I have said is that everyone in a society has a responsibility towards all children in that society. I cannot think of a society who doesn’t believe that a child’s place is first and foremost in the family unit, but if that family unit is incapable of looking after that child then surely social services need to step in.
I fully reject the idea that everyone in society as a "responsibility" towards all children in that society. That is to say, they have no more or less responsibility than to anyone else.
I do agree that IF and WHEN a family unity is incapable of looking after a child, THEN the society should have mechanisms in place to help that child. Then again I also believe that when anyone has fallen into an unfortunate circumstance, society ought to have some mechanisms to assist that person through the emergency.
The problem is not in whether society ought to help those in need, it is about how they go about deciding when a family is incapable of looking after a child. And you seem to have added another problem regarding what rights society has over children vs parents based on supposed rights of children.
UNICEF explains that:
I have come to despise many UN functionary orgs, especially those regarding cultures and children which are merely fronts for imposing a unified culture on everyone else. Thus their statement doesn't mean much to me. As it is, it does not move on to adequately define what a child is.
Yes they are human beings, and in a sense have their own rights. But families and communities have been battling forever over who is the more fit parent, which inherently defines children as not really having any rights except as they are allowed in some arbitary measure by whoever won out as uber-parent.
IMO, children are natural extensions of the biological parents' lives, and as such the biological parents should be allowed to make decisions regarding childrearing until such time as they are allowed by society to be fully independent.
In cases where the biological parents are not present, or abdicate their duties, or are found incapable of sustaining their children's health, then those duties can be passed to another "parent".
Outside of that it is merely some group imposing their own preferences onto the actual parents. Family micromanagement.
I do believe that the state has a responsibility towards the child to ensure that the child is not being deprived of its basic human rights, and a decent quality f education is a basic human right.
But who is to determine what is a decent quality education? I do agree that a society should (it is in its best interests) to provide public schools such that families are able to avail themselves to the best education possible.
I guess I don't believe that a child has a human right to be educated as society has deemed is the best or most appropriate. That can seriously cut both ways.
In a way what you are doing is saying the state has a right to make sure a child's rights are defended, and a child has a right to a good education, thus the state has a right to make sure a child has what IT deems is a good education even if the family itself does not find it the best or appropriate.
That is a defense of indoctrination, using the child's "right" to be educated, as the society provides the right and the criteria.
I am not saying that the state should tell parent what they can and cannot teach their children, what I am saying is that the parents should be able to justify to the state what they are teaching their children.
That statement appears to be contradictory. One flows naturally from the other.
I do agree that the state should not award degrees or accept certain levels of requirements have been met, if they haven't. But that is different than monitoring homeschools and saying they must change their teaching or be overridden.
Why can they just not be accredited in certain areas?
Adults have the right to be wilfully ignorant, and a great many choose to be so. However, no adult has the right to make a child innocently ignorant.
Really? So parents should educate their children in sexual techniques from early ages, and train them in all manner of religions, etc etc etc?
There are plenty of things that parents keep their kids in the dark on, and with the sole purpose of keeping them ignorant of it so they can guide them toward a goal lifestyle/belief before the child grows old enough where they will be able to question and learn on their own.
That is pretty much how things have worked forever. The only question is who gets to decide what is the goal and so what is hidden/taboo and what is "good education."
I am for limiting the damage by leaving it up to parents and not society to put the blinders on.
This would mean, in the eyes of the Scottish Education Authority at least, that materials of a suitable academic standard are provided for the child, materials that help to explain whatever the lesson aim is.
That only argues for a lack of accreditation, not a stripping of parents of their rights.
Children are not the property of anyone, they are individuals with their own rights and responsibilities. Adults have their own rights and responsibilities as well, and one of their responsibilities is to look after their children.
I don't think this negates my point. While not completely property they are certainly "owned" to some degree. That is what delineates who has decision making power for the child, since everyone does agree the child does not have choice of its own.
If the state doesn’t monitor our children in some way then the children are left open to all sorts of abuses, most a lot worse than being taught that fairy tales are actually true.
Who is the state but a bunch of adults? If your core argument is that some adults cannot be trusted to raise their children, then inherently the state itself cannot always be trusted to raise the children of others.
