The USA Should Move to Institute International Standards on Child Rights
Book Review
James G. Dwyer, The Relationship Rights of Children. Cambridge University Press, 2006, $ 55.00 hardcover.
The United States and Somalia stand as the only two nations in the world that refuse to sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document that lays down the basic rights and moral standing of children. Nor has the U.S. attempted to adopt the comprehensive legislation passed in many countries, such as England’s The Children Act, which focuses on all matters pertaining to children, with the child’s welfare squarely defining all legal actions.
James Dwyer, in his complexly argued book, The Relationship Rights of Children, believes that, while the United States goes far in protecting parents” rights, it is often at the expense of the welfare of children. He does not offer why the United States leans so far in favor of parents (there are complicated historical and cultural reasons for our “difference”), but instead makes a strong case, based on two centuries of philosophical reasoning, for why children deserve the same moral and legal consideration as adults, even when this consideration steps on the rights of adults.
The debate about children’s rights, when it takes place at all in this country, is usually carried on by legal scholars, with the occasional contribution of social scientists who either study child development or who offer measures of children’s economic and psychological well-being. With Dwyer, we are offered extensive arguments from the philosopher giants, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, John Rawls and others on the value of the moral autonomy of the individual. These philosophers, he admits, focus their arguments on adults, not children. In fact, he notes, John Stuart Mill, in his theory of liberty, specifically states: “[this] is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties.” Not so for Dwyer. He makes a compelling case that the same moral rights apply to children.
“Critically then, each of us competent adults has rights of self-determination because it is generally assumed as a moral matter that our interests matter, and matter equally regardless of our status in society. This empirical assumption certainly applies to children as well, and if we are to respect children as equals, we must extend the moral assumption to them also–that is, that their interests matter as much as do adults’ interests in state decision making.”
But how do children know what their interests are, and if they did, how can they assert them? Children are, of course, dependent upon adults to do so for them. But which adults? Here Dwyer argues forcefully that although the law professes to promote “the best interests of children,” in fact it is far more protective of parental rights, and that these rights are often based on a purely biological claim, not any test of parental ability. Dwyer promotes a view of parents as caretakers, not automatic owners of children. He focuses his criticism on laws creating parental rights at birth, and protecting them in events of abuse and neglect after birth. His solution is to drastically re-formulate the law so that, among other requirements, a birth mother must sign a “Parental Vow” promising love and support within two days after birth in order to become a legal parent, but the state may file a petition within seven days to determine in a court proceeding whether the mother is, in fact, unsuitable for one of many reasons, including age, mental incapacity, past conduct of violence against family members, etc. Fathers achieve legal parenthood only if the birth mother consents and they are married. Fathers not married to the mother can only be deemed legal parents if the mother consents and the father petitions the court, passing all the tests of adequate parenting. Non-biological adults may also petition the court within 30 days and their claim will be determined by the court. Following birth, similar strict tests are applied in cases of abuse or neglect of children, allowing the court to more easily terminate parental rights than is now the case.
His view of children’s rights privileges birth mothers but gives little other advantage to biological ties. Unwed fathers still have an obligation to support but not to access unless they have passed all the above tests. Adults who have acted like parents, or have firm attached relationships to children, like stepfathers, have rights over non-involved biological fathers, and a child may have more than two significant adults in his life. From this perspective, attachment trumps biology and a parent must earn the right to become and to continue as a parent.
This concept of parents as caretakers or trustees rather than the owners of children who have independent rights is much more in keeping with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and with most European efforts at establishing a code of children’s rights. Some of its obvious consequences would be a move toward no corporal punishment and ultimately the right of children themselves, as they grow older, to petition to “divorce” their parents–the course taken in Europe.
Grounded in a strong tradition of moral philosophy, this child-centered approach adds valuable support to some American legal scholars and others who have been moving more timidly in this direction, most notably with a new revision of the influential American Law Institutes” treatise on Parent and Child where “de facto” parents (such as stepparents) without biological ties would be given greater access rights.
A limitation of this book is that Dwyer limits himself to the “protective” rights of young children and does not wander into the thornier “choice rights” of maturing adolescents. For instance: does the protective state have the right to insist on drug testing for children before they may join any after-school activity, as the Supreme Court recently ruled? or, are the rights of children served when in one courtroom a 13-year-old who steals a candy bar may be given a lawyer and nearly all the due process rights of a criminal defendant while down the hall a 13-year-old whose physical custody is being determined following divorce may have no voice or representation at all? Perhaps this philosopher will tackle maturing children’s rights in his next book.
Mary Ann Mason
University of California, Berkeley
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Encouraging news on child abuse front
I posted this in the Amazon, Spanking your children should be illegal forum
+++++++++++
We interrupt this forum for some breaking news!
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9730224
A massive new federal study documents an unprecedented and dramatic decrease in incidents of serious child abuse, especially sexual abuse. Experts hailed the findings as proof that crackdowns and public awareness campaigns had made headway.
An estimated 553,000 children suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse in 2005-06, down 26 percent from the estimated 743,200 abuse victims in 1993, the study found.
“It’s the first time since we started collecting data about these things that we’ve seen substantial declines over a long period, and that’s tremendously encouraging,” said professor David Finkelhor of the University of New Hampshire, a leading researcher in the field of child abuse.
“It does suggest that the mobilization around this issue is helping and it’s a problem that is amenable to solutions,” he said.
