German court: Religious circumcision on minors is a crime

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Cocytus
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Re: German court: Religious circumcision on minors is a crim

Post by Cocytus » Fri Jul 27, 2012 1:24 am

sonofccn wrote:No. Children have no rights, no freedoms as we understand them. They have priviliges, which can be administered and taken away by their fiat of their guadian , nothing more. Take an adult against his will to a place, shove him down into a seat and jab needles and drills into his mouth and we have a kidnapping. A child and its going to the dentist. Children and Adults are seperate and distinct, to argue otherwise is madness.
Separate and distinct, yes. But to argue that children have no rights is plainly false. Children do indeed have rights. The Supreme Court affirmed in In Re Gault that a minor had the same rights to counsel, confronting the witness, etc. that an adult has. What is certain is that children do not have all the same rights and freedoms as adults have. Children and adults share those rights that are contingent merely upon their existence. Children are not accorded the rights that require the complex reasoning and accounting for variables that inform (most) adult decision-making, because we know that their brains simply aren't yet capable of it. (As an aside, I think many adults aren't capable of it either, but that's just me) Thus, children are legally required to wait until a certain age to vote, drive, drink, have sex, own firearms, operate machinery, work, etc. Children cannot be treated like miniature adults, that much is true. But the diametric viewpoint you just articulated is to abolish any rights of children and reduce their status to that of property and lo, we've wrought for ourselves a 21st century Rome, complete will all the pederasty and patria potestas that went with it. Or was that not quite what you meant? Would you accord children human rights, or would those too be merely privileges? Could a parent sexually abuse a child and aver that any expectation that the child would be free from such depravity was merely a privilege that said parent decided to rescind so he could indulge his twisted desires? Of course not, and I don't believe for a millisecond that you would not find that as repulsive as I would. I'm demonstrating how your absolutist phrasing can be turned to evil purposes frighteningly easily.

Children do have rights, they simply aren't as extensive as those of adults, and the state is more often focused on the negative rights of children to be free from certain things, hence why we have laws against pandering obscene material to children, contributing to the delinquency of minors, child neglect, child abuse, child pornography, etc, etc. The German court has seen fit to conclude that the basic rights of the child to physical integrity supercede the rights of the parent, and I applaud that decision. I'd love to see something similar in the US, but I'm not holding my breath.
sonofccn wrote:The problem with using strong-arm tactics to impose your personal viewpoint is when you find yourself on the other end of the "stick". Rights which are unevenly and disparatingly enforced are not rights, merely priviliges which can be given or taken by the State.
Quite correct. Suffice it to say that a rigid respect for individual rights would invariably lead one to the conclusion that liberalism and conservatism are both wholly inadequate to the task, since they both have their collective aspects that demand state intervention in private lives. Of course, the question that must be asked is whether the right to do or to be something comes before or after the right not to do or not to be?

sonofccn
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Re: German court: Religious circumcision on minors is a crim

Post by sonofccn » Fri Jul 27, 2012 1:40 pm

Cocytus wrote:Separate and distinct, yes. But to argue that children have no rights is plainly false.
No rights or freedoms as would be understood in the context of adults. Which WILGA argued were fundementally the same. Now that is not to say I am arguing chldren are nonpersons under the law but they are different.
Cocytus wrote:Would you accord children human rights, or would those too be merely privileges?
Human rights? No. I would subject them to a moral code which would dictate decency in interactions and steep punishment for those who violated against them. But since I don't truly believe humans, as a species, are just born by default with "rights" I can't give to children what I can't give to an adult. Which isn't to say I'm calling for the inhuman treatment of the "other" merely placing my interaction through a moral prism rather than a legal one. That is I view the world through a prism where law is in essence a reflection of the local moral code, such as it is, and you appear to hold one of the moral code being reflection of the legal.

Edit: To expand it appears to me your basic argument is if given a choice you believe the citizenry will vote to repeal say child labor laws or what have you. That without "rights", of the inalienable and adult sense, they are reduced to mere chattle. To me such laws, much as laws in general, are a product of the culture which produced them and which should still be a constant and still goveren. And it is through such that I can hold the position that child rapist should be hung from their necks, support laws which carry such out and never question if a child has a "right" to be defended from such.
Cocytus wrote:Could a parent sexually abuse a child and aver that any expectation that the child would be free from such depravity was merely a privilege that said parent decided to rescind so he could indulge his twisted desires?
Well as I previously mentioned under the threat of harm to the child I do support the State, or local angry mob, stepping in. The question is of course would that be phrased as a child has a right not to be raped or Adults have a responsbility to protect the innocent.
Cocytus wrote:Of course not, and I don't believe for a millisecond that you would not find that as repulsive as I would. I'm demonstrating how your absolutist phrasing can be turned to evil purposes frighteningly easily.
Of course. But equally apparent is such an individual who would do the action proscribed would do so regardless of "rights" and those who wouldn't would not do it regardless of "rights" either.
Cocytus wrote:hence why we have laws against pandering obscene material to children, contributing to the delinquency of minors, child neglect, child abuse, child pornography, etc, etc.
As we very well should but I'd argue it is an abuse of a term to describe rulings and actions prohibiting something as a "right",in the inalienable sense, against such. We having rulings and bodies intended to prevent corruption of our police forces for instance, its a laudable goal with much merit but I at least would find it ludicrus to express one has a "right" to an uncorrupt police force. Rather than an obligation between you and the local goverment to provide a law enforcment capable of providing the needed stability for the daily actions of citizenhood to be acted upon.
Cocytus wrote:The German court has seen fit to conclude that the basic rights of the child to physical integrity supercede the rights of the parent, and I applaud that decision. I'd love to see something similar in the US, but I'm not holding my breath.
Yes they did conclude that. And to me all I can see is the State stepping in between Parents and their raising of their children over a "right" I had no idea existed before this.
Cocytus wrote:Quite correct. Suffice it to say that a rigid respect for individual rights would invariably lead one to the conclusion that liberalism and conservatism are both wholly inadequate to the task, since they both have their collective aspects that demand state intervention in private lives.
I wouldn't say inadequate...merely there are and always shall be tempation. Humans are, in the end, flawed and therefore any activity they conduct will share those flaws.

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