You seem to put a strange amount of "omniscience" or "intellectual authority" on the state. Clearly the state of Kansas is proving my worries correct right at this very moment. I would not want them monitoring my children and deciding if I am being abusive, beyond strict physical and emotional health.
I would not want their definition of "science" forced onto my home and have my kids taken out to be educated in their form os "science".
You do understand that entire states can devolve into madness, right? Look at Nazi Germany. Look at early US education until creationism was abolished by clearer heads at the state level. There are credible reasons not to cede intellectual control to the state.
Every decent human being is repulsed by child abuse, think about some of the horrendous things that could happened to a child within a family unit, and then think whether the state should monitor how children are brought up or not.
Wow, this is a very poor argument and one I would not expect from you. It is nothing but an emotional appeal.
If the state has nothing to do with how children are brought up then we are guilty of neglecting our responsibility towards the children of our society. We have a duty to protect the members of our society who have not yet developed the skills to look after themselves.
This is the same backward argument posed for eliminating abortion rights. The state is run by adults and its duty is to protect and perhaps aid those within society WITHOUT crossing the line and usurping the rights of the adults which run it.
If the state does not monitor families to ensure that children are being brought up "right", then it is not being neglectful. What it is doing is trusting the members of the state to do what is right and legal. If tragedy does result for a family, then it is that family's failure and not the state's.
In other words the state's proper duty is to focus on communal business, which is not micromanagement of individual's lives. Raising children is the choice and duty of the individuals whose children they are.
The state is no guarantor of safety for children, and has enough horror stories of its own mistakes that I am not so confident the "saves" even things out.
Of course, we all say that is MY son or MY daughter, but you cannot do what you whatever you want with them.
You sure as heck can. You can do absolutely do anything to your children, until you reach limits set by society. At that point the state will do with the children what it wants, even if it is contrary to the desires of both the parents and the children.
I saw an interesting documentary on a father that was into partying, especially using ecstacy. He would do so with his kids around and indeed allowed his kids to use it in his presence. That of course mean the state took over and removed the kids despite them all being quite happy and none of the children physically harmed.
The same occured in US history, removing native american children from their families so that they would not learn their native tongues or religious beliefs which were believed to be inadequate and contrary to a decent education.
Are you getting the picture yet? I think you are making your moral calculation from the safety of a culture not in great flux and currently agreeing with your outlook regarding education.
You had better hope you "own" your children, when another group comes to claim rights over the child. I think there is simply a semantic squeamishness in using the term "own" as it somehow makes us reveal something about human relationships we don't want to admit.
It is true that you do not own a child as you do a chair, but neither do you own a pet as you own a chair.
If the parent has good evidence that life was wiped out 4400 years ago by a Flood, then I too would be happy for them to teach that to a child. What I am opposed to is people suffocating their child with ancient mythologies and continually telling the child that these events are all 100% accurate and that there is nothing in the Bible that has ever been disproven.
This is eerily reminiscent of the arguments given for taking native american children from their parents. I cannot ascribe to this notion.
I agree that I would view it as somewhat suffocating and not about to help them with learning modern science. However it is a separate family, not mine, and part of an alien culture whose members are doing what they feel best to keep it alive.
What answers to any questions would a child actually get, apart from a circular one?
None. When you go to teach morality to your own children it will also be circular. There is no way around that. Unlike you, for fundies their science and morality are combined to a much greater extent.
The 6000 year old universe for example, the 969 year old man, the Flood, the heliocentric system
This is where irony hits you full square in the nuts. The above theories at one point in history did not have any evidence against them, and indeed the geocentric theory (I don't think you meant to reject heliocentrism) had much for it.
The only reason we eventually got contrary evidence and theories is that men went against the prevailing teachings of what most in the state believed at the time. And I'd like to concentrate on geo/heliocentrism because that is not only a clear case but a primarily secular one. There really was no reason to accept heliocentrism versus geocentrism. Not even from secular science.
It was a novel theory but seemed to contradict many intuitive evidences and did not add any real substance to our knowledge. Thus the state, according to your idea, seemed quiet justified in doing exactly what it did which was ridicule it and deplore its teaching by anyone... most especially to children/students.
