From: Schaerer <schaerer@swbell.net>
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 16:59:17 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Kalifornia Scoffs at Privacy for Minors
Message-ID: <352FF542.22F3@swbell.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>Eric Cordian wrote:
>> Jim Byrnes writes:
>> > Bwaahaha.  ROTFLOL! No argument over public schools, but families?  Ok,
>> > I'll send my eight year old out to fend for himself.  Its about time
>> > that lazy bum got a job. 
>> 
>> You seem to be under the misperception that since society has entrusted
>> you with the care of a member of a class of individuals having special
>> needs, that such individuals have no civil rights as long as you are
>> giving them something. 
>> 
>> The rights of your biological offspring do not depend in the least on
>> their working to support themselves.  Your legal obligation to provide
>> food, shelter, education, and medical care does not depend in the least
>> upon your getting your own way at their expense 100% of the time, or being
>> allowed to violate their reasonable personal boundaries and limits.

>This legal obligation is another form of slavery, then. Somehow the
>law makes parents slaves to their children.
>
>        - Igor.


... slavery only to yourself - who made the choice to have children in
the first place?  Once you make that choice, you're stuck with it. 
That's not a penalty, just propagation of species: you accept the
responsibility to teach your children what they need to know in order
for them to become functional adults, so they may someday do the same. 
To extend on this 'teaching process', it seems folly to assume that a
child will all-of-a-sudden turn into a thinking, reasonable adult on
their 18th birthday without a certain degree of critical thinking
ability beforehand.

- Jim Schaerer