But the study points out that 500,000 children were still abused. That is not acceptable, especially in view of the fact that the abused often turn around and abuse others. We must get ahead of the problem and stop sweeping up after the harm has already occurred. Nonetheless, we see that preventive measures do help and that should give us hope we are moving in the right direction.
What would really help is to develop a national policy that set forth requirements for competent parenting and widespread parental training classes. As a final measure licensing of prospective parents could be the next step. Abolishing all forms of physical punishment and verbal abuse must be instituted. There is never any reason to hit a child or threaten them with violence.
The libertarian and conservative religious ideology that family privacy trumps any efforts by the state to intervene in family matters until damage has occured has to go. Parents are not free to do as they please to their children.
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The best interests of the child — UNCRC
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/IHRIP/circle/modules/module5.htm
[quote]
Best interests of the child
A major aspect of the philosophy behind the UNCRC is that children are equals; as human beings they have the same inherent value as grown-ups. The affirmation of the right to play underlines the fact that childhood is valuable in itself and these years are not merely a training period for the adult life. The idea that children have equal value may sound like a truism, but it is, in fact, a radical thought—one not at all respected today.
Children—especially when very young—are vulnerable and need special support to be able to enjoy their rights in full. How can children be granted equal value and at the same time the necessary protection? Part of the answer lies in the principle of “the best interests of the child,” formulated in article 3(1):
In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.
Whenever official decisions are taken which affect children, their interests should be seen as important. The interests of the parents or the state should not be the all-important consideration. This is indeed one of the major messages of the CRC.
Views of the child
This first principle, by its very nature, gives importance to another principle, one about respecting the views of the child. In order to know what actually is in the interests of the child, it is only logical to listen to him or her. The principle is formulated in article 12(1):
States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child be given due weight, in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
This has been termed by some commentators the “participation” element in the CRC. The idea is that the child has the right to be heard and have his/her ideas taken seriously. The reports by states parties so far have been vague on this article; some have stated that children of, for instance, twelve years of age have the right to reject an adoption or a change of name or nationality. Few have displayed a comprehensive approach to this principle which affects life in schools and families—and in politics.
[/quote]
It is easy to see why despotic parents hate the foundational premises of the UN CRC. They wish to treat their children as property, as clay they can mold to suit their whims and prejudices. You do not treat an equal in this manner. You certainly have no inherent right to punish an equal physically because they do not bow down to you.
Framing the rights of children as elaborated in the UN CRC has profound implications for how parents role in the development of their children is envisioned. Tyrannical patriarchs are out. Thoughtful respectful guardians are in.
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Online resources compiled by James C. Talbot
- Image via Wikipedia
For any parent’s who would wish to explore what has become a world wide consensus against spanking, you will find below a number of online resources from my book.
The Road To Positive Discipline: A Parent’s Guide
Slapping and Spanking in Childhood and Its Association with Lifetime Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/gca?sendit=Get+All+Checked+Abstract%28s29&SEARCHID=1041949468944_779&TITLEABSTRACT=Slapping+and+spanking+in+Childhood&JOURNALCODE=&FIRSTINDEX=0&hits=1&RESULTFORMAT=&gca=161%2F7%2F805
Research on Corporal Punishment – Available Online
http://stoptherod.net/research.htm
Corporal Punishment – Empirical Studies
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP-Empirical.htm
The Research and Informed Expert Opinion
http://nospank.net./resrch.htm
Slapping and Spanking in Childhood and Its Association With Lifetime Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders in a General Population
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/161/7/805
States Should Ban Violence Against Children – United Nations Study
http://nospank.net/n-q33r.htm
Correlation Between High Rates of Corporal Punishment in Public Schools andSocial Pathologies
http://nospank.net./correlationstudy.htm
Experts – Spanking Harms Children, Especially Girls
http://nospank.net./women.htm
Spanking and Mental Illness
http://nospank.net./falk2.htm
The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
http://parentinginjesusfootsteps.org/sxdangers.html
Spanking Can Be Sexual Abuse
http://www.nospank.net/101.htm
panking, Pain and Pleasure
http://www.nospank.net/r-ali.htm
American Academy of Pediatrics’ Position on Physical Punishment
http://nospank.net./aap4-c.htm
ChildAdvocate.org – Corporal Punishment Society’s Acceptable Violence Towards Children
http://www.childadvocate.org/1a_research.htm
What Does Research Say About the Effects of Physical Punishment on Children?
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/familydevelopment/components/7266a.html
The Neurobiology of Child Abuse
http://www.nospank.net/teicher2.htm
It’s Time to Change `The American Way of Discipline’ – Arthur Cherry, M.D.,FAAP,
http://nospank.net./aap5-a.htm
Why Do We Need Full Legal Reform to End All Corporal Punishment?
