From: root@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick   )
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights
Subject: Re: Children's rights?  What about responsibilities?
Date: 26 Jul 92 04:27:40 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA

J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:

> First, this nation has gone "sue-crazy" as it is.  Lawyers are licking their
> chops as new laws constantly make it easier to litigate.  It seems that
> *anything* can be a civil case these days, including everything what used to
> be handled only in criminal courts. We don't need lawyers drooling over our
> children, who will (in general) be *far* more vulnerable to the persuasions o
> lawyers, who will urge them to litigate.  For horrible problems, we already
> have criminal charges which can be filed against the offending parent(s).

That system often fails in one important respect. Yes, it does cause the
parents to be brought to justice, but it doesn't address the damages to
the child/victim. In other words, it doesn't provide what the child was
lacking because of the parents.

In more severe cases, where a dependency action is brought, certain kinds
of services are given to the child. But as with the parents, it's under the
auspices of yet another adult. Further, placing a child in foster care or
a guardianship provides its own set of problems, which add themselves to 
those the child has already experienced.

BTW, I'm not siding with Pilary Hillary. More later on.

> Second, and foremost in my mind, is the concepts of rights and responsi-
> bilities.  Perhaps I grew up in an old, archaic period (the 1970's), but I wa
> always taught that with rights come responsibilities.  Well, if children have
> a *right* to sue (such as for medical treatment), then why don't we *also*
> give them the responsibility to pay for it?  Why should a child have a right
> to something, without the corresponding responsibility?  It's similar to the
> role of the father in an abortion decision--he has *no* legal rights in the
> abortion issue, but he is held financially liable no matter what (perhaps for
> 50% of an abortion or 18 years of support).  What responsibilities are there
> without rights?  

And what rights without responsibility? Men DO have a say in abortion. One
which is continually ignored in the discussions. Contraception methods are
available and effective for those men who don't want the responsibility of
childrearing or child-support.

I personally see a balance here. Men do have choice BEFORE the fact (of
pregnancy) but they don't have it after. To state that men are held to
ransom when an abortion isn't performed is pretty silly. All that happened
was that a man failed to exercise his choice when it was available to him,
and by doing so, forfeited his choice to the woman. That's a voluntary
act.

> If a parent has the financial responsibility for a child, an
> if the parents are held liable for the times when a child breaks a neighbor's
> window with a baseball, then don't they have any *rights* about how the child
> lives?  Don't they have the *right* to raise their child as they see fit--at
> least as long as they are held legally *responsible* for them?

That's exactly how it works, so the answer is yes. When parent(s) are doing
the necessary things to properly raise their children, the state has no
place interfering. What's more, it doesn't.

> Fine, give the child a right to sue.  Now we must also grant responsibilities
> We must allow the parents to charge rent to their children; after all, the
> if the child is responsible enough to sue, then they are responsible enough t
> pay rent.  To do that, we must also have the child labor laws immediately
> repealed.  Obviously, children are as responsible as the rest of us and hence
> they need no additional protection by laws.  Why stop there?  Let a child
> smoke, let them drink, and use pornography.  After all, they are as responsib
> as adults, aren't they?

Parents DO have the right to impose rent on their kids if they choose to do
so. There is no law I know of that says they can't. However, they cannot put
the child on the street for nonpayment. They can, however, impose sanctions
against the priviledges they grant their kids for nonpayment.

Are kids as responsible as adults? (They seem to be in some areas...:-) on
the whole, no they aren't. But as the expression goes, "You don't need a
weatherman to know which way the wind blows." If a child is being damaged,
they can discern that much.

As it is, a child may sue for emancipation. I don't know if all states
allow it, but many do. The ones which do, allow for the suit on a variety of
grounds.  Since those grounds amount to damages or takings, it isn't a huge
leap to consider compensation for damages incurred. Parents may sue for any
damage done to their kids by outside sources, so, under specific conditions
why not allow a child to sue? 

Adults who are completely incompetent to handle their own affairs sue. They
sue through someone who represents their interests. Why shouldn't a child
be allowed the same thing? Well, they should be, and they are.

> Okay, Tim, get off the soap box now...

I didn't think that was soapboxing, Tim. It sounded like the expression of
a concerned opinion. 

Now, I disagree with Hillary Clinton because she has only said that kids
should be able to do something that they effectively already can. She uses
different wording --makes it sound somehow prophetic and new. But it isn't.
A suit is getting the state to intercede and arbitrate a disagreement 
between parties. Nothing stops a child from making a CPS report or criminal
report. The usual vehicle for this is an adult making the allegation, but
kids have done it in the past, and will (as near as I can tell) be able to
continue to do it into the future.

All we're seeing is more grandstanding. It's politically motivated and has
all of the significance of a Tempest in a Teacup.

What needs to be the object of concern is not the actualization of her
statements, but the attitudes which they foster. Remember that Tipper Gore
(standing on her hubby's shoulders) started the Music Obscenity Craze that
has so far only caused the severe embarrassment of a couple of Prosecutors,
and changed little. Just ask the boys who're Nasty As They Wanna Be, 2 Live
Crew. Tipper only managed to make their record go from an obscure release
to one of the highest selling recordings of the decade. Now that was very
effective for her goals, wasn't it?        

It is interesting though, that we have two wives who use their husbands to
further their own goals --riding on the same Presidential Ticket.

> The Federalist Papers:  Cliffs Notes for Constitutional study.  Use it.

Supreme Court Opinions: Cliff Notes for what the Constitution is today.
Learn from them. They may not educate, but they inform. :-)


---
Bob Kirkpatrick  --  Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA
root@dogear.spk.wa.us           bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights