Senator Boxer -D(ingbat, California) is trying to hurry up and get the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ratified by the Senate. If you are a person who values the rights of a parent to raise the child, you should be calling your senators' office ON MONDAY MORNING to be sure they know not to sign on to this mess, especially if they are a Democrat.
Children don't have rights many rights of their own, aside from the right to life, except as devolved from their parents. Unless you don't believe in the authority of parents because you had a bad father and became an international socialist, that is. I'll let WND's writing stand in for mine, because it's the same arguments no matter who typed it:
"According to the Parental Rights website, the CRC dictates the following:Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children. A murderer aged 17 years, 11 months and 29 days at the time of his crime could no longer be sentenced to life in prison. Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion. The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent's decision. A child's "right to be heard" would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed. According to existing interpretation, it would be illegal for a nation to spend more on national defense than it does on children's welfare. Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure. Teaching children about Christianity in schools has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC. Allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC. Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.
The government would decide what is in the best interest of a children in every case, and the CRC would be considered superior to state laws, Farris said. Parents could be treated like criminals for making every-day decisions about their children's lives. "
6 comments:
Not one of the claims made about the CRC are true - other countries have signed it and parents still smack their kids, the kids don't get to choose their religion etc etc If the US Congress doesn't want some aspect of it, they can make a reservation on that article and many countries do just that. The Convention cannot override national and state law, it can only back it up, because there is no machinery to implement it. The US already has made reservations and derogations on other conventions.
But something said previously gives it all away as to the motives of the hysteria mob who are making such a beef about signing up. It's stated that children have only one right (to life) and that the rest are somehow deputed to the parents. This is sitting on the fence - kids have rights or they don't. The general acceptance is that kids have rights but their immaturity requires that there interests are HELD IN TRUST by the parents.
Where those interests are betrayed or abused, then the state steps in, that's the law as it is in the US and in every decent society - but we have seen evidence recently of what happens when crooked judges abuse their position and send kids to jail for profit.
What the anti-CRC people fail to mention is the power the CRC gives to parents and others who want to call governments, including their own, to account for abuses and failures regarding children. For example, every 5 years after ratification, every signatory nation submits a report to the UN Committee composed of world experts on children, nominated and agreed by the signatory nations. This government report is supposed to be an accurate account of what has happened re rights of children but, guess what, it doesn't always say what was done, and not done. The great thing is that other people, such as parents' groups and charities etc with a interest in children's issues, can submit their reports also and they will often have far more detail and direct evidence than the governments and are given huge credibility. In the UK where I live, we sent a group of kids to Geneva last year, to present a report to the experts, and it made a powerful impression. The result of all this is that the UK government was advised of a long list of things it needs to address before the next time. The UN has no power to compel, and our courts are not obliged to force these issues through, but will take such evidence into account. But it does enable those of us who lobby for a better world for our kids - and that includes better parenting, rights of grandparents etc - to make a better case.
Another reason advanced prominently by the anti-lobby is about children being able to choose their own religion. They neglect to say that, yes it does say that (and I guess that's inherent in the US Constitution also) but also parents are the ones, says the Convention, who will guide and direct the child. No one mentions the obvious - the minute a kid gets to adulthood he can choose what he wants to believe, no matter how he was raised. Is this a case, for the antis, of the Jesuit belief of "give me the child up to the age of 7 and he's ours for life"? Why, even they don't see the need to dictate all through childhood, they believe it can all be set up early on .....
The anti stance seems to have an underlying basis - children are property, not a sacred trust which we all have a duty to honour. They will deny this and claim to honour children - but then they go and tell us the CRC is wrong because it gives children rights. No it doesn't, it proclaims rights they have, rights in your Constitution and our Common Law and Statutes, it says they are a special and vulnerable part of humankind for whom we must make the greatest efforts, the best of our efforts. Disagree if you dare - Jesus made it clear the situation of those who cause children to stumble - the millstone around the neck is preferable to the fate that awaits them. The Hindus often show Krishna as a child running with friends, the Buddhists of Tibet will revere a child whom they see as a reincarnation of a holy ancestor.
Give us a break, the antis should go and see what is happening to kids in America, as well as elsewhere, lose their blinkers and get on board real change and improvements for ALL our children - Who is My Neighbour? And Who are Our Children?
www.fairplayforchildren.org
If ratified by the Senate, according to our Constitution, The CRC would have the same status as any other international treaty: supremacy over the U.S. Constitution.
