Do I wake or sleep?

I don't know, I don't see those kids having the opportunity to question their parents' beliefs anytime soon. They're almost certainly home-schooled, and the "church" they supposedly represent is made up of only members of the P----- family, with a parish of something like 10. In fact, they lost their non-profit status. I can't imagine the stultifying, "intellectual" echo chamber that is their homelife. It's like the spiritual version of those four little boys in Trenton. It really bothers me. Those kids don't even have the chance the Trenton kids did, because what the Phelps family is doing is not illegal. I feel such deep sorrow for them.

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Now, there's nothing wrong with home-schooling per se. Let's not equate home-schooling with ignorance and bigotry, here, especially since it's not even determined that these children are in fact home-schooled. (Like any freedom, the freedom to teach one's own children can be misused by the wicked, but the answer isn't to eliminate the freedom).

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Michael. Please go back and reread what I wrote. I theorized that the kids were homeschooled which I think is a reasonable guess, based on their extreme beliefs (you really think this guy wants to send his kids to public school when they're currently picketing another public school now for supposedly teaching gay tolerance?) and the fact that the kids were picketing far away from their home on a school day. Did I say anything negative per se or otherwise about homeschooling? Did I equate home-schooling with anything? No. And I never said or alluded to anything about eliminating freedoms, either to teach one's kids or otherwise. The point I was making was these kids were likely not exposed to alternative views, because the parents are systematically isolating them.

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Clearly, I'm not at my intellectual sharpest, as I misread your comment. My apologies. But your statement that "Those kids don't even have the chance the Trenton kids did, because what the Phelps family is doing is not illegal.", in the context of home-schooling, made me believe your criticism was directed at home-schooling as a legal alternative to traditional public or private schools, rather than at the parents.

You're probably right about their education, but it's not certain. I'll agree that it is fairly certain they're not being exposed to a wealth of different opinions at home.

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I think isolating children so completely that they are political clones of oneself and will likely grow up to be repulsive creatures is wrong. But not illegal. Don't read into that a larger criticism of home-schooling in general. I'm criticizing the tactics of isolation, not the home-schooling.

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Fortunately, unless one lives in a compound in Montana (Ruby Ridge) or Texas (Waco), it's fairly difficult in modern society to completely isolate one's offspring from the world at large.

Sometimes the attempt to is admirable (I think children could do with a bit less exposure to violence in television and popular music) and sometimes it's wrong.

Like it or not, it's for the family to decide.

This brings up an interesting philosophical question, however: does indoctrination guarantee permanent acceptance of the doctrine, or is there something in the human character that is stronger and leads us eventually to question what we've been told?

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At least the children had the opportunity to see others question their parents' beliefs, even if the events do not register in their minds immediately. Perhaps sometime in the future they will remember enough to start the questioning themselves. The incident cannot be forgotten, especially now that it has been publicized and that a written record exists.

The society surrounding them will also have the opportunity to influence the children, directly or indirectly. If their "church" consists of 10 people, at some point they will have to interact with the outside world.

It is unfortunate that the children cannot be taken away from their parents on abuse grounds simply because they are being taught to hate. There are people on this planet who should not be allowed to take care of little ones.

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Who is to decide who should be allowed to have children? To what extent are we willing to surrender our freedoms? Starving or physically abusing a child may be one thing, but to allow the government to decide that certain teachings constitute "abuse" opens to door to some seriously ominous possibilities...

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Ruining a child's mind can be considered mental and psychological abuse, particularly if the learned behaviour leads the child to be incapable of dealing with the rest of society as soon as the child leaves his or her cloistered existence.

The law in this country as defined by the Courts is that being a parent is a fundamental right. However, the rest of us in society at large have to deal with the consequences of the improper people having and raising children. Thus, if do not want to deal with "damaged children" (term used only to refer to those children to whom the incorrect and improper teachings have imparted by ignorant parents), society should be able to step in when necessary to correct and impart the necessary information to counteract the wrongs that have already been taught, and perhaps ingrained in young minds.

Abuse a child, whether physically, mentally, psychologically, or in any other way, and I believe that you have lost your freedom and right to be a parent. It is not enough to keep the child clothed and well-fed, but one should also be concerned about the other intangible parts of a child's well-being.

In this society, you receive more training to drive a car than you do to raise a child. And yet, a child's life is far more complex but it is not given as much thought. It is up to society, or rather, to those in the area of the child, to give the appropriate support to safeguard the child. While you or I have been blessed with family members who have raised us well and have taught us right from wrong, many are not. Such as those children from Kansas. Perhaps it would be better to have a communal way to raise children as is done in other parts of the world. Impractical, yes, but the results may be better in the long run.

