Terminating Parental Rights

As far as I can tell from a few coworkers who are incredibly hostile to the state of Texas’ efforts to remove these children from their parents, some people see this particular case as not being about individual parents, but rather being about a sort of group, cultural right. They’re not philosophers, but if they were, I think they’d phrase it as some sort of additional right, separate from that of individual parents and children, held collectively by the group, in their own cultural integrity or existence. Which is, of course, threatened by this action.

I don’t agree with group rights almost on principle, but its an added wrinkle.

Is Texas attempting to terminate parental rights, or just suspend them while the DNA tests are sorted out and the children are interviewed/evaluated? Both are problematic in their own ways, but it’s important not to confuse one with the other.

I’ve had a very difficult time making this argument (about leaving kids in the custody of bad parents being preferable to throwing them into the institutional machinery) with “Think of the Children!” types. There seems to be an odd disconnect between the sentimentality these people display toward children and family, on the one hand, and the blind faith in the ability of the state to produce better outcomes than delinquent parents on the other.

Actually, perhaps it’s not so odd if one considers that the same disconnect seems to be on display in the attitudes held by the forced pregnancy lobby toward motherhood and children: that children are sacrosanct right up until the moment of birth, at which point they are irrelevant, and that women are the beautiful, sacred vessels of the miracle of childbirth, unless they are contemplating abortion, at which point they need to be forcibly restrained by the state and preferably executed after the baby has been delivered.

In this sense, these sentimentalists fully inhabit the role of the false mother in the Solomonic parable of splitting the baby: they are more interested in seeing strict justice served by having the “bad” parent (who allowed abuse, or who contemplated abortion) punished than they are in seeing the interests of the child protected.

_We think, in other words, that the interest in being able to have a relationship with someone in which one gets to face and grapple with the challenges of rearing an independent person whom one loves and oversee their physical, cognitive, moral, and emotional development is something that makes a contribution to one’s flourishing that, for many if not most adults nothing else can substitute for adequately._

I expect that if most people were able to articulate what they think is good about being a parent they might say something like this. (Most people can’t, of course, articulate this and I strongly suspect it would be post-hoc justification for most people since most people just _become_ parents without thinking about it at all.) But, I must say that I find something about it deeply creepy. At least when left at this level it seems a very instrumental use of a child- “I will find having this relationship very good for me so I will bring it about” isn’t a bad thing, but in the case of kids there’s no choice but to be in the relationship, so it’s different from thinking the same sort of thing about, say, a spouse. I’m tempted to say that if one has this feeling one should get a pet or become a teacher. I can’t claim to have a worked out view here but as it is this approach seems problematic to me, and not the sort of thing that could ground rights, especially when the other half of the relationship is one that’s not entered in to (and cannot be entered in to) voluntarily. (I guess this leads me to think that parents have less right to raise their kids in particular ways than we might think otherwise. That seems right to me.)

Troll comment deleted

Matt

If there’s something creepy about this, its presumably something creepy about deciding to have a child because doing so will satisfy the interest; not something problematic about the idea that we have this kind of interest.

You might think that the fact that there would be something creepy about acting on the desire shows that we can’t have such an interest. I don’t think that’s right. In fact I think there are quite a lot of interests like this.

Relationships with partners seem like a good case: deciding to marry someone might satisfy your interest in having a fulfilling long-term relationship; but hopefully – at least from your spouse’s point of view – you don’t marry them from a desire to satisfy this interest, but because of how you feel about your spouse.

Slightly different response: you could read Harry as saying that people have an interest in having children, because of the sort of relationship they have with them. (I think you have to read him this way for your objection to get a grip.)

But you don’t have to read him as saying this in the post. He could just mean that people who actually do have children have an interest in being able to have this kind of relationship with their children. I think that would be enough to ground the right; but it would mean the interest couldn’t ground the creepy desire (because the desire would have to have already been satisfied for the interest to come into existence)

…Scurries off to read the paper, wondering whether the view put forward is compatible with the idea that *children’s* rights are rights of restitution…

We think, in other words, that the interest in being able to have a relationship with someone in which one gets to face and grapple with the challenges of rearing an independent person whom one loves and oversee their physical, cognitive, moral, and emotional development is something that makes a contribution to one’s flourishing that, for many if not most adults nothing else can substitute for adequately.

Is this perhaps the same interest that the 50-year-old man, mentioned above, has in marrying a 13-year-old girl?

I find that when most people articulate what motivates them in being a parent they say something like “you realise that you care more about your child’s happiness than anything else in the world”. In other words: a displaced and intensified form of egoism.

There’s also the whole issue of “if people like us have children responsibly, we will be overrun by the people who have them irresponsibly.”

They made a movie about this, actually.