That it is violated routinely is not an argument for its passage.
Getting the Senate to opt out of certain provisions of it is stupid. Getting the Senators to agree which to denounce would likely mire the debate anyhow, but that is beside the point. The united States is the example the world should follow when it comes to Childrens' rights and we don't have to sign on to something a tin-pot dictator gives lip service to, in order to prove it.
That there is no enforcement provision is no argument for its passage.
Enforcements can be added later, and even absent statutory enforcement power, petty bureaucrats can try to lord it over the citizenry with this convention as justification. Local ordinances can be passed (and, in crazy-zones like San Fransisco, likely would) to enforce the convention, national laws or no.
I have never heard of an instance of judges jailing children for profit in the USA.
I am not concerned for the purpose of the discussion of whether or not we should ratify this convention, if they are jailing children for profit in other countries. As an aside, if any child of mine were taken by the state and obviously held only for ransom, I would (read: would definitely, not maybe would or would want to) be giving 180 grains of lead, each, to every single person involved in the scheme, from a couple of hundred meters away; AND I would have the ACLJ on my side when the courts finally put a non-crooked judge on the child custody hearing. The crazy sh*t that they do in other countries has no bearing on what we do here; to claim otherwise is equivocating at best and disingenuous or worse, at worst. By the way, that is one of the reasons for the Second Amendment to our Constitution: personal prevention of oppression, one tyrant at a time.
We don't need international bodies telling us what they would like us to do, regardless of how enforceable their pronouncements are. Saying things like "rights of grandparents" openly declares you are on the wrong side of this fence. Your right to control your childrens' lives ends when they leave your home as independent adults. Their children are none of your concern.
To say a child can choose her religion once they reach majority is utter foolishness. How many children in Palestine who have been brainwashed in madrasas their entire lives are going to choose Buddhism? In countries with de facto state religions, what do you think? Are the rights of a Christian in Iran (or wherever) violated when his children are forced into muslim indoctrination? The religious training of children is exclusively the responsibility of the parents. The state should have ZERO input.
Children are not property. If you bothered to respond to individuals instead of "antis" as a group, you would find out things like the following:
on 30 May 2008 I said:
"Whose children are they, anyhow?
Not the State's.
Not the Parents'.
The children born into this world are PEOPLE. They are not PROPERTY. I tell my kids that they are mine, and what is theirs is mine, because they are not intellectually developed enough to understand the following:
People belong to their maker. You did not make your children, you made sex. God mixed the magic juice and made the children in their mothers' wombs. "Before I formed you in the belly I knew you." and "It is he that hath made us, and not we, ourselves". Children are born to parents who, ideally, are happily, with deep commitment, truly down-for-the-struggle Married. Not "we're seeing if it will work out" shacked up. Not a one night stand, rape or incest. Married.
The home of a married couple is the BEST environment in which a child can be reared. The father and mother balance each other's foibles, and their strengths and weaknesses complement each other. A child sees the way people should relate, and grows (hopefully) into a balanced individual.
The State is made BY people, FOR people. The state is supposed to protect people from damage by non-people and itself, as well as provide infrastructure that would be unfeasible to do privately (international diplomacy, armed forces, and, arguably, streets, to name a few functions). The State is not the ideal parent for a child. The State has a responsibility to to see that children are not abused, but that's a pretty narrow limitation.
I'm sorry if you don't like it, but having a kooky sending-you-to-hell religion that involves multiple wives is NOT the same as hitting a 5 year-old with a pipe wrench. Living in your own compound and having consensual relations between adults is NOT the same as starving a teenager locked in a closet. You're getting closer if you say, forcing a child into marriage at 14 and getting them pregnant, is a violation of human rights (given by God, by the way) that the State should try to punish.
. . .
The State is not a parent, and the children are not the property of the State. The State does not get to say how children are to be reared, only that they are not to be abused. If the State doesn't like the way you rear your children, the proper response by ALL of us The People should be: Tough Cookies, Bite One.
God has given the responsibility for the rearing of children to the parents. The parents will do the best they can, and as they see fit. When we start acquiescing as a society to the taking of children because the parents' religion is different to ours, we are running headlong down a slippery slope.
