From: slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer)
Subject: Re: Hillary Clinton - Family Values?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 02:41:11 GMT

M18611@MBVM.Mitre.Org (Kathy Wilk) writes:

>In article <92203.191552JLB155@psuvm.psu.edu>
>Jennifer Brown <JLB155@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
> 
>>In article <1992Jul21.182938.7985@athena.cs.uga.edu>, heath@athena.cs.uga.edu
>>(Terrance Heath) says:
>>>          For example, a child who is sexually or otherwise abused
>>>might exercise her right to divorce her parents. At least this way the
>>>child has a say in her own life.
>>So (back to a common subject), why can't the parents divorce their
>>children??  Oh, I guess they're not allowed to have a say in their
>>own life.
>>
>>-Jennifer
>>
>>PS.  Child(ren) means after birth.  No abortion.
>>
> 
>  And the fathers I know who decide relationships are too taxing and 'walk'.
>And don't pay support and don't stay in touch.

aka a male abortion.

>  C'mon, you must have some knowledge of these situations, too.  And you
>must also know that the relationships of child to parent and parent to child
>are uniquely different.  The vulnerabilities of a child in society are not
>comparable to those of a parent.  Children die from being abandoned.  Parents
>survive.  These differences are so obvious, I think you must have just popped
>off your comment without thinking it through.

But what does Hillary's proposal do?  It encourages society to believe
that 12-year old's are NOT, in fact, generally vulnerable.  It tells
evereone - hey, 12-year olds are adults, really, let's treat them like
adults.  You and I know how adults treat adults.  Do we really think a
12-year old should be considered eligible for that sort of shafting?

I've seen two sets of arguments here.  

The first pop up when someone says Hillary's idea is stupid.
The response is that everyone knows a kid who could really take
care of themselves and is very mature, or is in really nasty
circumstances, and Hillary's idea would be salvation for that kid.

The response to THAT is, "fine, then let adults divorce kids"
Instantly, the same people reply "Oh no, kids are much too fragile
for that sort of callous attitude."

It seems to me that there are probably two sets of kids - those who
may be able to take advantage of Hillary's suggestion, and use it
to their own advantage (a VERY small number) and those who will be
taken advantage of, by second or third parties who will use it to 
the advantage of the second or third party.  This group constitutes 
the majority of kids.  People will use Hillary's law (if it makes it
that far) as a way to justify treating kids like hell.  If the kids
don't like it, let 'em get a divorce!  

>mean it would be accomplished easily.  I think someone has made the point
>that it would still be up to the courts (a judge) to do this.  Why do
>people go off on a tangent about the abilities of a 12-yr-old to judge
>for him or herself whether to divorce?  It is still up to a judge to grant
>or deny, as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong about that).  

I heard on CNN today that a judge threw out the statutory rape charges
against two adult males who had sex with 15-year old girls.  Are these
the same judges who will be ruling on a child's abilities?  
Why do we think some guy in a robe will be able to competently judge 
a child's capabilities after meeting with him/her for two to three hours?
ANd don't pretend the meeting will be longer - look at the current case
load of juvenile judges. 

What we really want is someone to blame.  
If we hand this problem over to "official" agencies, then none of us
have to worry about the kid next door who is in a bad way.  We just make
a phone call and let the authorities take care of it.  Not our problem.
We don't have to be good neighbors, we don't have to get together and
stong-arm the jerk whose man-handling her/his own kids.  If anything 
goes wrong, it isn't our fault.  We sleep well at night.  

Maybe it's time we stopped sleeping well at night.
Maybe it's time we started forcing our moral values on the people
who force their moral values on us.  You know them.  They're the 
ones who tell us that we can't do what we know is right, because
it upsets the jackals, or something.

> 
> 
>                        K. Wilk
>                        M18611@MBVM.MITRE.ORG
> 
>            <--********************************-->
> 'Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth, I threw him to the ground
>  on top of me.' - Mark Twain
>            <--********************************-->

Steve Kellmeyer