Ok, it was pretty preposterous. But I still have a niggling feeling that anyone who has the deep desire to ‘oversee [the] physical, cognitive, moral, and emotional development’ of another person should probably be kept away from children.

What I find really worrying in Harry’s paper is that ‘redistribution of children’ is talked about as an academic principle, without any mention of the real horrors that decisions on that cause. Tell me, can any parent read the statement that ‘We have an argument against the forcible redistribution of children from adequately good parents to others (or to state institutions) that might do better by them’, without starting to worry about who might be deciding whether or not you are an inadequate parent, on what basis and whether it’s then OK to take your children away?

The paper gives some examples given of what rights parents might have in such a system: but who decides whether a parent is taking a child to church (OK) or indoctrinating them (not OK)? And consider a general statement such as ‘The parent’s fiduciary obligations are to guarantee the child’s immediate well-being and to oversee and ensure her cognitive, emotional, physical, and moral development.’ Just how many chances does this give to states or their proxies potentially to misuse power: if they believe that a child’s well-being isn’t well-served by being raised by a single parent or a poor parent or a gay parent or a parent who isn’t ‘properly’ integrated in mainstream society or one with post natal depression or with the ‘wrong’ political views?

This isn’t a hypothetical problem: this has happened time and time again. The Lost Generation in Australia, the single mothers forced into giving their babies up for adoption and many other cases. This is why there is so much pressure now to keep families together, and why neglect and cruelty (or very substantial risk of them, as in the FLDS case) are the only reasonable standards to use when deciding on such matters. I’m not a philosopher, so I can’t formulate a watertight argument as to why a loving parent has a fundamental right not to have their life wrecked in this way. But discussing such cases purely in the abstract, ignoring this kind of awful treatment, isn’t my idea of what ethics should be about.

magistra:

I disagree (obviously). The question we are addressing is why parents have fundamental rights over their children. If there is a reason it is just not going to be the kind of reason that adults generally have rights over or with respect to themselves. The stalking horse of the child’s best interests (which, if you really took it to be the only value, supports redistribution of the kind we consider) is a nice one: the question is precisely why someone who is not the best parent to the child should, nevertheless, have the right to be the child’s parent and consequently rights over him. Armed with the answer to that question we can actually explain why the single mothers were wronged when their children were taken away from them, whereas someone who has a pet (to which he is equally attached, lets say) is not wronged when it is taken away from him (on the grounds that he will not look after it as well as a zoo).

I agree that the government should not be determining who is merely taking their kid to church to share their religious way of life, and who is doing it to indoctrinate. But as a parent I have a duty to recognize the difference, and any parent who fails to make that distinction and who simply indoctrinates is doing a wrong. If ethics refrains from making any comment on those kinds of question it is failing to deliver vital resources to people who want to engage in moral deliberation.

The questions “who decides?” and “how many chances?” are fair ones, that we don’t address here. Your worries about that are legitimate (and the second half of my post indicates why I share those worries, even in this FLDS case). But the history you invoke is one in which deep wrongs have been done. Those wrongs are not merely wrongs to children, but also to their parents, and our account shows with more precision than other accounts just why they are wrong.

matt — we are not suggesting this as a motivation for having children (my guess is that it is a rare, and odd, motivation), but as a reason for allowing people to have and raise children, and have considerable powers over them that it would not be justifiable to allow them to have over other people. I like praisegod’s (#12) para 3 and will use that analogy, which seems right.

(18)
“But I still have a niggling feeling that anyone who has the deep desire to ‘oversee [the] physical, cognitive, moral, and emotional development’ of another person should probably be kept away from children.”

This is understandable. Not entirely unlike the sense that anyone who has a deep desire to “oversee the physical, cognitive, moral, and emotional development” of a nation should be kept away from politics.

I wonder if Plato’s good ruler rule works for parenting? That anyone who really, really deeply wants to be a parent isn’t going to be an ideal one? Not saying, just wondering…

We need something like the TSA, only in charge of Parenting.

What could possibly go wrong?

As a couple other people have noted, you just can’t make sense of this stuff in a framework where only individuals have rights.

The policies of the US (and, I guess, Australian) government to deliberately remove children from their parents and place them in English-speaking families or boarding schools, in order to eliminate the indigenous culture, is *much worse* than removing a similar number of children from a random selection of families “for their own good” would be, even if the outcomes for individual children were similar.

Or imagine — not completely implausibly — that a government came to power in the US that was convinced that black culture was a major cause of crime, social unrest, etc., and set out a program of incentives for white families to adopt black children, black individuals to be voluntarily sterilized, and to reward interracial marriage. Such a program could be carried out wihtout violating any individual’s rights, and yet it would still be morally loathesome.

Cultures — and arguably families — have a legitimate interest in their continued existence beyond the interests of their individual members. Even if you don’t accept that principle, but you need to take it into account if you want to understand why people find this sort of thing so frightening.