I will lose my children for being a member of a cult with kinky sex action
I will lose my children for being a member of a cult
I will lose my children for being a member of a fundamentalist religion
I will lose my children for being a member of a religion
I will lose my children for publicly having religious ideas
I will lose my children for publicly voicing unpopular ideas
I will lose my children for suspicion of unpopular ideas
I will lose my children for unpopular actions
I will lose my children for smoking
for not seeing that they have health insurance
for not putting them in the assigned government school
for not feeding them properly
for not indoctrinating them properly
for not being a Party member
for not having a license to have children
etc., and it gets worse.
Does it sound ridiculous? Then contact your local Elected Heroes and tell them you are outraged at the FLDS case in principle, whether or not they are responsible for it. Because YOUR children are next.
You freak."
So now with a broad brush I have defeated all your "pro" arguments. You have addressed "antis" as a group and I have refuted the straw man you erected for me. Don't come around here with a weak logical argument - my logical kung-fu is strong. I'll publish your comments if they are decent (I decide) and then I'll smash them. As the disclaimer says: Just because I may disagree with and denigrate you, does not mean I hate you. It just means you are wrong.
But thanks for playing. I do this for fun. If it gets silly and un-fun and you start chasing semantic rabbits I'll block further comments. Otherwise, bring it!
The Judges were in Pennsylvania, it has happened, just recently. In your country. Massive corruption.
All Conventions have the possibility of derogation, it is used to encourage nations to sign up to most provisions. It's nothing new.
I am horrified at the idea that grandparents have no rights and have to 'walk away'. What kind of family system is THAT? My national law says my grandson has a right to see me and vice-versa. Just as well, I can't think of anyone in my family who are as much alike as we are. I do know to "butt out" on discipline etc - but I'd be the first to say "too far" which is how people used to intervene before the state did. One thing I earned re my kids is to speak my mind. You don't do it in front of a grandchild (well not yet anyway), but you don't shut up when you must speak up.
You set up a non-sequitur sequence - from kinky sex cult to licences to breed etc. None of this relates to the world you and I live in - by that I mean, what we face in OUR daily lives.
That there are people who lead lifestyles which many of us question if people propose to rear children within them is obvious enough. On the whole, people get on with it whichever way, and right too, until there IS abuse. The two parent family, when it works well, is known to be beneficial. Many will say the extended family - plus aunties, uncles, grandmas and granddads - is held up as the Golden Age ideal. Maybe it doesn't always live as its supposed to read. I once worked for a welfare department in a very poor part of London - there was a lady there, Irish (immediate Brit prejudice, especially then), seven kids, by five dads, flat rented from the council. Spotless home, beautifully behaved kids, warmth and generosity - she wanted them to have the benefits of a good education, said she'd go to work at least part-time when the youngest got to school at 5 (no child care then and also unemployment in that bit of London like it became ten years later under Thatcher everywhere in Britain - thanks to neo-con bogus economics which have turned out to be the same old corruption and free-for-all greed of the pigtrough as in the 29 crash).
She'd somehow furnished the place, the kids were well-fed, but she had nothing for herself. The men? Well, not there. (That was watched, of course). Should she have had those kids? They were happy and bonny. They were Loved.
She asked if the welfare could supply some shoes for the kids, I inspected what they had. I also looked at the notes. Request after request, always for them, always refused. This seemed against the system, by then she should have had some extra grants (nearly always vouchers at approved shops). I made out a docket for 7 pairs - and got carpeted at the office by the manager who said we didn't give such grants to Irish whores. Her rights trampled, her kids also. I stuck it out, refused to withdraw the authorisation and told him I informed her how to appeal against a No - not his favourite worker ...
Was that a good family? I've seen 2 parent DISASTERS.
I didn't get promotions ....
And why, pray, should the US not be scrutinised by others? My god, what I read in similar blogs tells everyone else what's wrong with their way of living. If America really stuck to that, you'd bring a lot of troops home and there'd be a lot of unemployed CIA bods ... Oh, I supported the Iraq War on the grounds not of WMD etc, but because Saddam had broken his probation. It should have happened six years before and the UN Security Council should have authorised it immediately - but Russian and French arms and oil interests saw that off.
The US has no claim to be the place we should admire for the treatment of children. Take of the rose-tinted specs. No country can make any such claim. The degree of abuse against children in all nations is sickeningly widespread. And much of it committed, god help us, by parents. So the state must stand back and not intervene to protect? Most of our child scandals are accompanied (after the death, rape, injury, traumatisation) by public demands - why was nothing done, who stood by when they should have acted, who failed to see what needed doing? Time after time after time.
