Parental Rights - The New Wedge Issue

[Yurt]

you guys are wrong about the UN. the UN is the bestest, most awesomest ruling body on earth. i saw star trek...the federation....think UN...and everybody knows star trek RULES

 

[Avatar4321]

Wedge issue = Issues I oppose but dont have a really good argument against. So in order to win people to my position, i have to attack it as pointless.

 

[garyd]

Good call avatar.

 

[Amanda]

American Family Rights Association :: The Voice of America's Families©

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) last week introduced a bill in the House to amend the U.S. Constitution to permanently “enshrine” in American society an inviolable set of parents’ rights. The bill had 70 co-sponsors, all Republicans, including Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John A. Boehner.

A United Nations human rights treaty that could prohibit children from being spanked or homeschooled, ban youngsters from facing the death penalty and forbid parents from deciding their families' religion is on America's doorstep, a legal expert warns.

"It's definitely on our doorstep," he said. "The left wants to make the Obama-Clinton era permanent. Treaties are a way to make it as permanent as stuff gets. It is very difficult to extract yourself from a treaty once you begin it. If they can put all of their left-wing socialist policies into treaty form, we're stuck with it even if they lose the next election."

The 1990s-era document was ratified quickly by 193 nations worldwide, but not the United States or Somalia. In Somalia, there was then no recognized government to do the formal recognition, and in the United States there's been opposition to its power. Countries that ratify the treaty are bound to it by international law.

Although signed by Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., on Feb. 16, 1995, the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty, largely because of conservatives' efforts to point out it would create that list of rights which primarily would be enforced against parents.

United Nations' threat: No more parental rights

This is a really tough 1 for me....

I think loving parents shouldn't be interfered with, but who decides who is acting in the best interest of the child and who is abusive?

In every point mentioned I can see both sides. Should children be beaten? Hell no. but sometimes a swat on the bottom can get the attention of an otherwise defiant child. I got my fair share of swats and looking back I understand why and don't resent my parents. OTOH, some parents are violent abusers that shouldn't be allowed near children. So, it's really hard... In general I don't think we should hand over raising children to the state. I think there's way more potential for damage there then at the hands on parents.

I think 1 of the most important jobs a parent has is imparting their values to their children and taking that away makes being a parent little more than a drone-like caregiver. Why not just drop your kids off at day care after they are born if you don't get to really be their parent? I don't know if I could have children and live with those restrictions. That's really a sad thought, I've been looking forward to having kids for a long time.

 

[Amanda]

is there something in the water in michigan?

Besides 3 eyed fish?

 

[NOBama]

By Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D
December 18, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Mass incarcerations without trial or charge; forced confessions; children forcibly separated from their parents with no reasons given; doctored hearing transcripts and falsified court records; evidence fabricated against the innocent; government agents entering the homes, examining private papers and personal effects, and seizing the property of citizens who are under no suspicion of legal wrongdoing; special courts created specifically to convict people who cannot be convicted in ordinary courts; children instructed to hate their parents by state functionaries: Is all this the Soviet Union in the 1930s or Communist China in the 1960s? Is this some novelist’s prognosticated dystopia? No, all this and more is routine in the United States today.

Among the most disturbing tales to come out of totalitarianism were the revelations of how both Nazi and Communist governments intruded into family life. The practice of governments dictating to parents what they could tell their children or using children as informers against their parents strikes us as chilling and unnatural. Yet similar practices are occurring in America today on a much more massive scale.

What we are talking about here is family law, a secretive political underworld of which few are aware until it strikes them. Parents summoned to family court discover that their children can be taken away, they can be forced to turn over all their property without explanation to government officials and their private clients, their future earnings can be confiscated to the point where they are unable to house or feed themselves, and they can be incarcerated without trial – all without any evidence or even charge that they have committed any actionable offense.

Stephen Baskerville Ph.D. -- Totalitarianism in America

Our government is systematically destroying families, specifically parent/child relationships, through the family courts in this country. So when somebody points out a Bill that further contributes to the destruction of the family unit, regardless of the composition of that unit, pay heed because it's as serious as a heart attack.

These jokers don't know how to manage their own families, but they profess to know what's "in the best interest of the children". OUR children.