I agree with lemuel pitkin. You can see evidence of a fear of cultural distinctiveness in this discussion in noen’s comment:
“The children needed to be taken by the state just to determine who their biological parents even are. They lived in a communal environment where the children didn’t know who their mothers were.”

There were clearly a great many rights violations going on here – the rape of girls, the abandonment of boys – but the communal families is *not* part of the problem. If the kids didn’t know who their parents were because the parents were all involved in adult, consensual, relatively gender egalitarian polyamorous relationships, there wouldn’t be a problem here. It would be an odd way to grow up, but not a criminal one.

If you want other victims to reach out for help, it’s probably better to leave as many cultural practices in tact as possible while still prosecuting the actual rights violations.

If you want other victims to reach out for help, it’s probably better to leave as many cultural practices in tact as possible while still prosecuting the actual rights violations.

A good point.

Real societies include lots of intermediate institutions — families, cultures, nations, religions, neighborhoods, businesses, unions, etc. — that have their own distinct sources of legitimacy. Approaches like Harry’s reduce all these to either voluntary assocaitions of individuals or emanations of state power. But ignoring their independent existence and moral claims is not just bad analysis, it leads to conlcusions that are politically useless, because they ignore the real bases of people’s moral commitments.

I agree with Lemuel, and would add that the inability or unwillingness to deal with group rights is an absolutely central issue facing moral philosophy.

If the kids didn’t know who their parents were because the parents were all involved in adult, consensual, relatively gender egalitarian polyamorous relationships, there wouldn’t be a problem here.

I agree it would not pose a legal problem. But I bet that even in that situation the kids would know who their mothers were. There is a deep biological drive at work here.

And while it think it’s true that we should keep as many cultural practices intact as possible. In this particular case it simply cannot be helped. The cult has been systematically breaking the law for a long time. In order to determine paternity the state has no choice but to separate the children and perform DNA tests. Only after that is done can anything go forward.

Another problem is that the cult’s “cultural practices” included systematic child abuse. Even those children who were not directly sexually exploited were in fact abused because they were in an abusive environment. Permitting your child to be in such an environment is more than enough for you to get your child taken away from you. Rightly so.

‘not so odd’

I think we’re getting a bit off track here, if we talk about “ideal parents” or “the best possible upbringing” on the one hand, and totalitarian or authoritarian governments abducting children and tearing families apart on the the other.

The problem at hand as it presents itself in democratic, liberal societies is rather simple: children have to be protected from physical and emotional harm and have to be enabled to be independent adults that can function in society. On the first point there should be consensus, and while your mileage may vary slightly on the latter point, I think it is pretty clear what it entails in general.

To ensure both you need an authority outside and above the family structure that is responsible for judging the children’s well-being and development. This authority consists of teachers and social-workers and, in the case abuse or neglect, judges and psychologists. Of course these are fallible, as are parents, but generally I see no evidence that they are hellbent on tearing families apart unless absolutely necessary and neither is the state, what with all the cost and drama involved. If there wasn’t such an outside authority checking on the wellbeing of children, who is supposed to detect and act on negelect or abuse and who are the children suffering from it to turn to?

And as far as the positive development of children is concerned: yes , there are cultural and ideological value judgements involved, but that is part of living in a society. Memorizing Koran or Bible verses eight hours a day might be considered a good education among some groups, but it just isn’t in our sense of the word. It’s brainwashing and children have a right to be protected from that and also a right to be exposed to a vast variety of knowledge, so that they can make their own choices as they go along.

Schools ideally serve as a means to provide that and also as a neutral ground apart from the family or “group” structure, were potential abuse, neglect and indoctrination can be detected.

generally I see no evidence that they are hellbent on tearing families apart unless absolutely necessary

I guess you’ve missed the various mentions of Native American boarding schools, the Australian aborigine “lost generation”, etc., then.

Sorry, I misunderstood your earlier point. Our argument (if successful, of course) does show that there is a right to raise your child (where “your child” means something like “the child with whom you are already in a parent-child relationship). I thought you meant something like “a right to establish a relationship with a child to which you are biologically related”, which is what we don’t show, but your parenthetical comment makes it clear you don’t mean that. (In my defence I am looking after my toddler with 3/4 of my attention, and only have 1/4 of my attention for this).

This argument has convinced me that we are seriously in need of an alternative social arrangement to “the state”. Whatever social contract (and hopefully its none) I have with the likes of noen and mq, I would like to declare my independence from and go to war.

The Australian indigenous people removed as children are generally known as the stolen generation, not the lost generation, not to be pedantic but the language clearly has a bearing.

comment 12:

Relationships with partners seem like a good case: deciding to marry someone might satisfy your interest in having a fulfilling long-term relationship; but hopefully – at least from your spouse’s point of view – you don’t marry them from a desire to satisfy this interest, but because of how you feel about your spouse

Sure, in one recent Western tradition (companionate marriage) – arranged marriages between consenting adults are preferred and functional in other environments.