Tin pot dictators have Constitutions based on yours ... The CRC: You would sign up to something decent people worldwide believe in and try to see implemented on a daily basis in their own lives and communities. It just stinks when we see the US, which ought always be able to take the moral highground, skulking around giving excuses. We all need the support of the US in this, and it doesn't hurt you to look at the good things others are doing, at success. Sharing of good experience is one of the best engines for human progress. There's nothing we can teach you? Nothing the UK can't learn? That's arrogance - which is claiming superiority when you have no business doing so.
I said re choice of religion, that I was given that freedom, my parents respected that. Indeed, I was not always aware of what they believed, they said it was their private business. Did we talk about it? Yes. Did they say, this is so? No. Did they say what was believed by many? Yes. Did they have their prejudices? Yes, I came to see that, but they struggled against them as the world shifted. Did they talk about Right and Wrong? Oh yes. Was I included in conversations? As my age increased, as appropriate. Did they answer my questions? As best they could. Did my dad get annoyed with my ideas? Funny dad if he didn't. Was I disciplined, sent to my room, told to be silent if I expressed my views? No. Did we have stand-up rows? Hmmm
But I remember my dad's quiet pride when I was 15, helping him behind the bar washing glasses, getting up supplies, and some racist loudmouth got up and gave us his wisdom though no one asked for it. So he asked me what I thought and I told him just that, logically and quietly, and spoke of my belief in dignity and equality. It got heated, well he did, and then he said "what the f*ck do you know you're just the barman's son, you're a kid" to which his mate said "out of order Harry, you started it, you can't get away with that crap". And dad said "I brought him to speak his mind. You took him on and he beat you. Don't tell us his age."
Did they tell me what they voted? Oh no, privacy of the secret ballot and that included me and each other. Have I grown up atheist, christian, moslem etc, agnostic? Not your business, I go to my closet as one Good Man said we ought.
Not the state's, not the parents'
How true. But you believe the state wants to change that? Some nations do, their regimes we all know - whether military, ideological or theocratic. But not in the US, not in the UK. We can change our governments. And People can stand together, especially for their children and their future. In my view, the CRC is less of use to governments (after all, they're always being told when they've got it wrong)than it is to children and those who care about and for them. Voices raised worldwide - good parents are much the same everywhere when it comes to defending their children and their rights. That is unity of purpose and that will build strength of determination. Across state boundaries, parents together. "No man is an island".
Oh goody, you're talking to an individual now ;)
How about a link to a news report on those judges eh?
Your national law also forbids self-defense, even to the point of letting your assailant go free if you successfully fend off an attack. Your national law is worth bubkis.
The kinky sex cult, etc., sequence was relevant to the FLDS child-abduction case. It will be relevant to you when they start taking children because the parents _______(fill in the blank with the thing you do with your children) and the government doesn't like it.
The irish mother: "her rights trampled?" how about the taxpayers' rights trampled? Why does London have to buy shoes for kids she should never have generated. Two wrongs don't make a right. She was a good caretaker as far as that goes, but not a good mother, to make so many by so many men. Is it a case to make your heart bleed? Then buy her shoes yourself, from your own pocket, instead of forcing all of UK to do it at gunpoint. Garnering sympathy from me with stories like hers is impossible; you may as well try a different tack.
The US should not be scrutinized by others because we are a sovereign nation. Duh?
Nevermind what we do, adding bad ideas on top of flawed execution of other ideas (good and bad) is not going to help anything. The war was because he broke his probation. And we found WMD that got left behind . . . we blew up some, and he got rid of most. Remember: he had 2 years' warning to get them into Libya and Syria.
Rose colored glasses: my own personal Crazy New Daddy took those off for me, thanks. I know first-hand how two-parent families can let children down. And I turned out okay in spite of my (everyone has a) sob story.
Constitutions based on ours: see my comment about the worth of your nation's laws.
That your parents lacked the courage of their convictions, or convictions to be courageous of, is not a reason to implement the convention. A Christian has the advantage of certainty: believe as instructed by the Bible, or go to Hell. Jesus said as much himself, and said there is no other way to Heaven. If you see a bloke walking on a train track and a train coming, should you tell him with certainty the train is coming, or should you sort of tell him what you believe and let him choose? Do you have an obligation to pull him off the tracks if you can?