http://nospank.net./endallcp.htm
Physical Punishment of Children
http://nospank.net./shrc.htm
Corporal Punishment in Schools
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics%3b106/2/343
Lowest Achieving Ohio Schools Quickest With The Paddle-Rights
http://nospank.net./ohio3.htm
Dr. Spock on Parenting (1989)–Excerpts
http://nospank.net./spock2.htm
The Center for Effective Discipline, Columbus, Ohio
http://www.stophitting.com/
End All Corporal Punishment of Children
http://www.neverhitachild.org/
Corporal Punishment and Trauma – Building Better Health
http://healthresources.caremark.com/topic/corporal
Corporal Punishment of Children (Spanking)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/spanking.htm
Giving Guidance on Child Discipline
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7230/261
The Belt, Adrenalin, and Delinquency
http://www.nospank.net/welsh5.htm
Abused Tots Take On Abusive Parents Ways
http://www.nospank.net/tots.htm
Impact of Parenting Styles – Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/parentin.htm
Adult Consequences of Childhood Parenting Styles – Alfred Adler Institute
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/adult.htm
Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids – The Natural Child Project
http://www.naturalchild.com/jan_hunt/tenreasons.html
Guidance for Effective Discipline
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics%3b101/4/723
Spanking Strikes Out
http://life.familyeducation.com/spanking/discipline/36133.html
Corporal Punishment
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/corporal_punishment.html
Force and Fear Have No Place in Education
http://nospank.net/einstein.htm
Physical Punishment and The Development of Aggressive and Violent Behavior – A Review, by Elizabeth Kandel
http://www.neverhitachild.org/areview.html
Let’s Outlaw Any Hitting of Children
http://www.nospank.net/lndsbrg3.htm
Hitting People Is Wrong – and Children Are People Too
http://www.neverhitachild.org/hitting1.html
The Institute for the Study of Anti-Social Behaviour in Youth – Highlights from the Latest Youth Update
http://www.iay.org/youth_update/abstracts_latest_issue.html#Maltreatment%20and%20its%20Impact%20on%20C
Why Do We Hurt Our Children – The Natural Child Project
http://www.naturalchild.com/james_kimmel/punishment.html
Alternatives to Spanking
http://life.familyeducation.com/spanking/discipline/36135.html
Some Thoughts On Spanking – The Natural Child Project
http://www.naturalchild.com/guest/don_fisher.html
Raising Kind Children
http://extension.missouri.edu/xplor/hesguide/humanrel/gh6126.htm
Why You Should Say `No’ to Corporal Punishment – It Doesn’t Work
http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/05-96/05-2796/c02li081.htm
Spanking – An Idea Whose Time Has Gone
http://nospank.net/gurza.htm
Faut-il interdire la fessée? / Should Spanking Be Prohibited?
http://www.nospank.net/n-j48.htm
The Swedish Example
http://parentinginjesusfootsteps.org/crowell-article.html
German Parliament Bans Use Of Corporal Punishment In
Child Rearing
http://nospank.net/deut.htm
Denmark Bans Spanking
http://www.neverhitachild.org/denmark1.html
Israeli High Court on Spanking
http://nospank.net/n-g02.htm
Jerusalem Supreme Court: Corporal Punishment of Children
Is Indefensible
http://nospank.net/israel.htm
Greece Outlaws Corporal Punishment in the Home
http://nospank.net/greece.htm
South Africa’s Constitutional Court Says `NO’ to Spankers in
Christian Schools
http://nospank.net/sacourt2.htm
Spanking of Toddlers to Be a Crime in Scotland
http://www.nospank.net/n-i48.htm
Bangladesh Observes Child Rights Week
http://www.nospank.net/n-f33.htm
BBC News – UK – Smacking Children `Does Not Work’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/252607.stm
Delhi School Kids To Be Spared The Rod
http://nospank.net/delhi.htm
Punjab Bans Corporal Punishment
http://nospank.net/pkstn.htm
No Smacking Rule For Children Under Three
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2001/09/161
Greece outlaws corporal punishment in the home
http://nospank.net/greece.htm
End All Corporal Punishment of Children
http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/
Correlation Between Corporal Punishment and Social Pathologies
http://nospank.net/guthrow.htm
Paddling States v. Non-Paddling States: A National Academic Comparison
http://nospank.net/charles5.htm
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Call For Government Rethink On Hitting Children Following United Nations Report
http://nospank.net/n-j58.htm
Corporal Punishment of Children (Spanking): Introduction and Legality
http://www.religioustolerance.org/spankin2.htm
Kenyan Children Suffer Frequent Beatings by Teachers
http://hrw.org/english/docs/1999/09/09/kenya1654.htm
Dept of Health Issues Guidelines to British Parents on How to Smack TheirChildren
http://wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/smck-f02.shtml
Project NoSpank
http://nospank.net./main.htm
Spanking Articles at findarticles.com
http://findarticles.com/
End All Corporal Punishment of Children – States With Full Abolition
http://endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/frame.html
The Center for Effective Discipline
http://www.stophitting.com/
Parenting Tips
http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/children/parents/behavior/368.html
Spanking – Ages 6 to 12 | ahealthyme.com
http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/spanking6to12
Family Resource Library Resources
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/
A Good Whuppin’? Many Who Survived Childhood Spankings Now Endorse Them, Renewing Debate Over a Peculiar Institution.
http://www.childprotectionreform.org/policy/spanking/washpoststory.htm
Our Children Don’t Deserve to Be Beaten
http://nospank.net/lombardo.htm
Monadnock Area Psychotherapy and Spirituality Services
http://www.mapsnh.org/spanking.html
Family Issue Facts, Spanking, Bulletin 4357
http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/4357.htm
United Nations Committee on Rights of Child
http://www.nospank.net/uncrc.htm
Corporal Punishment Society’s Acceptable Violence Towards Children
http://www.childadvocate.org/1a_research.htm
How Children Really React to Control
http://nospank.net/gordon.htm
Force and Fear Have No Place in Education
http://nospank.net/einstein.htm
Selected Print Medial Coverage
http://www.nospank.net/clips.htm
Let’s Outlaw Any Hitting of Children
http://www.nospank.net/lndsbrg3.htm
Domestic Abuse Organizational and Employee Impact
http://www.newfoundations.com/OrgTheory/Mickles721.html
Plain Talk About Spanking
http://nospank.net/pt2007.htm
This valuable list for advocates who are working to ban violence against children was compiled by James Talbot author of The Road To Positive Discipline: A Parent’s Guide .
