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

To: The Philosopher who wrote (4599)	1/4/2001 7:52:55 PM
From: diana g	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13056

<<<"...So is it your position that if parents want to beat their children senseless, or do permanent physical damage to them, that is their right and nothing government should do anything about?">>>> In a word, Yes. Of course there are rare instances of parents who do such things, but the instances of children who are damaged by being 'saved' by the gvrnmnt are far more extensive. The harm that is done in the name of 'Saving The Children' (from their parents) is one of the strongest arguments that can be made for a more libertarian form of gvrnmnt, imho. It is unfortunate that there is no way to insure that all children have a loving, nurturing environment in which to grow up. I wish there were. But allowing gvrnmnt to intrude into families is not the answer. Any open-eyed examination of the result of empowering gvrnmnt to intrude into family life shows this clearly. The fact is that parents are the people who are most likely (by far) to have the best interests of children at heart. The abuse of children by their own parents is very rare compared to the abuse children suffer in foster homes and institutions. Allowing gvrnmnt agents to have power to take children from their parents results in much more harm than good, imho. 'Child abuse by parents' is an example of a reason offered by advocates of powerful and intrusive gvrnmnt as a moral justification for their position. They use isolated examples of abuse by parents to back up claims that gvrnmnt must have power to intervene in all families as it sees fit. ---Here's something Tom Jefferson said: <<<"It is said that men are not fit to govern themselves. Has God then given us angels in the form of monarchs to govern us? Let history answer this question.">>> Now we have bureaucrats and other gvnrmnt functionaries in the place of Tom's monarchs, but the idea is the same. If you will allow the social service agents the power to decide if another person should be allowed to raise their children as they see fit, you cannot logically object to those agents deciding how you should raise your children. If you trust gvrnmnt to to decide how your children should be raised, you have a much different view of gvrnmnt's trustworthiness and competence than I. If we, as a species, need gvrnmnt to protect our children from us; to intervene between parent and child, then there is no hope for us. Imho. Imho, the family should be absolutely untouchable by gvrnmnt. Free people are not (or should not be) subject to the approval by overlords of what they believe or how they raise their children or conduct their families. ---These are not matters that involve interaction in a larger social sphere (outside the family) and therefore require mutually agreed upon rules and codes of behavior. In its proper form, gvrnmnt provides a structure whereby people can together decide on the laws they will be subject to in their interactions with one another. That is one of the primary purposes of gvrnmnt, imho. ---But the family is outside the proper area of gvrnmnt function, imho. Just as the gvrnmnt would be out of bounds if it tried to tell you you must stop eating meat or that you must attend church, it is outside its proper boundaries if it intrudes in the family. Will some awful things happen? Will some children suffer more than otherwise? Yes. But there is no way we can arrange the world so that awful things don't happen to some children. Far fewer awful things happen when the gvrnmnt is smaller and less intrusive, imho. regards, diana