Thankfully it was not fully crushed, and some people were able to pass on some good ideas which eventually were found to be true.
It is dangerous to assume that even a wholly secular scientific belief has some ominscient quality to it. There is always the possibility of further, unforeseen data which might change everything completely.
I am talking about scenarios similar to 2+2=5.
I reject that comparison as that has practical applications which are completely separate from a person knowing whether evo is true, or that the earth is over 6000 years old.
I might note that it was quite obvious that the sun went around the earth and not the other way around. It was just as good as 2+2=5. Indeed today, from a practical standpoint that would not hurt you very much unless you decided to go into astronomy. Would that have justified the ordering of parents to give up their children to be taught good geocentric teaching, so they don't get confused by heliocentrism?
If the person you are going to vote for says that if they get into gov they will ensure that all children have access to a decent education, then you cannot complain.
Yes I can and I would, depending on the details. If a person says he is going to protect kids from terrorism when he gets into office, am I unable to complain when he then strips my freedoms and invades countries with little reason?
You say that voters must trust the govt they elect, but it is a two way street. If I am going to trust my govt to deal with community issues, it damn well better trust me to deal with my own issues.
Once the state says knows better than me, especially with regard to how I raise my kids (barring abdication because I am simply NOT trying to raise my kids), then I have very little trust or use for that govt.
Do children in the USA never get taken off their parents?
You mean taken away from? Absolutely. Sometimes rightfully and sometimes not.
One woman lost her child because she left it outside of a McDonald's restuarant in a stroller while she went to get some food. Note: She is from Denmark and that is the custom in Denmark. Our state knew better.
Another woman, lost her child when she admitted that nursing the child gave her sexual pleasure. She did nothing else than admit this, but the state knew better than to let someone with that level of honesty raise her child.
And as I noted, the US govt took native american children away en masse to make sure they didn't get a bad education by people who would only promote their weird mythologies.
If we use the suicide cult example again, we all say that this is unacceptable, that the parent would be breaking the law to teach a child this.
Whoa... I didn't say it was unacceptable. I said it would be tragic. It would also be illegal because suicide itself is illegal (adults and children), as well as murder.
It would only be unacceptable (morally) to me for my own family. The jews at Massadah killed their own children rather than allow them to live under Roman rule. Was that unacceptable? How about when Moses slaughtered all those children of parents that did not agree with him? Unacceptable?
To me, yeah, but to many it will be situational.
I think comparisons between that kind of teaching (practices which by their very nature injure or kill), are hyperbolic when discussing the teaching of ideas.
Because in the UK it IS a criminal offence!
So you would agree that heliocentrism was aptly considered a crime to be taught?
Would you just pay them the $50 dollars?
No, I wouldn't. Some other sucker might. It would not be a crime if a parent did not teach their kids sufficient math. There are plenty of good artists that can't figure out how to add.
But it is a criminal act in the USA isn’t it? These people could always go to a country where it isn’t wrong to teach their children that they will have commit suicide when the next comet appears.
Yes, the Jonestown tragedy is a great example. Ironically monitoring actually triggered the tragedy. Not that I blame those trying to monitor the situation, nor to suggest it might not have happened later.
Personally I am still wrestling with whether suicide/murder within a subculture should be illegal or not under law. It is a very extreme right to be asking for, but then how is that significantly different from allowing the right to die (euthanasi), or even abortion (to those who feel fetuses are like people)?
How can the government identify outright negligence if a parent has the right to bring up their children as they please? How do we know if they are being neglected if no one takes an interest in them?
That is very simple isn't it? Negligence is a lack of attempting to care for your child, not a mistaken attempt to care. Clearly if they are being educated in YEC, then they are not neglecting to instruct their children.
If you mean physical neglect it will show up in physical and psychological symptoms. Being more difficult to detect such things because the parents keep them at home is hardly an excuse for forcing state oversight or control of a family. If that were true then families could be ordered to move to a more central location and not live in extreme rural areas.
Why should the kid NOT have the chance to be the brainiac?
I do not subscribe to the communal ideal of all children being indoctrinated and set at some hypothetical "equal" position, determined by the state.
Why should the child not have the chance to be a brainiac? The child certainly may have a chance, but what if piety or artistry or industry is more important to a family or that child's immediate culture than being really good in abstract theories?