There is a difference between involvement by government that is not directly affected by the raising of one child, as opposed to the involvement of those in a local community, who would most definitely be affected by the outcome. The local community should bear the burden of making sure that its young members grow up to be worthy members, despite whatever the parents have done.

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We simply can't have the government, nor the majority, nor some minority, nor anyone outside the individuals who are directly responsible for the well-being of the child, deciding what beliefs a child may be taught.

If I have a right to believe X, then I should not be prevented from teaching X to my child. Period.

To allow the government to prohibit teaching children a particular belief (however misguided the belief), is one step closer to allowing the government to prohibit the belief itself, thus violating the absolute sanctity of one's own mind.

Government's proper sphere of control is over actions, not over ideas. And then only insofar as we give the government the power to control us.

I'll refrain from quoting Voltaire again, but the fact is, however much we may disagree with what the parents may be teaching those children, they have an absolute right to teach them that, and to deny that sets an extremely dangerous precedent.

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The distinction that needs to be made here is that teaching is also an action, and should be monitored in the same manner as other actions are. Teaching ignorant ideas constitutes ruining a mind.

Thus, if a child is taught to believe that killing people is right and that killing anyone in the way is acceptable, and as a direct result of those beliefs, the child kills another human being, are those beliefs acceptable?

And why should I, a mostly law abiding member of society, have to live in fear of the beliefs that are taught to those children? Beliefs more often than not beget actions that are related to them.

A child that will hold a sign that demonstrates hatred towards a certain group of people will most likely continue to hold that belief until such time as he or she is taught otherwise (this is where society comes in), or that belief may make the child escalate to a level of violence far beyond the original teachings. There is a good chance that the Kansas children will continue to maintain the beliefs with which they are being brainwashed, simply because they are not exposed to the outside world. Why should the rest of us allow for such ignorance to stand without doing something about it?

There are certain areas where the rights of the individual should be modified for the good of all other individuals in society. A dangerous precedent is only set if the modification is controlled by only a few and not by all members of society. There are acceptable mores that have been adopted throughout civilization, and they were adopted by groups of individuals rather than by individuals alone.

Oh, there are no absolutes in this world. Only areas of gray.

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Ah, but there are, in fact, absolutes. Plenty of them. It's the shades of gray, mostly, that have this society coming apart at the seams.

But I think the time has come to stop debating in

ceebeegee's Journal and continue in person at another time.

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Oh, I don't mind.

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Agreed. The usual place at some point in the near future, I assume. :)

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Hi. Sorry if I'm butting in, but

minstrel70 told me that he was involved in an interesting intellectual fight over here and it was getting so hot a hockey game was threatening to break out! It does look like a sticky issue being discussed. I'm really fond of philosophical debates like this one, and can't resist tossing in my two cents, no matter how decorum would suggest I remain an observer. If the owner of this journal objects, I will butt right out, but from what I have read so far, she seems intrigued by the discussion as well.

I'd just like to say that I agree that the gay bashers in question do appear to be one sorry bunch of people. They are certainly exhibiting a virulent form of collectivism -- which is pretty close to the root of evil in the world today. Here these people are, not content to say that homosexuality is wrong and that they believe it to be immoral to act on this orientation, but they actually go so far as to claim that gay people, because of who they are, are intrinsically evil and un-human, and thus not deserving of respect. Certainly this is a poisonous idea. Nevertheless, I'm going to have to agree with minstrel70 when it comes to "what to do about it" -- the scoundrels haven't done anything actionable yet.

The problem with mysticblaze's argument, is that he is falling for the same fallacies espoused by the people whose teaching he rejects. Yes, teaching is an action, so is breathing. Do other humans have any authority to license and regulate your breathing for you just because it is an action and not an abstract thought? The point here is that the criterion is not merely a question of the distinction between action and thought alone, but between actions that are peaceful and voluntary and actions that actually initiate real force. Absent the actual initiation or threat of real force the law lacks any moral authority to act.

mysticblaze asks why he should "live in fear" of the beliefs which are being taught to the children of others. The implication here is that his fears grant him some sort of authority to take action against the source of his fears -- in other words, they justify his treating the source of his fears as objects, as means to some end of his own instead of ends in their own right. The problem with this thinking becomes clear as soon as we reverse the sides. This is exactly the same argument put forward by the gay bashers, who fear that homosexuals are attempting to teach children to become gay, and therefore this fear gives them the authority to "do something about" the people who are gay. The argument is wrong, no matter who espouses it.

