[ExI] Children’s Rights

[SR Ballard]

> On Nov 15, 2018, at 7:54 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have been an advocate for children's rights for fifty years (pause for applause).  
> 
> A few years ago a child (age uncertain) got a legal divorce from her parents.  A sign of things to come, I hope. 

How I feel about the issue largely depends on age. I don’t think a small child can be responsible for themselves, and I’m sure you’d agree that there’s not a firm line, but there’s a point where someone is going to be “too young”. 

> They take dogs away from owners for fairly small owner misbehaviors compared to what children have to tolerate.

Well, we also euthanize dogs, but not children. While the two have been compared, especially now that couples are viewing pets as “starter” children, or a replacement for children, they’re not a particularly good parallel in my opinion. 

For example we never force our children to breed, and especially not with their own children. We don’t send them to war to be shot and blown up. We don’t sterilize them. And so on. 

I also tend to think that falsely separating dogs from owners is a lesser offense that falsely separating children from their parents. 

But to be honest, what action would get a dog removed but is not grounds for removing a child? Being outside without shelter? Illegal tethering? Viscous beating? Biting the mailman? Medical neglect?

>   I support making spanking illegal and can give you pages of reasons supported by data.  The main reason, outside of its being cruel, is that it just doesn't work very well.  It tends to suppress behavior, not get rid of it.  It drives the behavior underground, kids finding ways to hide it, it creates a lot of resentment, and so on.  Much more effective ways to create good behavior and get rid of the bad exist.  If it is so effective why don't we use it on adults?  thirty lashes for drunk driving?

I don’t think it’s terribly effective either, purely based on anecdotal evidence. I didn’t understand why I was being spanked, basically ever. 

And further than that, many parents say they’re spanking their children when really they’re just beating the snot out of them. As we move away from a physically violent culture I imagine the acceptability will steadily decline.

And you can find many, many people who would be okay with the public lashes, and would applaud them. I oppose mostly based on sanitary grounds. If I’m bleeding and the last guy was bleeding then I’ll probably get some disease, and the uptick in healthcare costs are just not worth it. 

But is a parent punishing a child analogous to the state punishing a person? Or should the analogy be made of the parent hitting the child is like being beaten by a stranger for doing something displeasing? 

Wouldn’t a child getting lashes for rolling their eyes be more in-line with the “aggressive stranger” than an “established violation of authority”?

-

But having two groups of friends: very “hard” leftists and very religious Mormons, this is one of those issues where I don’t really know where I stand. What rights should children have, and when? One group of my friends would say “all the rights all the time” and the other would say “none of the rights until adulthood” but clearly the answer is somewhere in between. I’m just not sure how to figure out where it should be. 


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