I would like to second Laura’s point that the stolen generation needs to be called “stolen”, not lost. And I don’t think we should be bringing them into this discussion, because they were taken from their parents for reasons of genocide not welfare. No one was thinking of their welfare at any point, and considering them in a debate about child welfare issues means giving subtle credence to the main conservative justification for the policy, a justification which happens to be historically completely wrong.

I would like to second Laura’s point that the stolen generation needs to be called “stolen”, not lost.

I’m sorry I wrote lost. My bad.

And I don’t think we should be bringing them into this discussion, because they were taken from their parents for reasons of genocide not welfare.

But with due respect, that’s exactly why they *do* belong in this discussion. Because the fact that genocide can be committed without necessarily killing or even (physically) harming any individual, highlights exactly the key moral dimension of this issue that Harry’s paper ignores.

Whatever social contract (and hopefully its none) I have with the likes of noen and mq, I would like to declare my independence from and go to war.

What on earth for? I have been limiting my comments to the cult and why I feel removing the children is justified. I assume then that you feel the children should remain with those men who are abusing them and may not even be their fathers? What possible justification is there for that?

Breaking the law is how women in the US got the right to vote, as so did blacks. That the laws were then altered doesn’t change the initial, illegal circumstance. Breaking the law is how the US became a sovereign nation.

Non sequitur. I was pointing to the fact that the cult has been hiding it’s activities and confusing paternity by shuffling children and parents around, falsifying birth certificates, failing to report abuse etc. Are you suggesting that the struggle for civil rights or the birth of our nation is somehow on par with the systematic rape of children? There are former members who are suing for their parental rights but the situation inside the cult is so confused no one can say who’s children are who’s. What is your solution then, that we draw lots?

That state has a legitimate interest in the welfare of children. This is why we have laws against child abuse. The FLDS cult has fostered an environment where the sexual abuse of children is pervasive and ongoing. In order to ensure the safety of those children the only moral choice is to remove them from immanent harm. Once paternity is established then we can move to the next step and terminate parental rights case by case.

lemuel, I think you are arguing about group rights, right? Aboriginal children were certainly taken from their families in order to break what you seem to be claiming is a group right (to cultural existence). But this didn’t and couldn’t happen in this way without harming the individuals, and most people who contributed to the modern understanding of that sad episode present as one of the foremost cruelties of it the simple fact of the children having been separated from their families. So every action in the furtherance of the extinguishment of a group right also extinguished an individual right.

I know nothing about group vs. individual rights (or even the language of “rights” generally – so why am I commenting here? Don’t answer that please). But in this case it seems irrelevant since even if we were to include your group rights into Harry’s balancing act, every individual Aboriginal child and parents’ rights were trampled in pursuit of removing the group right.

Only if the kids were genuinely stolen for welfare reasons – and genocide was a side-effect – would your considerations be relevant. Then we would be balancing the protection of an individual right (to welfare) against a group right (to cultural survival). I certainly think most ordinary people understand that balance and (now, thank god) deplore anyone who would do such a thing blithely; but this is not what happened to the Stolen Generation. If you are presenting the debate in these terms, I think you are still falling for the talking points of the Australian Right. And who wants to do that? They’re a grubby bunch, you know.

That social consensus considers a 16 year old female who’s been menstruating for four or more years so unready for marriage and child-bearing that even consensual sex with her is rape may seem perfectly rational and moral to you and to most of the society you live in, but it’s a very recent viewpoint, and seems to be based on nothing more than early childhood traumatic instruction and punishment, and self-reinforcing communal taboos.

No, it’s based on the fact that the historical cultures in which women are married off early are very bad for women, physically, mentally and emotionally. Tell me one society like that (present or past) where women have flourished more than in the current western pattern? There is an argument for a consent age of the form that I believe they have in Holland, where account is taken of the age of both parties concerned (so legitimating some forms of early teen-early teen sex), but you can’t simply talk about ‘consent’ to sex and ignore the real power imbalances between an adult and a teenager and the abuses that can lead to.

“it’s based on the fact that the historical cultures in which women are married off early are very bad for women, physically, mentally and emotionally.”
And this is obviously because those women were “married off” early. What else could it be? Couldn’t be violent patriarchal dominance, couldn’t be a culture of intellectual repression, couldn’t be self-serving institutional morality, it couldn’t be anything other than early marriage. Which you conflate, naturally enough, with early child-bearing and its consequences, though the two are not symmetrically linked.
While you can’t “ignore the real power imbalances between an adult and a teenager” you, or the culture you rode in on, that’s given women so much freedom, can and do ignore virtually every other form of power imbalance that functions in that arena. Money, for instance.
Harming people for your own gratification, because you have an advantage of some kind over them, is not exactly confined to sexual activity between age-disparate heterosexuals.
This is not an argument for or against, certainly not in favor of FLDS-style polygamy. But the hypocrisy of too many self-styled champions of the innocent needs to stop. And one way to stop it is to point it out.