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In his fourth paragraph,

mysticblaze calls upon "society" to "do something" about the beliefs of the gay bashers and their children. Hiding the responsibility for starting a fight behind "society" does not change the nature of what is being done, or suggested. The problem is, exactly who is society? Society is an abstraction. It is a construct in the minds of the individuals that comprise it. There is no "social brain" that actually exists and thinks -- there is only the aggregate effects of the actions stemming from the thoughts of those individuals that make up society. When the majority of individuals in a society attempt to live by the Golden Rule and respect one another's life, liberty, and property, society flourishes in reasonably civilized harmony. When we attempt to turn society into government and use it as a club for changing our neighbors' minds then civility and prosperity both vanish -- society fragments into what the founders of the U.S. called "faction," collectivized groups jockeying for the influence and power to control each other. It is a scary thing to contemplate that people enamoured of faction never stop to consider that when they empower a government to favor the, when their faction is in power, likewise empower government to persecute them when their faction is out of power.

The last paragraph also contains some ideas with which I must contend. The first such idea is that rights must be limited. Untrue. Rights are absolute, or they are not rights at all. The second idea is that somehow a democratic tyranny is acceptable while a despotic tyranny is not. minstrel70 is right, a dangerous precedent is set whether rights are violated in the name of a minority or a majority. Ten thousand Irishmen can be wrong, and might does not make right. It is not a wise trade to exchange one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away. This clammoring for "society" to control, not just the actions, but the thoughts of individuals betrays a substantial lack of faith in one's own ideas. Thomas Jefferson said it best: "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." Society does not think, only individuals do. Turning society into government and giving it the power to regulate the thoughts of individuals only serves to quash all thinking by individuals equally. Approximately two hundred million people in the former Soviet Union were murdered in the twentieth century for want of understanding that lesson. Do we really want to go down that road?

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"The first such idea is that rights must be limited. Untrue. Rights are absolute, or they are not rights at all."

I don't know if I agree with this--we limit rights all the time. The First Amendment has many restrictions on it (pornography, can't-yell-fire-in-a-crowded-theater, libel, etc.), as does the Second.

(FYI, mysticblaze is a she. And welcome!)

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The point was that rights, by definition, are absolute; anything that may be restricted, abridged, limited, or legislated against is a privelege, not a right. Constitutional rights are based upon natural rights, and simply proscribe government action that might infringe upon those natural rights.

The speech protected by the First Amendment is the right to political speech. Your examples are not political in nature, and are examples properly restricted in the interest of public safety and decorum.

The restrictions placed on the Second Amendment right would open a whole new can of worms if brought into discussion here, but suffice it to say that Amendment is predicated on the right to self-defense, which is clearly inalienable.

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It is not true that the First Amendment protects only political speech. That is a sophistry invented by the judiciary. The First Amendment merely prohibits the federal government from infringing the absolute rights of speech and expression. To say that the First Amendment protects only political speech is to beg the question: who, pray tell, gets to define what constitutes political speech? Currently, whomever has control of the government believes that it is government which gets to define such things, but I put it to you that we can easilly see how destructive to the Bill of Rights this kind of sophistry is in action. Stick to your guns. Rights are absolute.

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Formal apologies to

mysticblaze, who didn't specify a sex in her bio. If anything, perhaps she will forgive me because I did not assume that she was a woman just because I saw "knitting" in her community memberships? Hmm, nice try, eh? By the way,

minstrel70 has also already pointed out my error as well. He does look after the interests of his friends. Nice to meet both you and

mysticblaze.

It is true that "we" limit rights all the time. The better word is "infringe." I put it to you that the "can't-yell-fire-in-a-crowded-theater" analogy is a bad one, since it is not the speech itself, the content, that is criminalized, but rather the effects of the speech that are criminal. To understand this, consider what would have happened in the hypothetical case if there had been a real fire. The "speaker" would not be prosecuted, yet the content of his speech remained the same. Conversely, if you get up and recite the Gettysburg Address you can also be arrested, not for speaking your mind in a theater, but for disturbing the peace and violating the property rights of the theater owner and his patrons. Rights are absolute and non-contradictory, or else they cannot be considered rights, according to the classical definition. Cases where rights appear to be non-absolute or contradictory are merely cases of misidentification and mis-definition.

As for the pornography problem, that is merely a failure to enforce property rights effectively, not a good example of the "legitimate authority" to infringe the rights of free speech and expression. The case of libel is more accurately defined as fraud, and should be treated accordingly. As for the second amendment, that issue is another whole complex jumbo can of worms which would need to be carefully unpacked before we could even begin to discuss it rationally. If you want a long involved debate on it, we could, but I think it would dwarf the current debate, so here is probably not the place.

I commend [Unknown site tag] on his choice of friends. You're interesting people.

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