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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Who ‘owns’ children? And who should step in when parents fail?

By David McElroy · September 16, 2013

Jonathan and Sarah Adleta

Over the weekend, a woman in California killed her two children in a motel room and then wrecked her car in an attempt to kill herself. She then tried to choke herself, but she was rescued. On the way to a hospital, she told police where to find her dead children. We don’t know much about her other than that she lives in Arizona and was driving a car with Georgia license plates.

Stories such as this are gut-wrenching for most of us, because it’s one of our most basic instincts to protect children and save them from harm. We tend to assume this is just a snap decision by someone who’s mentally ill. But other stories are even more horrific — and long term.

When Jonathan Adleta’s girlfriend, Sarah, got pregnant, he wouldn’t agree to marry her until she agreed that he could engage in “daddy-daughter sex” with the girl after she was born. They married and Adleta abused the child. His wife was expected to engaged in sex with a son when they had one in the future. The pair are on trial now after their crimes were discovered. (That’s their mugshots above.)

Parents fail in horrific ways all the time, some of which are criminal acts, but most of which are legal, but still damaging to children. For those of us who reject the legitimacy of the state, this brings up an uncomfortable and difficult question. If we reject the state, who is to protect children? Who is to step in when monsters such as the Adletas hurt their children? And who is to make decisions when parents are making crazy decisions that damage their kids?

I started thinking about this last week when a friend shared an article from a medical journal about a 3-year-old girl with serious health problems because her parents refused to feed her the kind of food she needed. The parents “diagnosed” the girl with multiple allergies and chemical sensitivities. They restricted her diet to chickpea milk, bison meat and salicylate-free vegetables — resulting in a serious vitamin A deficiency.

The parents of this child tried to prevent doctors from giving the girl what she needed and continued to claim she had chemical sensitivities which they couldn’t prove. Against the parents’ wishes, doctors treated the child and then released her to a state child protection agency. Since it’s a medical journal and not a newspaper or court record, we don’t know who the parents are or what happened to the child.

It’s easy for any of us to say that we would try to stop a mother from killing her children if we could. Likewise, it’s easy for us to say that we would stop a father from sexually abusing his daughter if we knew about it. But what would any of us do about parents who claim — without medical foundation — that their daughter has allergies and sensitivities? Wouldn’t most of us simply say the parents have the right to make that decision, unaware of the damage they were doing to her?

Those of us who oppose the state have a serious problem here — and I don’t know the answer. I don’t want to live in a world where stupid or uncaring parents destroy children, but I also don’t want to live in a world where government agencies hold all the power to dictate things to parents.

I can’t claim to have a good position about how to handle such things. As a human being, though, I know I’m not willing to sit idly by and just accept parents doing this to children. I just don’t know the right intellectual framework for justifying the actions that need to be taken to save the children. It’s a conundrum to me.

What are we to say that children are, philosophically? Many people act as though they’re the property of parents. (And I think that was the literal position of society for many years in the past.) I don’t think any of us would say that parents own children today, but what rights do children have? Do they have no rights of their own until they reach some magic age that the state arbitrarily chooses?

Out-and-out socialists seem to take the position that we all belong to the state, so they don’t have a philosophical problem. Progressives tend to believe in government to make decisions for the best interests of children, so they don’t have any problem allowing the state to step in and take children away or make decisions for them. Even conservatives generally believe that protecting children is a core function of government, so it’s acceptable for coercive government to step in, although many of them would argue about when that point is reached. Many libertarians (of the “minarchist” type) would take the same position — that this is a legitimate function of government.

So that leaves those of us who oppose the state without a logical solution. Do we leave abusive parents alone to terrorize and possibly kill their children? Do we trust private community vigilante groups to decide on an ad hoc basis when parents aren’t taking care of their children and assume they’re going to step in with force if necessary to protect kids?

I don’t like those alternatives. They don’t seem realistic or fair to children or parents. But what do we do?

Let’s be honest and say that the state isn’t going away in the next few years, so we’re unlikely to face the issue immediately. But if the state does collapse — as I think it inevitably will — are we going to have an intellectual and practical framework within which children can be protected? Or will it be a terrible time for children in some families to be alive?

The state does a horrible job of protecting many children. The system we have is horribly imperfect. The law is messy and is applied unequally. And much abuse is never reported. So what we have is lousy. My concern is making sure we don’t end up with something that’s even worse.

I don’t have an answer to this. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for years and it has me stumped. I’m not sure what rights to say that children have and when to say that they have the right to be independent if they want to be. I’m not sure how to hold parents accountable. It’s all a mess of issues that make me very uncomfortable — but they’re issues that must have answers.

If you oppose the state as I do, what’s your solution? How are we to solve this in a post-statist world?

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It was too cloudy last night for me to take a phot It was too cloudy last night for me to take a photo of the lunar eclipse, so I missed the beautiful red image that I saw from others. But the sky overhead tonight is crystal clear — and the moon seemed especially bright — so I snapped a shot anyway. I don’t really have the right lens for this since I have to blow it up massively when I shoot at 240mm. Surprisingly, this image was made at 1/250th of a second at f/6.3 and ISO 250. I’d like to have a longer lens for such a shot, but it’s not worth the money since I’d rarely use it. #nature #naturephotography #sky #moon
The aftermath of sunset looked soft and pastel Tue The aftermath of sunset looked soft and pastel Tuesday evening. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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I caught just the very end of sunset through the t I caught just the very end of sunset through the trees behind the restaurant where I’m eating Tuesday evening. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Ca Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Cat in the World — and I can’t say he’s wrong tonight. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as though he’s on high alert and ready to run away from danger. His feral early years still dominate his internal programming. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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