I’m so glad someone in Texas is being reasonable. Today the Texas supreme court ordered CPS (Child Protective Services) to give back the more than 400 children it took from a religious sect.
Scott and I have been watching this story and from the beginning I’ve been shocked that more people all over the U.S. are not up in arms over how easily CPS waltzed in to this community and all but stole their children. As the court sessions started coming out, more and more detail leaked about how the instigating phone call was a fake, the pregnant minors were really not minors (some as old as 26) and there was *no* proof of any child abuse happening to these children.
I’m not super religious, and I don’t agree with the principles behind the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ religion, but I do think parents have the right to raise their children without interference from the government. Just imagine how much damage being yanked away from the only culture and family these 400 kids have ever known has done. I’d say it’s far worse than anything the church could have ever come up with.
-Meg
It’s always nicer to write about something good rather than something upsetting but I’m feeling very strongly about the issues these Dutch “parents” must have after reading this story. The gist of it is that a Dutch consul and his wife adopted a Korean baby girl when he was stationed in Hong Kong over 6 years ago. Now that the girl is 7 and the consul is no longer posted in an Asian nation they have given the girl back for re-adoption. I’m just hurt for the girl, enraged at the parents and disgusted that anyone could be so callous. Children are for always, and I can’t believe anyone wouldn’t be able to understand that. Read the story if you’re up for it.
-Meg
A Nation of Cowards
“Cowardice” and “self-respect” have largely disappeared from public discourse. In their place we are offered “self-esteem” as the bellwether of success and a proxy for dignity. “Self-respect” implies that one recognizes standards, and judges oneself worthy by the degree to which one lives up to them. “Self-esteem” simply means that one feels good about oneself. “Dignity” used to refer to the self-mastery and fortitude with which a person conducted himself in the face of life’s vicissitudes and the boorish behavior of others. Now, judging by campus speech codes, dignity requires that we never encounter a discouraging word and that others be coerced into acting respectfully, evidently on the assumption that we are powerless to prevent our degradation if exposed to the demeaning behavior of others. These are signposts proclaiming the insubstantiality of our character, the hollowness of our souls.
“Call for a cop, call for an ambulance, and call for a pizza. See who shows up first.”
A nationwide study by Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The “error rate” for the police, however, was 11 percent, over five times as high.
In truth, one who believes it wrong to arm himself against criminal violence shows contempt of God’s gift of life (or, in modern parlance, does not properly value himself), does not live up to his responsibilities to his family and community, and proclaims himself mentally and morally deficient, because he does not trust himself to behave responsibly.
and that last quote pretty much sums it up.
Seriously…for anyone that watched the Pats/Colts game, what the heck is with offensive pass interference. I had no idea you could get into so much trouble for trying to catch the ball being thrown to you. Go Colts refs, way to make a new type of ridiculous call-