R. Yitzchok – Clarifying matters

R. Yitzchok – we’re talking past each other, I think.

You think I mean this:

I thought you were arguing that if we are going to be so mindful of the civil rights of 12 year olds to give them leave to do whatever they want with their bodies, then we cannot prevent them from patronizing tanning salons without parental consent.

That is not what I mean.

In recent years, there has been an ongoing and bitter struggle around the issue of parental notification of abortion. The Right wants parents to be notified; the Left adamantly argues against any parental notification laws.

My point was not at all about “inconsistencies in the law” or about “the civil rights of 12-year olds” but about the transparency of liberal hypocrisy – they claim to care about kids, what they care about is promoting abortion. (Remember, parents are required to sign a release for any other medical procedure – the Left makes an exception of abortion and denies parents even the right to know it’s happening.) This article nicely illustrates that the same forces who agitate to deny the right of parents to know if their 12-year old is getting an abortion now want to outlaw 17-year old decision-making when it comes to something much less physically (or emotionally) dangerous: tanning.

That was MY point.

YOU brought up something else – a paen to (at least in my mind) frighteningly expansive, horribly intrusive government. To which I responded that, despite there being cases of horrible suffering under a regime which gives parents more control over their children, as a rule parents are more motivated to and more likely to take infinitely better care of their children than the government. As a policy matter, I believe the suffering of children (and parents) would increase unimaginably – indeed, would be the norm rather than the exception – if the government took over for parents in the way you seem to be suggesting.

Just to be parochial for a second, my friend, for purposes of illustration – the big-government liberal mentality you’re espousing would not tolerate for a second the right of parents to raise their children as Orthodox Jews. If they had the power to take our kids away and give them a proper secularist upbringing, they’d do it in a heartbeat.

There are exceptions, but here is the rule: More limited government is better. More parental control is better.