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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel W. Koehler who wrote (3569)	5/4/2000 11:39:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13062

The precise question here is "what is in the best long term welfare of the child"? Are you SURE you want to pose that as the question? The best interests of the child (omitting "long term") is, of course, the legal phrase family courts use, but they don't mean it in an open ended sense. As long as one parent is even minimally able to care for the child, what the term means is which parent is it better for the child to place them with. If we are to replace our legal system with a pure best interests of the child standard, and are to define best interests in monetary terms (who can give the child the most toys) or in political system terms (who claims to give the child the most freedom), a lot of kids in this world, including mine, would probably be placed with somebody other than their parents. For starters, Bill Gates would become the foster parent to every underfed child in America. Is it liberty with relatives or condemnation to grow up a slave of the State with his father? Slavery is, as you know, a deliberately loaded and factually incorrect term to use here, since nobody is accusing the Cuban government of selling its citizens. You use it, of course, to be perjorative. But let that pass. Your statement still raises some interesting questions. What is your evidence that Juan Gonzales is a slave, or even something remotely approaching it? In what ways is he controlled? In what ways is he enslaved? If you define the terms correctly, of course, all citizens of any government are slaves. You and I, of course, are slaves of our state in many ways. Our money is confiscated to give to other citizens without our consent. if we have children and divorce, we are ordered to pay child support to someone who may have stolen from us, beaten us, abused us, etc. If we choose not to work to pay that child support, the government can and will throw us in jail. (Not a theory -- it happens.) If a child is ordered by the government to spend time with a parent and refuses to do so, the courts can and will throw the child in jail. (Not a theory -- it has happened in this state.) We have the second highest percent of population in prison of any country in the world -- far higher than Cuba. Is a prison inmate free, or a slave? The consolation of living in our country is that our system may enslave us with one hand, but with the other, having taken our money out of our pockets, it has the intelligence to buy back our loyalty with our own money by letting us buy lots of toys, go to Disneyland, etc. But are Americans truly freer in the things that count in life? I wonder. What arrogance gives us the right to decide that every child in Cuba would have a better life in America? We, of course, have no slums, no homeless people, no starving. Our families are intact, our children are free of drugs, we are a paradise for the world's children. Forgive me for barfing. Come on, Chris. You imply that Juan Gonzales actually has any political choice in Cuba! Who's kidding whom? He has as much choice in Cuba as I have in America. What exactly are the odds that this country will actually elect a Libertarian Congress and President? About half the chance that Cuba will revolt and overthrow Castro. Revolt here, of course, despite the right--even obligation--stated in the Declaration of Independence to revolt, is far less likely than in Cuba. With our extraordinary military might, with the experiences of Ruby Ridge and Waco, with citizen militas functionally disarmed (I do not and would not belong to one, I do not and never have owned or even shot a gun, but I still recognize tyranny when I see it), revolt in this country is far less possible than in Cuba.