@60, you need to read up on the actual definition of ‘genocide’. As for Roy Belmont, sorry, but he is coming over here as creepy, weird, bordering on both nutty conspiracy-theory, and advocacy of pedophilia. Maybe it’s just the way he’s putting things, but that’s the impression I’m getting. Also, assuming that you have to approve the Iraq Mess [and apparently, absolutely every other aspect of contemporary US culture] to approve what is being done to the FDLS is, frankly, a crock.

“you need to read up on the actual definition of ‘genocide’.”

I know the definition of genocide. But whenever it’s actually been done, it’s involved the killing of a lot of innocent people, and I’m fairly sure that’s the reason why it’s so unequivocally perceived as A Bad Thing. If there were examples of cultures disappearing without any individuals from said culture being treated unjustly, I’m sceptical that many people outside of academia would give a monkey’s.

“Roy Belmont, sorry, but he is coming over here as creepy, weird, bordering on both nutty conspiracy-theory, and advocacy of pedophilia.”

Eh? The whole fucking point he’s making, accurately, is that if you equate sex with a 16-year-old to paedophilia you are stark raving mad and/or incapable of using words correctly.

The amount and intensity of the hysteria in your remarks may be coming from something unresolved and personal.

Actually Roy I’m calm, cool and collected. I’m just arguing my position. That position is that the state has a legitimate interest in the welfare of children. I haven’t even touched on the broader question of social policy vis a vis native Americans and so on. Your attempt to label me as an hysterical woman simply because I defend my position strenuously is a low blow.

As far as I can tell there was no “systematic rape of children” at the FLDS compound.

People who actually know what they are talking about and have been reporting on the case say otherwise Roy.

Sara Robinson
“I believe that the raid was necessary, and long overdue. The FLDS has a 60-year history of abusing women, raping young girls, and exploiting or abandoning its boys. Those who have long familiarity with the church know beyond a doubt that it violates the civil rights of its members in more ways that one lone blogger can possibly recount.”

what were not talking about
“So far, the wall-to-wall news coverage of the state of Texas’s raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints compound in Eldorado, TX has been focused on just a couple of narratives. The first, of course, is the state’s dogged and thorough — and long overdue — attempt to prove that the church’s young women have been systemically sexually abused by the men of the group; and that this abuse is not just rare, but rather an inherent and accepted feature of the group’s social order.”

Roy:
I have no solution to the problem of what to do with the orphans generated by this intervention, because I have almost no faith in the people and agencies involved.

Too bad, cynicism is a luxury that we just can’t afford right now. There are real children who have been abused. Not 16 year olds, oh no, 13 and 14 year old girls have delivered babies. Cynicism is the cowards way out.

three boos for anyone who thinks that consensual sex between a 16-year-old and a 25-year-old is rape.

What we are talking about – Rulon Jeffs

“FLDS founding patriarch Rulon Jeffs with his last two wives — sisters Edna and Mary Fischer — on their wedding day. He received the pair as a 90th birthday present.”

The man was 90 years old, the girls are still children. Go ahead, look at them, imagine they are your daughters. Imagine they were your children taken from you because you didn’t obey the prophet and you know very well what happens to them. Now tell me again how this is equivalent to a twenty something year old and a 16 year old who have met, dated and fallen in love. Really, I’d like to hear how you make the moral case for a 90 year old man having 75 wives and 65 children.

For me, this is one of those “I can’t believe there is even a debate about this moment”.

The once concern I have with laws enabling the government (in this case Texas child custody) to shut down cults like FLDS, is that the same laws could be written to allow government agencies to barge into the lives of parents who are not brainwashing their kids into turning into sex slaves. I want to prevent some future version of the Texas state government from taking children away from nuclear families and moving them into polygamous compounds. For this reason, and for this reason alone, I think we should be careful about the latitude we give child welfare agencies.

That said, isn’t it a core function of government to prevent abuse by private organizations? The one part of the US constitution that applies to private individuals is the ban on slavery. The FLDS seems to be exactly the sort of sinister private organization the state should be targeting. Why should it be treated any different than some group that kidnaps young women in other countries and imports them into the US to be prostitutes?

Really, I’d like to hear how you make the moral case for a 90 year old man having 75 wives and 65 children.

Literally as expressed in your quote above, I don’t think there’s a moral problem there at all. It’d be a bizarre set-up, but if they entered into it out of their own volition then *whatever*.

