It's a short hop and skip from this to state intervention on "behalf" of children for reasons like insufficient exposure to diversity or other tenets of PC dogma (fascist regimes of the past had a generic heading for "anti-social" crime; the USSR considered skepticism of communism evidence of mental illness; IOW there's a precedent for this sort of thing). In fact, haven't we already heard about some kids being forced into public schools for "socialization"? I know that has happened in Canada, but I think there was somewhere in the US too.
The underlying issue is this modern assumption that all ills, real or imagined, can be ameliorated by the heavy hand of the state. People have lost perspective on the fact that respecting and preserving freedom means that sometimes other people will choose to do tacky, distasteful, or self-harming things with their freedom. I am not giving up my own freedom in order to accommodate the Busybodies' demands for the state to eliminate every perceived societal wrong. The example Pandora cited is typical of that ilk, immediately trying to equate parents who maybe let their kids eat too much junk food with things like incest and physical abuse -- because of course those things are separated merely by degrees! I mean where does this end? What about parents who drag uncooperative kids to church every Sunday? I guess they're violating the kids' rights too? I guess what I'm getting at is that we, as a society, have lost sight of the simple reality that sometimes Sh*t Happens. A kid has certain human rights, yes; but likewise parents have the right to rear their own offspring. In cases of actual and direct abuse or negligence, intervention is justified. Anything else, even if it bothers overwrought yuppie housewives to no end, can be filed under "Sh*t Happens" and "Mind Your Own Damn Business".
Are we seriously to be lectured on the subject of child endangerment by the same people who have made it their prime mission to assure there are no hurdles whatsoever to the forcible expulsion of the unborn from their wombs?