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Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column
Until the 1980s homeschooling was a benign activity that affected very few children. After homeschooling became dominated by right wing Christian theocrats, millions of vulnerable children (estimates are suspect because of poor reporting requirements) became virtual prisoners in their own homes, pawns in a scheme to overthrow the United States Government and replace it with a theocracy. The theocrats scheme includes lobbying state legislatures, pressing free exercise of religion cases in the courts and collusion with extreme right wing Republican officials. The result is an almost total lack of oversight by government officials. It will require dedication for the new administration to undo the Bush administration handiwork.
Legitimate homeschools are in league with the sham homeschools because they also want to prohibit any kind of oversight or control. Although the legitimate people have a small public voice, the radical right are loaded with resources and lobbyists.
The Supreme Court gave parents the right to teach children the tenets and the practices of their faith back in 1944. (Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 164 (1944). The Prince decision, together with the Yoder vs Wisconsin decision inspired theocratic zealots to create a rebellious strain of home schooling. Lead by radicals, this movement is creating a virtual fifth column of ignorant children raised to hate democracy and to revile and distrust their government institutions. In this way, the theocrats are systematically grooming innocent children through a staged process involving homeschools, a project called Generation Joshua and the Patrick Henry College. Their aim is to quietly infiltrate, hamper, frustrate and then dismantle the government of the United States and establish a theocracy according to Dominionist theology. The theocrats plan seems to be working because the Bush administration opened the doors of government to Patrick Henry College graduates while the general public has taken little notice. But then, the devious theocrats are anything but honest and above board. They are like cockroaches, termites and other vermin that hide out of sight. They will not advocate a public position because they know they cannot win an honest public debate.
No one contemplated the political power extreme right wing Christians would usurp in the latter decades of the 20st century. Nor, how they would first systematically attack the public school system and then in frustration, how they would begin to withdraw their children from public schools in astonishing numbers. Able to mobilize thousands of parents to swamp legislatures with denial of service calls and emails, they steam rolled their agenda of removing truancy laws across the country. There was little or no opposition from the federal or state governments, who depend upon reliable telephone and Internet connections to operate. Denial of service attacks combined with bare knuckle political threats became weapons of choice and are still used today. HSLDA even brags about their success in hampering the functioning of government.
With sequestered children constantly supervised by zealous despotic parents, the indoctrination of a backward debauched religion can take place 24 hours a day seven days a week. Out of sight, the indoctrination goes unnoticed. The unfortunate children’s parents rigorously shield them from civilian authority, and they are not allowed to associate with anyone that has not been pre-approved. Parents heavily monitor and restrict radio, television, movies, the Internet and live entertainment events. When legal problems threaten, parents use the threadbare guise of sacrosanct religious liberty and call on well heeled advocacy groups like Michael Farris’s Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), Focus on the Family, The Pacific Justice Institute, and The Eagle Forum to name just a few far right heavily funded special interest groups of dubious character.
In these families, there will be no nonsense about Title 9 gender equality, or sex education or tolerance of other’s beliefs; parents are convinced they alone have the truth and all outsiders are Satan’s spawn that are going to hell. There is no effort to teach the children how to reason or make moral judgments based on logic; morality lessons consist of picked over biblical dogma.
This trend has been in place for nearly 20 years and has spawned a vast infrastructure of lobbyists, legal assistance groups, and purveyors of “approved” curriculum materials. Many curriculum materials advertise that they teach subjects in a “godly” way. Believe it or not there are even teaching materials that extend this pedagogy to mathematics!
Dr. Rob Reich (Professor of Political Science and Ethics at Stanford University ) explains what he considers is the major problem in terms of parents deliberately frustrating the development of autonomy in their children:
The problem with homeschooling and parental authority over education arises not out of conflicts over whether children should become independent adults. Few people wish to defend the authority of parents who plainly care too little. The problem arises over parents who, as it were, care too much in seeking to prevent the development of autonomy in their children. I mean to suggest that parents who wish to control the socialization of their children so completely as to instill inerrant beliefs in their own world view or unquestioning obedience to their own or others’ authority are motivated often by a fervent care for, not neglect of their children. Even when defined minimally, some parents may object to the idea that their children should receive an education that promotes their critical thinking and capacities for reflection on their own and other’s ends. Being minimally autonomous, I claimed, was in the interest of the child for personal and civic reasons. The fact that autonomy is necessary for citizenship makes education for autonomy an interest of the state as well. Thus, when parents reject the facilitation of autonomy in their children, they find themselves in conflict with both the interests of the child and of the state.
A measure of just how thoroughly the theocrats took control of the US Department of Education can be gained by the comments made by Jack Klenk, Director of the Office of Non Public Education at the U.S. Department of Education at a recent meeting sponsored by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA a vociferous foe of homeschool oversight ) and featuring eight congressional representatives . Here is part of the HSLDA report on their web site:
Mr. Klenk has served in the Department for over 20 years, and he talked about how he has seen homeschooling start and grow through the years. He also acknowledged that the Department of Education has heard the homeschool community’s message that the “federal government must leave homeschoolers alone,” and will honor that message. He closed by sharing his and the current administration’s belief that “homeschooling is good for children, good for families, and good for society.