Why should a child not have the chance to be part of a subculture, rather than the grey superculture of the nation as a whole?
Why should a family not have the chance to raise a child to desire the values that they believe in?
The Amish have lived in the US, though somewhat separately, for at least a century. I am not kept up late at night knowing that most of their kids may not know how to operate a computer or maybe even a zipper. Few if any will ever become scientists.
They are not the culture that I want for my kids, but they are happy and living well. I could not even dare to consider them negligent.
Would you?
The turmoil that the child will encounter when they realise that mummy and daddy are basically selfish ignoramuses will be extremely upsetting and confusing, this is a period that child does not necessarily have to go through, this is, IMO, child abuse.
Why wouldn't they just consider their parents well meaning but really really wrong? And I'm not sure I understand your example. First you seem to have kids brainwashed for life, so that is wrong. And then next that they can snap out of it and go into shock at what they missed, and so that is wrong. This seems inconsistent.
As it is all families generally have something they have deprived their children of for which the kids are not too happy. Are we now supposed to make sure they have access to everything?
Also, this seems to suggest indoctrinating adults as well. This seems to make enemies of the parents so that kids will not have later regrets. Won't causing turmoil when young cause problems equally and what happens if the kids don't later don't like the govt?
What say does a baby Jewish boy have in whether or not he wants to be circumcised? Kids all over the world are being mutilated because of the beliefs of their parents, the child is an individual who has no say in whether they want their body deliberately altered or not.
This actually supports my contention about children being owned. And in the US circumcision is commonplace regardless of your religion. Most men are cut.
If your culture is against the law of the land that you choose to live in then you need to alter your culture or you need to move to a country that will be conducive to your beliefs.
That is a horrific statement to make, particularly if one lives in a democracy where prevailing norms and laws can change based on changing demographics.
This is also a bit unrealistic now that most land masses have been captured and now nations fight for shifting borders. If you could suggest a spot I can actually move to to found my own culture and nation I certainly would go.
Yep, I am a dictator who has the best interest of the child at heart. I am a dictator who wishes to ensure that all children have access to a decent quality of education, that all children have an equal chance in life, and that everyone in society if free and not a piece of property that can be treated basically as a parent wants to.
You are deluding yourself and need to seriously assess your position. You cannot have the best interest of every child at heart because:
1) You are not omniscient and do not know everything that is true or false,
2) You do not know every child and so cannot possibly know what will be best for that child,
3) You will not be the only dictator who feels the way you do, and when you are dethroned you may not agree with the next dictator,
4) Your stated position does not let everyone live free, it treats adults as children to the state (you), and you get to mete out what is right and what is wrong and what is knowledge and what is not.
This is horror in the guise of good intentions. You should save your heart for your own family and friends (and the kids who end up in your classroom).
I cannot speak for everyone, but certainly the vast majority of people that I know take an interest in the rest of the members of their society, and they would be appalled to know that a child is not receiving a decent education. Not receiving a decent education, or at least not having that opportunity, is something that is totally alien to us Brits, there would be a public outcry here if any children were being denied that opportunity.
You know what you left off that list of concerns? Being healthy and happy. You guys seem to have figured out that you know what is "best" for everyone else. That's just great, but not everyone is happy with what you think is best.
That it sounds like you guys would toss out the Amish, is really cold blooded to me.
I am astounded that it appears that the average American doesn’t seem to really give a shit about anyone else!
You are making a grave error. There is a difference between not being concerned about others and simply respecting other cultures and adults to live without parentalism by the state.
As it stands we are now becoming much more adamant about "protecting children". That is why there are ongoing purges of adult speech, and people throwing conniptions about Janet Jackson's nipple. And there are those gaining in state power trying to redefine science and what needs to be taught, back to the creo stance that used to exist in the states.
It is the excesses of the state and idiots in the state, which make me want to respect cultures and keep them out of my family.
It is perhaps the homogeneity of Scottish culture, and England in general, as compared to the US, which allows people the idea that their govt can't suddenly switch to an alien culture that does not share your intellectual beliefs. And thus you would never be harmed by an overt trust of state over family.
Always meant with respect, please remember.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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