But the point you’re implicitly making, and the right reason for the state to intervene and to lock the FLDS leaders up, is that people aren’t entering into it out of their own volition; they’re being coerced by authority figures into actions they would never otherwise do.

[indeed, the “taking children away to places where bad things are likely to happen because you didn’t follow the rules” point that you made above appears to work both ways…]

Either way, the reason this is wrong isn’t because of Teh Secks, which is the way it’s largely been reported, and which is the aspect that I read Roy as objecting to.

Indeed, and as someone from the UK I find it disturbing and weird that plenty of people of my acquaintance over the last 10 years (not so much now I’m nearing 30) would be merrily locked up as paedo nonces by the commenters on this thread.

“It is a poor moral philosophy indeed that sees no problem with a 90 year old man having children by two 14 year old girls”

Yes, I imagine a moral philosophy which believed that this was a good thing would indeed be poor. Did you not actually read my comment, or did you merely ignore it?

Erm, it’s most certain;y not my moral philosophy that there is nothing wrong with a 90 year old having children with a 14 year old. It’s pretty much my moral philosophy that there is something very wrong with a 14 year old having children, whether the father in question is 20, 30 or 90.

I was merely pointing out that it is a minority view even in the West that 16 and 17 year olds are incapable of consenting to sex. I would it personally morally disturbing if a 16 year old were to have a child with someone considerably older, but illegal? Not so much.

I know the definition of genocide. But whenever it’s actually been done, it’s involved the killing of a lot of innocent people, and I’m fairly sure that’s the reason why it’s so unequivocally perceived as A Bad Thing.

No. You don’t know the definition of genocide.

The term was invented precisely to distinguish the crime of destroying a *people* from the crime of killing a large number of individuals. That is why e.g. sg can describe the forced removal of aboriginal children as part of a policy of genocide even though no one may have been killed.

The UN defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” such as “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group” and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

In other words, it is precisely a crime against a people rather than against the individuals composing that people. Under this defintion, an aggressive family planning polci such as China’s is acceptable, but an identical polic intended to selectively reduce births among a particualr ethnic group is unacceptable.

Now, you don’t have to accept this. But you do have to recognize that for most people, families, cultures and nations have an independnet moral worth apart from the individuals that compose them at any given moment. Genocide as a distinct crime only makes sense inthis frameowkr.

You can take the Tracy G/harry Brighouse/ajay/etc. line consistently, and say that the whole idea of genocide is misguided and should be thrown out. Buit you need to recognize that this is a radical departure from the morality most of us operate under.

On the other hand, if your goal — as Harry’s seems to be — is to clarify generally-held moral views, then you need to be able to accomodate genocide as a distinct crime. In which case statements like 39 (“Cultures have interests? No, people have interests.”) are simply wrong.

“Did you not actually read my comment, or did you merely ignore it?”

What I read you saying is that you don’t have a problem with a 90 year old and a 14 year old getting married if the girl enters into it willingly. You appear to be suggesting that in the outside world this would somehow be possible.

My claim is that a 14 year old is not able to give her consent simply by virtue of her age, she is still a child. You seem to want to emphasize the 17 year old and appear to be saying that, outside of this fertility cult and all things being equal, consensual relations between a 90 year old and a 14 year old would be ok. That’s what I hear you saying.

(BTW, I am not upset, not hysterical. I am just arguing for my position.)

I have less of a problem in the case of a 25yo man with a 17yo woman, though I would still not like it. In many states here in the US that 25 year old man would go to jail (I don’t keep up on these things, maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know) because even though a 17 year old is above the age of consent it is still considered statutory rape if one partner is more than 5 years her senior.

In general I agree with that. 25 year olds have no business being with 17yo girls because really, at 17 you are still very immature. There is also going to be a considerable power dynamic. At 25 he should have graduated and have a full time job or a trade by then. She is still listening to boy bands.

Harry — if you are still reading this let me re-phrase me question slightly. Is your argument consistent with the state allowing any couple to have one child, but re-distributing any further children at birth to other couples (perhaps to those who are unable to conceive)?

No, I still stand by that: I believe that while genocide is *defined* as the “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”, the reason for popular revulsion with the concept of genocide is that in practice, carrying out those acts involves doing a great many horrible things to individuals.

If a literal genocide – i.e. the destruction of a particular cultural identity – could be carried out that didn’t involve doing horrible things to any individuals (compulsory sterilisation or adoption clearly count as ‘horrible’) here, I don’t believe it would be unequivocally perceived as a bad thing, and I think that most people outside academia would be reluctant to refer to it as a genocide precisely *because* it didn’t involve doing horrible things to individuals.

[sample survey: “what was worst about the Holocaust? a) the murder of six million innocent people; b) the attempt to wipe out Jewish culture”. I reckon it’s the a) box that’s getting the majority of the ticks here…]

Intention. The other civilians died during The Horrors Of War (TM), as a nominally unintentional consequence of bombing campaigns or as victims of murders by individual soldiers.