Have we no right to expect impartial judgments emanating from such a high government official? Mr Klenk has hopefully departed to other pursuits by this time, if he has not been fired.
The corrupt Bush administration and his allied theocrats were determined to surreptitiously undermine and drag down the government of the United States. Accordingly, it should be obvious to Americans that the Obama administration must act decisively to regulate homeschools on an urgent basis.
Professor Rob Reich proposed the following provisional framework some years ago:
A PROVISIONAL REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR HOME SCHOOLING
Recall that the purpose of these regulations is to help ensure that the state’s interest in providing a civic education for children is met, and to protect the independent interest of the child in developing into a free or autonomous adult. … I propose three minimal regulations. The results of the democratic process might yield additional regulations, which would not necessarily be inconsistent with my views, but these seem to me the bare minimum, as follows:1. All parents who home school must register with a public official. The state needs to be able to distinguish between truants and home-schooled students, and it needs a record that specific children are being home schooled so that its other regulations can be enforced.
2. Parents must demonstrate to educational officials that their homeschool curriculum meets some minimal standard. The minimal standard will include academic benchmarks as well as an assurance that children are exposed to and engaged with ideas, values, and beliefs that are different from those of the parents. For instance, every home-school curriculum should include information about a variety of religious traditions (I believe this should be the case, as well, for public and private schools.) Parents are free to teach their children that their own religious faith is the truth, but they cannot shield children from the knowledge that other people have different convictions and that these people are, from the standpoint of citizenship, their equals.
3. Parents must permit their children to be tested periodically on some kind of basic skills exam. Should home-schooled children repeatedly fail to make progress on this exam, relative to their public or private school peers, then a case could be made to compel school attendance. Label this educational harm. (The same kind of educational harm surely exists in some public schools, of course. And this is one reason that I believe parents should have the authority to hold the state accountable for public schools by pulling their children from failing schools and enrolling them elsewhere.) In short, these regulations amount to the following:
• The state registers who is being home schooled.
• The state insists upon a curriculum that meets minimal academic standards and that introduces students to value pluralism.
• The state tests students periodically to ensure that minimal academic progress is being made.Would many home schools be unable to meet these regulations? …. If creating and enforcing regulations would prevent even a few children from suffering educational harm or from receiving an education that stunted or disabled their freedom, the regulations would be worthwhile. Strictly enforced regulations ensure that parents do not wield total and unchecked authority over the education of their children. What is at stake here is not a question of social utility or stability, whether home schooling could threaten democracy. What is at stake is the justice that we owe children, that they receive an education that cultivates their future citizenship, their individual freedom, and that teaches them at least basic academic skills, skills that are necessary for ably exercising both their citizenship and their freedom.”
I wish I could be as sanguine as Rob Reich, because our democracy could clearly be at risk if millions of compromised children continue to go through this warped religious soaked system. In addition, why settle for minimum standards?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1020/cover.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7630851222567912489#docid=5881186192356745364
God’s Next Army
Documentary about Patrick Henry College for homeschooled evangelical children.
http://www.truthout.org/article/christian-reconstructionists-trying-take-dominion-america
http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={1F86E588-AA4A-43A1-998D-D9BF4FBE4D09} Michael Farris brags about denial of service attack.
About Michael Farris and sham home schools:
http://a2zhomeschool.com/homes
Purge of Professors at Patrick Henry
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/5/26/83129/0021
http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/dominionism.htm
Reports on the web include:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm#_edn14
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v19n3/clarkson_dominionism.html
http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/5/155457/0298
http://a2zhomeschool.com/homeschool/2009/06/16/reconstruction-theology-and-home-education/
Books
American Fascists, The Christian Right and The War on America, by Chris Hedges
Kingdom Coming, The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg
American Theocracy, The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury by Kevin Philips
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2047
Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling
Author: Robert Kunzman
Product Code: 3291 ISBN: 978-080703291-6
Copyright Date Ed: 08/01/2009
A compelling look at conservative Christian homeschooling families—and the worldview that could radically alter American political and intellectual life.
Reports on the web include:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm#_edn14
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v19n3/clarkson_dominionism.html
http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/5/155457/0298
http://a2zhomeschool.com/homeschool/2009/06/16/reconstruction-theology-and-home-education/
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Do we have a right to tell people they are wrong?
Believe it or not, this question was posed to me in a public parenting forum, hosted by Amazon.com. This is how I responded.
Yes, you bet we do. In life we all make choices that effect our communities, unless we live alone on a desert island. Incompetent parents raise children who because of the maltreatment they endured are angry and become dangerous to everybody around them. Not to mention they live stunted lives and never achieve the potential every human has a right to aspire to. Some wind up incarcerated for long periods or are even executed for capital crimes. Would it not make a lot more sense to get ahead of the problem and seek KNOWN strategies of prevention?
Others who suffered abuse seem to live quasi-normal lives, marry, and have children. Which are likely going to also wind up abused and create yet more stunted lives. This fact only recently came to light although children have been maltreated throughout history.
An official estimate of the Department of Health and Human Services, using 2007 child abuse data for the US, puts the cost for that year at around 94 billion dollars. We all pay such costs and besides an ethical obligation to improve life for all our citizens, the fact we must pay such staggering financial costs certainly gives us the right to speak out, especially against willful ignorance. It is vital that we drop the pretensions and speak frankly.
