harder" will get you success in life is flatly wrong - I don't work nearly as hard as some people who make half the money I do.In fact, public assistance in the form of unemployment is what paid my living expenses while I went back to school. The education itself was paid for with student loans, which I have only recently managed to repay.Which leads into the real point: what does the world look like when we cut or eliminate public assistance programs, and what does the word look like when we keep them or increase their funding? Which of those possible worlds would we prefer to live in? Public assistance made me into a much more productive member of society. I pay a lot more in taxes, I need a lot less help, and I spend a lot more to help drive the economy. Don;t we all benefit from helping people improve their own situations? If our tax dollars help people make ends meet and get better jobs and keep their kids fed, doesn't that also mean they keep spending money in the stores that sell the products that our employers make and so ensure we all keep our own jobs as well?Reagan had it wrong: wealth don;t trickle down from the rich. Wealth trickles up from everybody else. The fewer poor people we have, the more people in the middle class, the more tax dollars we'll collect, the more consumers we'll have contributing to the economy, and yes, the richer the rich people will get. We all benefit.