The concentration camp victims died as a result of a deliberate policy of industrial-scale murder committed by something that rather closely resembled a modern state.

I’m not sure why I’m bothering to argue with someone who combines your levels of pomposity, belligerence and ignorance.

However, I’m reluctant to stop when I’m right. So: “the horrors of war” is precisely how the casualties inflicted by us and our allies were accounted for at the time and afterwards. Yes, I was being slightly glib, hence the TM, but the generally understood narrative of WWII is:

1) lots of bad things happened because it was a war; AND

2) the evil Nazis murdered innocent people in concentration camps.

The firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, along with the atrocities that took place in the USSR, fit in to box 1 and not box 2 of the popular narrative.

I’m rather at a loss as to how an entire culture could be destroyed without any individual’s rights being violated and/or horrible things happening to individual people. Care to share a for instance with us?

If people can’t make their point without accusing others on the thread of being “hysterical” or “lunatic”, it points to the poverty of their own argument.

Noen, you don’t have to justify yourself to these characters or engage with this rubbish: we’re quite aware your comment which kicked off the accusations of being “hysterical” was nothing of the kind.

But John B, a number of the FLDS ‘marriages’ appear not to have been consenting, for instance the young woman whose forced ‘marriage’ to her cousin and ensuing rape by him precipitated Jeffs being charged.

I assume of course that you don’t include forced marriages in the relations you’re defending, and of course you don’t need to make this explicit because it’s a question of basic human decency, but I haven’t seen much acknowledgement that at least some of what Roy Belmont is saying doesn’t quite fit the bill (eg “no systematic rape of children” in the FLDS community, @55)

engels — I’m still reading and still thinking. I think what you propose might be consistent with our argument, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I can think of plenty of considerations which, in combination with our argument, would rule it out. And its possible that an elaboration of our argument would, too.

In our favor, I’d note that rival accounts either fail, or also don’t rule it out. (I say that and immediately demur — I suspect that Matthew Clayton’s argument for parent’s rights is successful and may well rule it out).

mq — I’ll get some references and do a short post later.

“lunatic” IMO is an accurate description of someone who thinks that a 25-year-old man who has a consenting relationship with a 17-year-old woman should be incarcerated.

“Disingenuous” is an accurate description of someone who conflates a relationship between a 17- and a 25- year old which comes from meeting each other in a normal social setting, and such a relationship which results from the 17 year old being given to the man in an arranged marriage without choice in the matter.

Oh, and being required to start breeding at once (which the couple in the first example would tend to avoid.)

In fact, given the evidence that has come out, many of the age differences were more extreme than 17/25.

Some of you, John B distinctly excepted, have assumed my opposition to your assertions and tone to be an opposition to your intent, and as a defense of those you attack, but this is not so. I’d no doubt find plenty to condemn in the practices and beliefs of the FLDS, and no doubt will after I read Krakauer’s book.
I’m pointing out your hypocrisies not because hypocrisy is such a ghastly thing in and of itself, but because of what you’re being hypocritical about.
Kids got burned alive at Waco, to save them from being molested. That was a direct product of the kind of hypocrisy, and hysteria, I’m pointing at.

As for the actual topic of the post: something missing from Swift and Brigham’s argument and from the arguments they rebut as well, is a recognition of the family – the constellation of individuals life is lived with and among daily – as strongly present if not as strongly defined as the individuals whether parent or child, and as entitled to the rights of its place. Family as distinct from though incorporating parents.
For children, family is the most important other there is. The educational system creates an artificially specific age-derived version of this which occupies much of most childhoods and gets deeply internalized and may account for the irrationally exaggerated negative reaction to age-disparate coupling so prevalent now.
In social terrain where the child is isolated from other biological kin the parents become synonymous with family by default, while school and things like television occupy the functional places of an extended family in the child’s life. For most all our history that condition of biological isolation was an aberration, a deprived condition. Within the last 100 years it’s become the norm.
The simultaneous denigration of the aged has meant that one of the strongest voices for that larger biological family as a child’s natural context has been trivialized to the point of silence.
Discounting this larger more complete biological relationship, and defaulting it exclusively onto the parent-child cognation, is a serious change from traditional patterns of child-raising, though it’s very similar to the traditional domestication processes of animal husbandry, and it may involve a more serious deficit in children’s lives than present consensus understands. Present consensus consisting mostly of children raised in that isolation as if it were the norm.

Noen,

If it is so clear that the group systematically abused children why haven’t they all been arrested?

Its the incredibly low standard required to prove harm before taking the children away that has me disgusted.

Bringing evidence and charges of rape against individuals or even conspiracy charges against a group and then taking those people’s children away is one thing but what has happened here is different.