If people are so backward and simple minded that they cannot understand this basic fact, that is unfortunate for them. Trying to protect the feelings of such people, who will not listen to reason, commands far less importance that trying to prevent very real harm to thousands of children.
I will bend over backwards for anyone who lacks knowledge and is sincere in wanting to understand the facts. I realize that many people do not, unfortunately, have a grasp of the scientific method or how statistical analysis operates to reveal truth. (I only managed a C in that course and I had to have a tutor.) The average American is mystified by how a tv or radio works let alone the bell curve of statistics. But if I can manage some understanding, others can if they try.
Note:
From the HHS web site:http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/foundation/foundationf.cfm
Studies have documented the link between abuse and neglect of children and a range of physical, emotional, psychological, and behavioral problems. In addition to the tragic consequences endured by the children who have been maltreated, society pays a high monetary cost for child maltreatment. The costs for child maltreatment include both direct costs (i.e., those associated with the immediate needs of abused and neglected children) and indirect costs (i.e., those associated with the longer term and secondary effects of child maltreatment). Since some maltreatment goes unrecognized and it is difficult to link costs to specific incidents, it is not possible to determine the actual cost of child abuse and neglect. As estimated by Prevent Child Abuse America, the total annual cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States may be as high as $94 billion, as shown in Exhibit 6-1
Hitting or humiliating children is maltreating them. Centuries of this practice does not validate it as legitimate.
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Are bigots besmirching your blog, fouling up your forum?
- Image via Wikipedia
Bigotry
1. stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.
2. the actions, beliefs, prejudices, etc., of a bigot.
Synonyms:
1. narrow-mindedness, bias, discrimination.
Some bigotry can be traced to ignorance, but not all bigots are ignorant. There are educated bigots to be sure. These ones are usually mired in hatred of one kind or another. Hate for a person of a different religion, ethnic background, or sexual practice. No matter the cause or target of a bigot they are exasperating beyond description. Stonewall, is a fitting description. Like talking to a stone wall. The concept of intellectual honesty eludes them and so they deliberately misconstrue opponents arguments, engage in hyperbole, non sequiturs, and bombast. Apparently, a bigot feels if they are loud enough and forceful enough, their arguments will sway opinion. Unfortunately, this belief has some credibility.
Times of crisis seem to bring out the bigots in full force, because they are basically cowards and there is nothing like a crisis to promote fear, which is their stock in trade. Radio and TV shows featuring “talk” are a favorite haunt. Unfortunately, the host of conservative talk shows are raving bigots, and here I am thinking of the likes of Fox news personalities like Hannity, Beck, Goldberg, and O’Reilly. How did we come to the point when ignorance and stubbornness became valued, indeed marketable, personal traits. Professional bigots command salaries in the millions of dollars and preside over programming that is a virtual factory for turning out more of their kind. The danger to our democracy is that these Idiot Americans vote and are easily led.
The Assault on Reason
The Assault on Reason is a 2007 book written by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. In the book, Gore argues that there is a trend in U.S. politics towards ignoring facts and analysis when making policy decisions. He heavily criticizes the George W. Bush administration for its actions in furthering the “assault on reason”, and also the Congress, Judiciary, and press for being complicit in the process. Gore also suggests the average citizen must be proactive in “restoring democracy”. He expresses hopes that the medium of the Internet will supersede television and what he argues is its inherent bias, creating a “marketplace of ideas” that has not been present since the replacement of the printed word with mass media.
The book ranked number one on the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction during the first four weeks of its release, and was on the list top 35 for fifteen weeks.[1] Actor Will Patton narrates the audio version. – Wikipedia entry
You can read excerpts from this book here:
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1622015-3,00.html#ixzz0YMQD8QS6
Book Excerpt in Time Magazine: The Assault on Reason
By Al Gore Wednesday, May. 16, 2007The Last Temptation of Al Gore
Long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving Senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: “This chamber is, for the most part, silent-ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United States Senate.”
Why was the Senate silent?In describing the empty chamber the way he did, Byrd invited a specific version of the same general question millions of us have been asking: “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?” The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable.
It is too easy-and too partisan-to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us? Why has America’s public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason-the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power-remains the central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.
[...]
So the remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the re-establishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way-a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response.
So what can we do about them if we wish to have civil productive public discourse? Lately my strategy has been to tell them I am going to ignore them. In the Amazon discussion forums, the designers of the software thoughtfully provided an “Ignore this customer” button. Once pressed, you no longer see any further posts by the bigot but you can guess from the reaction of the other participants how things are going. This strategy usually has the effect of enraging a bigot and they began calling you names, or otherwise making an ass of themselves, which when reported gets them removed from the forum (and likely any other forums so unlucky to have them). If that scenario doesn’t play out, they usually tire of talking to what is effectively a stonewall (ironic, no) and leave of their own accord. The tactic falls under the category of conversational intolerance. Think about it this way. If you are at cocktail party enjoying a conversation with a group of friends and a bigot saunters in and goes into their act, you can make a face and politely excuse yourself and leave the group. From a distance, keep your eye on what happens next. The bigot will eventually get marginalized and leave. Then you can go back and resume your fellowship with your friends, sans molestation.
In the case of a blog, most blog software makes it easy to remove an objectionable, abusive or bigoted participant. I don’t know about you, but my policy is not to issue any warning. It is like being able to build a stone wall for defense.