Similar argument for voting: Our last election was between a Marxist and a squishy leftist Capitalist. If you don't tell somebody voting for Marxism/Socialism/Communism is EVIL and STUPID you are not being a good citizen (words can be minced, but concepts never!)
What use is CRC to children? THEY can't change anything. If they have good parents it is no use, and if bad parents to no avail. We can change our governments? Every two years, perhaps. A lot of bad can take place in two years.
Hi
Links re Pennsylvania judges:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/23/pennsylvania.corrupt.judges/index.html
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202428249328
http://www.jdjournal.com/2009/01/27/judges-plead-guilty-to-corruption/
OK? Need more? Just ask. In this country, with its crap law, I never heard of anything like that.
No self-defense in our law? Rubbish. BUT we set limits, so a man who shoots a 13 year old in the back as he runs away gets canned, and right too. Yes the kid was up to no good - his crime didn't carry a death sentence and we don't welcome people who take the law into their own hands. Makes a mockery of the law.
Our law works well enough, as well as yours. I don't care what right-wing naff rag or blog-wind you want to believe, we invented the rule of law, and you wouldn't be anywhere without it. And in case I get some lecture about freeing yourselves from our tyrant king, remember 140 years before your Declaration of Independence, we lopped off the king's head for being a tyrant. The next time, we sent the next one into exile. They haven't tried since.
No, the Iraq war was justified on both sides of the Atlantic by references to WMD - this was because they were scared to say, the UN has failed to act, we are left to revoke his parole. I only wish Blair and Bush had said that, not all the lies which were not necessary. The British people would have gone for that, we lost a good leader because he allowed his basic belief in the rule of law to be displaced by a tissue of crap. It allowed the French and Russians to seem like the goody boys when they bear the guilt of failing to act.
Who cares if Saddam had WMD or hadn't, or whatever. His probation was that we would be able to go where we liked and when we liked to check, and he stopped that believing he could play a game of bluff.
Now Irish ladies and Jesus. I can only remind you that when He said you didn't do it to me, what the outcome was. Neither did he judge the woman taken in adultery - he said go and sin no more - but he never said he'd reject her if she did. The 90 and 9 sheep etc.
The words he had for those who pray in the market place (where they are seen by all): Verily I tell you they have their reward. Jesus told you and me to do the exact opposite of what your sentiments lead to. I was talking about a good family situation. I tell you I saw one - and supported it. If the tax payer paid, well they should if it's kids. They're here, no blame on them for their mother's behaviour - and no justification not to support them. I told you anyway she was making a fine job of bringing them up, never mind how they got here. 7 pairs of shoes. It should have been more - if only to break the cycle. Which is where the state can intervene, and does here, though it could be run better.
You can read what you read about Britain - we too read about the US. Ever been here?
I visit the states now as often as I can - my real dad is in NJ State, aged 96, and I want to make up those years we did not have. Why didn't we? War, circumstance, duty ....whatever. How we came together - my version of miracle.
But I have seen the good things of America, the kindness and the human aspect. What have you seen of my country and its wonderful people? Who are you to refuse to take criticism of the US of A and yet oh so much about the UK and what's wrong with it. Ignorance is no defence.
No nation is above scrutiny, not even the US. Duh?
Oh, our ways here are ones the people have made clear they don't want swept away by the marvels of neo-con monetarist economics - we fought for our welfare state, even our cons have learned not to touch it (but they tried to undermine it under St Margaret). I put money from my tax and national insurance into the scheme and so I and others do pay for the lady and her kids. We do chase those who cheat the system, but I wish we spent as much effort on the tax dodgers who cheat us of the money they owe to be part of a decent society.
Are you telling me Jesus would have agreed we should not support her and her kids as we do? Oh boy.
Now as to Marxists etc, you need a history lesson. We invented socialism long before Marx was born, it is a different tradition, people have fought and died to create a better society here, fought for the right to be in a union, to vote, to have the rule of law. The English socialists set it all out in our Civil War - we did not fight to rid ourselves of a tyrant to get another. Those guys lost then but we've fought our way up, we have a democracy, and if we elect a socialist government through the ballot box, that's our affair, not yours. But it was a socialist UK Prime Minister who came alongside you guys without hesitation. Unlike 1939 when we kept a promise to defend Poland if she was attacked, and we found ourselves alone and receiving the refugees of occupied Europe who then came on board our defence of what was left of European liberty. Now where WERE you? Sitting back dribbling out the "we're a sovereign nation" stuff. It took an attack on you by Japan to get you involved. The one guy we admire from that time is Roosevelt, who did all he could to get round the small-minded Only America Counts Lobby. We were bankrupted by that sacrifice, we could have settled with Hitler, we didn't and we faced being overrun. By the way, when we came to you for help after the war, you shut the door in our face and we struggled out of it, while you poured money into Japan and Germany to rebuild. Read the history.
