Lethal Injection Under Fire Again

[GriffonSpade]

Not to mention that this:

QUOTE
The governement's power over our lives should be limited, and not extended, especially over family domain.

...is simply propaganda; it has no content.
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No, this is an opinion/belief, the very same thing you have.

I can't speak for the U.S., but in Canada, we don't dictate religion, child-rearing strategies, or any other such thing to citizens.  We're free to believe what we want, within certain limits that exist on the far edge of the "reasonable".  The limits are intended as protection for individuals.  Those who want to, e.g. CHANGE religions should be free to do so. 

To address the point more specifically; in our society, children are not property - they are human beings, and so have certain (albeit limited) rights that are inviolable.  You can spank your kids.  You can raise them as Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews or any kind of Christian that you like.  You can even raise them as atheists.  Child-rearing is NOT prescribed to parents.  Parents have wide freedoms in that respect. 

However, you can't force them to marry someone, you can't pull them out of school to go work in the mines, and you can't beat them when you're angry or disappointed with them.  In this case, it's not about "what the people in power want", its about what are considered the "reasonable" OUTER (double emphasis!) bounds for parental behaviour given the rights generally ascribed to children (as individuals) in our social context. 
So instead we should do nothing at all?  How does this fact (or your anecdotes) contribute to that conclusion?  Whether or not there are some bad social workers, or even bad institutions is not the point - the solution is not to remove all limits and sweep the unlucky ones under the rug.

As in Drasca's post: this is contentless propaganda.
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You present things that they really don't care about to prove that we don't have to do what they want us? They only really care about this in so far as their control freakish tendencies are loyal to their own beliefs. To be fair, it was a fairly offtopic comment aimed at the ability of government agencies and the like to essentially bypass your rights and do whatever they want to you.

Did you even read that part of my post at all? I do not see how you could possibly have concluded that from reading what I posted. To summarize, they do far too little in many cases that need it badly, and too much in cases that probably don't need it at all. Suburbian social workers have a tendency(in my own experience) to be control freakish and decide emotionally, which includes how annoyed they were with you and how much they like you.

The government (which for us, is the democratic voice of the society) tells you what you cannot do (the outer boundaries on behavior), rather than what you must do (with exceptions for paying taxes and serving in the military when called).
I agree.  The system is imperfect (more chaotic perhaps), but no better or worse than the institutionalization and selling children as laborers from 100 years ago.  I believe that children in the US are more likely today to be left in abusive homes.  From my distant perspective, I see a system trying to rehabilitate family rather than what happened in the 70's where social workers would break up families at the first instance of alleged abuse.
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Ah, I forgot, being in the majority gives you the right to oppress people. How silly of me.
Poorly Applied and Conceited are better descriptions of the system and its workers in general. My sister had some 3 or 4 social workers at various times, and all but one were control freakish who did more dictating and reporting than anything else(the other was actually a kind, caring individual that really listened and discussed the situation and terms she had to follow)
Finally, to top it all off, she was eventually institutionalized for a few years(for her behavior mind you), the conditions there actually being WORSE than at home, with drugs, bullies, and, from what I'm told, caretakers that were basically arsehole wardens that didnt care about the feelings of anyone in there(despite them being minors, and this WAS NOT juvie). To top it off, they charged my dad 1/4 of his paycheck every month, made us buy her toiletries and clothing, and charged my NON-WORKING mom 1/4 of full time minimum wage's paycheck, leaving us with less than 1/3 of my dads paycheck to feed the 3 of us and pay bills. As you can see, I have a lot of reason to resent these people and their policies. They say "welfare," I say "oppression."

You've been watching too much South Park I take it. The children I'm referring too were between the ages of 6-9 and were molested by 30+-year-old perverts. I don't care what the hell you say or think, but children of that age (and don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because I have a 9-year old, 6-year old, 4-year old, and 1.5 year old) CANNOT adequately choose for themselves in THIS TYPE of situation because - excluding their innocence - they simply lack the experience or development to understand the ramifications of their actions (or at least the actions of the perpetrator if they just laid there in shock). If you honestly believe sexual relations between a 6-9 year old and a 30+-year-old man is all right, you’re a sick person without a doubt, however I think you may have been thinking of the situation more as a 13 year old and an 18 year old, which in my mind is still on shaky ground. I thought there was a 3 or 5-year leeway, so a 16-year old and a 21-year old could still be safe within the law?
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If you don't care what I think or say, then why are you even bothering to say anything, stupid?

Sorry, what straw men?  The post that you quoted was not directed towards you, it was directed towards Griffonspade, in light of his use of anecdotes to draw a conclusion that was unclear at best. 

As for the post that I DID point in your direction: you seem to have missed my central point.  This whole conversation started when Roland asked whether it was the government's place to put such a limit in force. 

I simply said yes, it is.  Everything that I have said since was in defence of that particular point.  I'm not arguing that implementation is not often flawed, I'm not even arguing for a particular form of implementation.  All that I'm saying is that, in principle, the government must be able, in certain situations, to legally enforce the rights of children.

You're points re: implementation are not incorrect - the devil may very well be in the details.  However, that is simply not an argument against my point.  My point is removed from practical concerns.  Any argument against my point would have to be saying that there ought not to be such limits placed on age of consent, and that it should be left up to the parents to enforce.  When the radical fundamentalist Mormons start marrying off 12 year olds, I think that they have moved beyond a reasonable limit around which their is a wide social consensus - that is simply not appropriate, and amounts to child abuse, end of story.  There is undoubtedly a lot of grey area here - do the parents know?  Do they approve?  Do they encourage?  Do they force?  Doesn't change the fact that there IS a line, there HAS TO BE a line, and even if that line needs to be better defined, that is not much of an argument against having a line at all.  Why?  Because NOT having a limit is completely unacceptable. 

There are no straw men here, just one fairly straightforward and coherent line of argument, with which you have mixed issues that have no bearing on my point.
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OK, well, I was trying to point arrows and get people to think as much as argue my point, as I find that people who see my point will immediately go defensive and then deny it til their last breath whether I was right or wrong. However, this approach doesn't seem to be working, because people aren't even bothering to pay attention to the "arrows." I'll put it out plainly, and wait for the mindless flamers to reply and entrench themselves against all reason.

Allow the younger party the opportunity to make it acceptable/dismissable by proving they are understanding, freely concenting & accepting, and not abused. Simple as that. If they are unable to prove they understand as is so often decreed, there won't be a problem ANYWAY, because they are unable to do so. The punishments then, would range from unwilling or not understanding&abused(death); abused, not understanding, or maliciously manipulated into concenting/accepting(severe permanent imprisonment); reluctantly convinced/manipulated & limited/poor understanding(imprisonment until younger party becomes "of age"); limited/poor understanding, but willing(institutionalization for reform, released when younger party is deemed competant)