Conversational intolerance
[Sam] Harris suggests that he advocates a benign, corrective form of intolerance, distinguishing it from historic religious persecution. He promotes a conversational intolerance, in which personal convictions are scaled against evidence, and where intellectual honesty is demanded equally in religious views and non-religious views. He also believes there is a need to counter inhibitions that prevent the open critique of religious ideas, beliefs, and practices under the auspices of “tolerance.”[13]
Harris maintains that such conversation and investigation are essential to progress in every other field of knowledge. As one example, he suggests that few would require “respect” for radically differing views on physics or history; instead, he notes, societies expect and demand logical reasons and valid evidence for such claims, while those who fail to provide valid support are quickly marginalized on those topics. Thus, Harris suggests that the routine deference accorded to religious ideologies constitutes a double standard, which, following the events of September 11, 2001 attacks, has become too great a risk.[13]
In the 2007 PBS interview, Harris said, “The usefulness of religion, the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good is not an argument for the truth of any religious doctrine. It’s not an argument that it’s reasonable to believe that Jesus really was born of a virgin or that the Bible is the perfect word of the creator of the universe. You can only believe those things or you should be only be able to believe those things if you think there are good reasons to believe those things.” — Wiki Entry for Sam Harris
What are your suggestions for dealing with a bigot.
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Parents strongly resist anti-spanking laws
Pro-spanking advocates insist they are against spanking bans because they wish to protect the sanctity of parental discretion. Leave aside the ethics or efficacy of using violence against children as a form of discipline. The issue is that parents must not be hampered in any way as they carry out their parental duties in accordance with their personal judgment. But does their argument withstand careful scrutiny?
Few parents would expect to go into a court and defend themselves against a motor vehicle code violation issued for not complying with a child safety seat ordinance. Laws are in effect all over the country that demand children under certain height and weight specifications ride in child seats and not regular passenger seats. This is because in case of a crash, inflatable air bags can actually kill or maim a small child when they inflate. Passenger car seats are designed for adult bodies, not child bodies and can actually produce injuries to children.
The child safety seat laws are founded on scientific research that predicts what will likely happen to children who are not protected by riding in a seat especially constructed for their safe transportation. Likewise, spanking bans are founded on scientific studies of the harm that will likely happen statistically to a number of children if such bans are not in place. Anti-spanking bans are not based simply on conjecture, but derive their authority based on valid data, rigorously compiled and analyzed.
Libertarian supporters of parental rights don’t seem to object to mandatory child safety seat laws. If their concern is really about government interference in their parental decision making, shouldn’t they therefore resist buying and using expensive child safety seats? What right does the government have to insist parents protect their children from harm by putting them in a car safety seat?
Likewise, many cities and towns have vehicle codes that require children to wear safety helmets when riding on a bike or as a passenger on a motorcycle. Do parents who favor unrestricted control over their decision making, think they would survive a court challenge in case they disregard child safety helmet laws?
When you board an airplane your children must wear a seat belt or you and the child will be removed from the plane. Why do libertarians not object to this intrusion into their parental decision making.
The objection to a spanking ban fails for the same reason that the parental rights defense fails in the instances cited. Although parental rights certainly have a place in the overall scheme of how society raises future generations, child safety deserves a higher priority than noble, abstract, theoretical considerations defending unrestricted parental rights.
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The Christian Morality Help Center Project
- Image by Rob Sheridan via Flickr
Christians rely on religious texts such as the bible to guide their moral behavior, or if they cannot find an answer to their moral issue in the Bible they consult their clerics. As our product experts here at the Christian Morality Help Center closely examined these time consuming options, we had no alternative but to conclude a new approach using modern technology will be the best solution to helping Christians live morally. By the way, the Cell Phone Bible Edition and the more compact Cell Phone Ten Commandments edition are going to be ready for release, real soon. Until then, Christians can carry a printed edition of the KJB, NIV, RSV, ASV; Greek N-A or any combination you like. Keep them handy at all times in your purse or backpack. Now, we realize how tiring that can be after a while, but relax, help is on the way. Our product development team has laid in a supply of Jolt Cola and Cheetos and is working around the clock to produce our product spec. Let me tell you about the project.
Problem Definition
Even if a Christian has one or more bibles or a copy of the Ten Commandments with them, it is often difficult to find the exact bible verse or commandment that fits your immediate moral dilemma and time is often a pressing factor. All of us Christians know our Bibles are just crammed with helpful advice, but unfortunately, most of it is contradictory and you wind up after wasting your precious time applying your own common sense, anyway. Well we are going to eliminate time wasting bible searches for you. You’ll see. It’s going to be great. We will even be including a solution to the fat man on the overpass dilemma.
When you think about it, the Ten Commandments are not much help in our modern world what with suicidal religious maniacs and fertilizer bombers on the loose. Plus, who can remember all 10 of the commandments, or is it 18 or 20? Secondly, I don’t recall reading anything in the commandments about overpasses, passenger trolleys or sacrificing one fat men to save other lives. What is the problem with fat men anyway?
We say the Ten Commandments are just too simplistic to help modern people, with all due respect of course. With just a modicum of thought you can easily see that even that old workhorse of ethical thought, the Golden Rule, is no help with the fat man and the train dilemma. Because, if I am the fat man I don’t want to get thrown on the tracks. No way! And I never, ever indicated I would throw someone over the railing, either. How does the Golden Rule apply?
