Doug Cutrell says:
I think the issue is far from clear. While I agree that the liberty of parents must of course be protected, I believe that the liberty of children is an equally important issue. While I can understand the strong historical, social, and even biological roots of the desire to maintain absolute control over one's children, I believe that children do have inalienable rights as unique and individual persons.
That may be so. However, I agree with Tim that I don't think society is equiped to make decisions on when a child should be taken from parents simply because they have odd views. Unless a child is being physically tortured I am not sure that mechanisms can be designed that will not, for the most part, be abused and used largely to attack non-conformists, of which I am one.
How are we to clearly distinguish between the parent who confines his child to an attic room 24 hours a day from the parent who puts up similar informational walls that block his access to knowledge of the world?
I see no reason to attempt to distinguish the cases. I know parents that do not provide their children with television sets -- perhaps the new-fangled crime of "information deprivation" would be used to attack them. I know of Amish families, and I have no interest in tearing children away from them, either. Leave people alone, I say.
Hence, the attitude of child "ownership" by parents may call for serious re-examination.
I'm an extremist in this regard -- I believe all children "own" themselves. Thats not the point. I also don't want the state monitoring people's child rearing. The child abuse industry is already far out of proportion. Under some of the proposals mentioned here, Amish people would be considered criminals. Why? Who have they hurt? I have no fascination with or desire to aid other people's children. I want them to leave me alone, and leave my children alone, and anything that weakens that in the name of "the common good" is going to end up hurting ME in the end, given that I'm a strong nonconformist. Perry