Don't run this country down, you will find socialists and cons here who will unite to tell you to get lost. After all, we all know it's your bankers and financiers who have pulled the rug from under the whole world economy - these stalwarts of the world economy. Just like 1929, greed has overcome duty, and it's within your boundaries. Don't criticise? Don't make me laugh.
The only way out of this is to share and to help those weaker than we are. If a so-called Christian says otherwise, he's a hypocrite.
Show me in your bible where that's wrong. And that those who pray openly in the market place have a guaranteed place in heaven and those who do not believe always go to hell. "Inasmuch as you did it(not) to one of these, the least among you, you did it(not) to me."
God help the smug.
My parents lacked in no moral fibre at all, nor in conviction. It's just that they weren't such sad cases that they had to force it down my throat or compel me to believe. Is that what Jesus said? I think not. My parents (one of whom came home from the war after three years in Burma and found me there, though he and my mum were not then married, and who took me on anyway) they were fine people. Your candour is nothing of the kind, that is sheer rudeness to score a cheap point. I insist you stick to decent argument, don't sink to criticising my late parents who were as fine a couple as ever lived, thank you.
Their conviction was my freedom of conscience. As they told me, enough people died and suffered for us kids for just that reason. I told you, their beliefs were their own, and they wanted mine to be mine. Did they help frame and form them? Yes, I recognise that, and one thing they taught me was that if I believe something, stick with it and take on the opposition.
You see my folks had the faith in me that I would be my own person not some slave to rigid doctrine. Evolution? Of course! Quantum physics? Oh nothing else! Relativity? It rocks! God couldn't be the cause of all that? Wow that would be a god who is too small. The one that I suspect may be behind the whole game, he can do it all. You know the Moslems will tell you that in the Koran, there is a passage where the virgin birth of Jesus is described. Yes, they believe in that and that it was Miriam (Mary) who gave birth to him. She was told by an angel, as in the Bible, that this would happen. She asked how that could be. In the Koran, we are told (and she was) "God can do anything". They also believe Jesus ascended alive and that he will return to lead the armies that with battle with and defeat Satan.
So, the whole neo-con Christian fundamentalist business is a retreat from truth behind a wall of defence because they are really scared of losing control. Especially of their kids. Don't let them think they have rights, we the parents HAVE to be the ones who are right.
I vote socialist. I am not evil or stupid. I got to be mayor round here a while back, and I recall that what pleased people most was that I was prepared to don the ceremonial chain of office and walk to council meetings through the town talking to folk, popping into a bar at Christmas with chain and santa hat or even walking by the beach and greeting a couple of Americans who were charmed at the idea of the first citizen being prepared to stroll along the beach and glad-hand them. My socialism is small-scale, it requires being elected - and also accepting that people will sooner or later change their minds and vote for the other guy. But we still work to do good things because that's the only way to build a better world.
Who is my neighbour? And aren't kids the responsibility of all of us?
This is getting a bit jumbled, but it's responses to things said in jumbled-up fashion, in the order they were said. Also It's my last response to Jan's comments on this post, for failure to abide by a decent standard of debate. Thanks for playing, feel free to try again on another topic.
NO Self-defense. The criminals know it. Oh wait, I remember, they recently said you CAN fight back now. Sure, it's your legal right. Just like you had a right, once in the Soviet gulag, not to be tortured or murdered. It's on the law books, don't you know! The law, for an american citizen (vice a British subject) is properly in the hands of the people. We designate certain citizens to enforce the laws for us, but doing your own justice is "rare but okay," vs. a viewed-askance "taking the law in your own hands". We never let go of it hence no need to take it ;)
We're back to unsubstantiated general attacks? Strike 2. And when it comes to "you wouldn't be anywhere" comments, how about that whole World War II thing? You're still not a lampshade or speaking German, Japanese, or Russian, I see. And now you have a tyrannical House of Lords. That's so much better than a tyrant king.