The danger of the FLDS growing like a cancer is laughable. If they were a species or an aboriginal culture they’d be on the endangered list.

I’m not sure what you mean about protecting cults not offering a given individual protection. Are you agreeing with me that the state has gotten so instrusive in child-rearing practices that no one is safe.

Or are you saying indoctrination is abuse?

No, you don’t get it, Roy – it’s vitally important that people who’ve done nothing aside from brokering transactions between consenting adults are either imprisoned or hounded to death, because [something utterly nonsensical]. These laws exist for very good reasons and are based on sound medical facts. You evil misogynist freak, you.

noen,

You are one typical bureaucrat: take all the kids and sort out the crimes later. A country with that kind of due process is a country without much due process.

Describing 2,4 and 6 year olds being taken from their homes under no immediate threat whatsoever as “stabilization” is totalitarian in the extreme.

Thank you sg, for this calm remonstrance – but from #55 down there’s been another, non-Harry thread woven alongside the main, official one.
Involving, exactly in my view, the same moral, ethical, psycho-sexual, civic, and, though it hasn’t been overtly brought forward in either case, religious elements.
As Martin James succinctly points out, some of the voices on the other side of the debate into which I entered the outrageous tragedy of Palfrey’s suicide are assuming the moral totality of the state’s mandate to protect its citizens as their own, and therefore just and appropriate. This would call for wholehearted support if that morality was, as it claims to be, a superior force. If not, it needs to be reminded of the beam in its own eye, and to have its hypocritical elisions made clear. Not to mention, again, the stacked bodies of thousands of children in Iraq. Thousands.
In the FLDS case specifically this moral totalitarianism is bringing unnecessary turmoil into the lives of at least some of the children the state is ostensibly acting to protect. Not to mention feeding the arrogance of people with a vicarious appetite for moral catharsis. Not to mention Waco, again.
My own efforts haven’t been so much to gain a superior position in an argument of points as to illustrate the hypocrisy operating behind the, to me, self-righteous moral warriorism evident in the tone of some of the comments. Which I have, I think, again.

lemuel, in defending the definition of genocide you never got around to answering my original point.

Which point? I thought we were basically in agreement….

Lemuel, I thought you were suggesting that the Australian government was balancing individual rights (welfare) against a group right (cultural survival), which is the common right-wing argument for the removal of Aboriginal children. My bad if I misunderstood you, sorry… as you were, back into the breach and all that…

Martin, I don’t know anything about US child protection law, but I did have some exposure (professionally) to the child protection laws in one state of Australia, and in that case it was very clear that the state always attempts (in theory, the state being a state and all that) to try and keep families together, with removal being the last option. That said, however, when dealing with a child in a family one always has to take the family as a GROUP. After all, if you decide to leave the child with the family are you not at least partially taking into account the rights and desires of the GROUP (i.e. the parents) and balancing them against the child? The realm of child protection law and study needs to take into account the dynamics of the family unit, including but not necessarily limited to the long-term effect of a child witnessing his siblings being raped, beaten or abused. I guess you don’t work in child protection, and neither do I but I have worked close enough to the industry to have heard some truly shocking stories, and to have seen their long term consequences. Child abuse is the gift that keeps on giving, for generations after it is done, and it really is the case that broad and generalised intervention makes a big difference to the future of more than just the actual victims.

You also should note you have phrased the situation very poorly. You say that because the

GROUP does not agree with the law on a specific matter (marriage and pregnancy at a young age) that the GROUP loses it right to custody of all its children, even those that are unlikely to be affected by a young age of marriage.

as if children were being separated from parents on the basis of a theoretical dispute. But what you should be saying is that because the

GROUP rapes female children and impregnates them, and raises boys to do the same, the GROUP loses it right to custody of all its children, even those that are unlikely to be affected by rape

And its worth noting that all the boys in this GROUP are being raised to commit a crime (the crime of incest and rape). We aren’t talking about a matter of ethical debate here – this is a cauldron of child abusers, their protectors and their victims.

(Assuming, of course that the facts of the case as asserted by the authorities are true).

The state is not a person with an evil avaricious mind, you know. We give the states these powers, and in the case of child protection populations tend to clamour for them when the need becomes evident. For example in NSW, Australia, after the Woods Royal Commission of 1996, child protection powers were strengthened and enhanced by popular demand. In making the changes we did, NSW residents made very clear that individuals in the community have a far greater responsibility to protect children than was previously believed. It became much harder for groups (particularly churches) to overlook or condone child abuse, or protect abusers. These powers are almost universally supported. The idea that “the State” (or Sauron, or anyone else) is “grabbing” these powers is just silly.

And compared to being forced to eat processed foods, these kids are suffering far worse problems. It’s good to keep some perspective…