Let me assure you the Christian Morality Help Center Design Team analysts along with our staff of ethicists and moralists are assiduously grappling with all such opaque moral problems Christians may encounter. We promise to supply fast concrete, concise answers to your requests for help using our patented BioEnergyFrequency accelerator software technology (Scientologists, take note!). I’ll just say here however, that to meet our aggressive development milestones we are really trying to avoid getting bogged down in pages and pages of dusty Christian dogma written eons ago by committees that didn’t respect the limited patience for double talk and obfuscation most readers today have for this kind of exposition. No disrespect meant, of course. It is just so wearing on a person to have to wade through texts on dogma. You thought the ISO 9000 QA regulations were a pain. Boy, there is no comparison.
The other option questioning Christians have now is to call their cleric for advice. But, our lab tests revealed the trolley and the hapless passengers are probably going to be history long before you ever get through your cleric’s answering machine command options. Let’s see now; press one for condom use, two for school prayer, three for chastity. Nah, that’s not fast enough in the real world and there are no options on his machine for trolleys or fat men. None, that we could find anyway. You can quickly see the problems with this scheme. Even if you do manage to select a good button and leave a message, your cleric might also get dragged down in dogma, which at the risk of being tedious, we have just pointed out, can be extremely vexing and time consuming to wade through (no offense meant). Then when he does get back to you, the answer is going to be filled with so many qualifications, ifs, ands, CYAs, and maybes, you might be more at a loss than you were to start with. You’ll have to go through the entire process all over again hoping to get a more appropriate answer. Can you see why our analysts rejected this solution?
Lastly, you could resort to a more direct, face to face approach if your nearest cleric is reasonably close by. Bear in mind, your cleric is a busy person, what with talking to paving and painting contractors, roofing experts, bankers, and maybe even composing a weighty sermon or two (although they could save time going to Google). Your cleric has to wear many hats. Plus they have to respond to hundreds of other parishioners and they might all have dire moral issues at the same time as you and need a quick response. Please take a number.
So by now, I think you’ll agree our proposed solution is best. I am proudly speaking about our fully modern, computer-equipped Christian Morality Help Center, staffed by knowledgeable friendly assistants. The good part is the assistants really don’t have to know a lot about solving moral dilemmas. They just have to be pretty good at text searches in what I propose to call the Morality Answers Database (MAD).
After we get this Christian project up and running, and the Buddhists, Mormons, Jains, Muslims and Jews see how beneficial it is, we can contract to design especially tailored morality help centers. I am positive all the religions will want their very own. From my limited study, the thing that stands out to me is that all religions don’t exactly agree with Christian morality on some of the more arcane points, like whether to stone apostates and women seen in the company of males who they are not related to or married to. Nonetheless, I’m convinced we are on the right track and this product concept is going to become a “killer app” as we marketing guys say. It will just take some judicious modification to get the Christian MAD ported over. Because of all the differences in religions, think of all the theologists, egg heads, computer programmers and technicians that will find work in these hard times. This will be a huge, badly needed boost to our economy — almost as big as the NASA space station. We may get the Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States. Well it pays to think big.
When we roll out the product, here is how the concept will work:
You, Mr or Mrs Christian, encounter a Christian moral problem. The first step is to connect to the Christian Morality Help Center by phone or computer. After you complete the simple security formalities by stating your full name, customer number, social security number (no hyphens please), pass code, mother’s maiden name, birthplace, color of your first car, make and model of your toaster, your pet dog’s name, your favorite cousin’s astrology sign and your favorite soft drink, the center will complete a quick confirmation of what you supplied. The security check is going to be fast and will probably take no more than 20 maybe 30 minutes tops. Don’t worry, it’s a toll free call, at least for our new customers, for a while.
As soon as an attendant is available (for the fastest service, place your call at 1:00 AM UT) you’ll be whisked right over to your personal help center attendant, who to save costs is probably in Calcutta, India. No worries, they all speak good English, and have easily remembered Anglo Saxon first names. Have you, like me, wondered how they all have Anglo Saxon names? This must have resulted from when the Brits were running India as a colony. Don’t bring this up to your attendant though; they are still slightly peeved at the Brits as I understand it.
Once your attendant completes your interview process and has your problem well in hand they will turn to their computer and type in some key words. Before you know it, their computer screen will light up with all kinds of “hits”. Then all that is required is to read this list to you or send it to your computer. Simple, no? In chat mode with the attendant your amazingly complex, state of the art computer can work just like those Teletypes we used to use, only slower.
To my mind, the absolute best part of the system is that the Christian moral seeker is totally relieved of any tedious effort needed to think through their problem and apply logic and reason to finding a solution. Don’t you agree logic and ethics are two of the most intellectually challenging academic specialties? Who needs them when you have a Bible or better yet our subscription service. Do you know anyone in your family or among your friends who chose such a loser academic path? Not my dad or mom.
I often wonder why god has not updated his commandments to — you know, sort of better suit our modern world (no offense God). Why do you insist on hiding? Maybe the Deists are right and after you made our little solar system, you went in search of bigger and better cosmological projects, thinking we would take responsibility for the planet, all of the life on the planet, and ourselves, of course. Let’s hope we fix it back up before God thinks about returning to check on how we are minding his handiwork. It would not be good to disappoint the big guy.
About the fat man and the trolley problem don’t be squeamish. Toss him over the rail onto the train tracks. It’s really a very simple moral judgment problem. At least that’s how I see it. I gotta get back to writing the spec. I’m jazzed and I’ve only had 10 Jolt Colas.
By, Richard Collins
Copyright, all rights reserved
Available on Amazon Kindle
Resources:
http://tinyurl.com/267etl New York Times Magazine – The Moral Instinct
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