You invented the rule of law and now you're trying to screw it up as fast as possible without a popular revolution. When there are serious inroads to making sharia an acceptible substitute for the law everyone else abides by, don't try to convince me your laws are in anything like respectable condition. You also invented a requirement that every man be armed. It used to be the law that you had to practice with, so as to be proficient with, the assault weapon of the day (bow/arrows). Now, you can't even carry useful tools (pocket knife) much less outright weapons, without being charged with "carrying an offensive weapon with no good reason"
You brought up the war and WMD, not I.
Jesus wasn't talking to the State, he was talking to individuals. You may recall the singularly unfriendly relationship he had with the state. If the taxpayer is supporting a child 100%, why does the parent retain guardianship, having created a ward of the state? Support them, sure, I'm all for it. . . if they are in a home with two parents who have proven their ability to make good decisions for their own childrens' futures. 7 pairs of shoes would not break the cycle. 7 plasma TVs in 7 "free" houses would not break the cycle. The entitlement mindset is a fundamental flaw in those who possess it.
Never been to Britain, never wanted to go. I'll take criticism if it's honest. When did I refuse to take it? In case you missed it, I have mentioned problems all over the world including right here at home, in previous blog postings.
No nation? I'd say no government is above scrutiny, and that it should be scrutinized by its own people. You fight for your welfare state, and we fight against ours. US != UK. Roosevelt is derided as one of our worse Presidents for the reasons you like him. To a thinking, free American, Socialism is actually a BAD thing.
We blew Germany and Japan the hell up. We didn't blow England the hell up. Why should we pay to rebuild it, then? We have to shoo your bully AND kiss your boo-boos?
Running UK down, me? I give everyone a hard time when they are being stupid. If someone from UK tells me to get lost, they can stuff it - who asked them? We led and the world followed in the recent credit boom/bust cycle. Tell me the citizenry and businesses of the good ol' UK fell prey to evil greedy american financiers when THEY started trying to flip houses and make bad loans like the stupid yanks. Greed overcame duty? More like stupidity held greed's hand and the government told them they could go screw themselves together. By the way: 1/2 the world's wealth might have been lost on our stock exchanges, but at least US isn't about to default on her debts.
You help somebody weaker if you want. I don't see how it's my duty at all. I was offered a loan with payments that would have worked out to 50% of my paycheck. I turned it down and got a mortgage that's 20% of my paycheck instead. I pay all my bills early and in full. My pants have holes in them and my children have hand-me-down clothes. We eat store-brand cereal instead of name-brand, and never dine out. We have one small car note and one 10 year-old paid-off car. Why, then, is it suddenly my responsibility to pay (at gunpoint, never forget) for my neighbor who DID take that loan he couldn't afford, dines out daily, has 3 big TVs, 3 cell phones, new clothes and cars, top-notch internet and HD cable service, etc?
It's NOT. They should go bankrupt, not my country. Same for companies that paid back debt with debt and leveraged 30:1 or 100:1 on their assets, and the banks that lent to them. You need to research what an hypocrite is before calling anyone one.
Jesus would have wanted her to try and find a husband. Failing that, he'd want her to move in with family. After family, the CHURCH, not the state, was supposed to support the "widows indeed" (click for definition). You can pray where you like, but if you're praying to yourself like the Pharisee did, it won't help you. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." He said "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. . . " A diligent student of the Bible will come to no other conclusion than that true Christians are the only ones who go to Heaven.
Jesus agreed with Moses: with regard to forcing their religion on their children: "thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." note: that's a commandment, and not a commandment to make suggestions.
No comment on your parents in particular. Generally, though we read: Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and we are to train them up in the way they should go, not let them choose their own way. A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
I'll leave aside the non-sequitur muslim stuff, except to say read Prophet of Doom if you really want to understand them, and understand why their God and mine are polar opposites.
Back to arguing against a group of people instead of me. Strike 3, end of discussion.
If you vote socialist, you are evil and stupid. That you are a populist only means you can get elected, not that you are good. If you stopped in at any small town in the heartland of America, you might find the mayor in the bar with a santa hat or on the beach, too. Big city mayors tend to be busy
I think the main difference between us is our status. I am a sovereign, subjected willingly (by me) to the laws created by people I choose, who work for, are paid by, and answer to, me. I have an absolute right to myself and my stuff, unless I start messing up other peoples' lives and stuff. You are a subject. The Crown pwnz you.
Kids are the responsibility of their parents. Unless their parents do Bad Things and break laws we have to protect citizens generally (not just children).
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