
By: Fredric Rice
To: Jim Cowan
Re: Parents and respect

FR> You stated that children should respect their fathers.  You didn't say
FR> anything about whether the father deserves respect.  That's the wold
FR> point, Jim.  People must _earn_ respect; granting it post-hoc degrades
FR> all meaning of respect.

jc> I see.

Do you honestly?  Or are you being rhetorical?

jc> So we are going to allow the children to measure
jc> the parents qualifications for simple respect?

Yes.  Ask some of the children who were sexually molested or raped by their
parents in this forum whether they should be allowed to judge their parents
'qualification for respect.'

Taken as an extreme, I'm sure you will not try to defend your original
position that parents should be given de facto respect just because they're
parents.  (Try to defend it and you sign your own cyber death warrant as you
will be ritually dismembered and unzipped.)

Let's leave the extremes and go to the common.  Many parents are drunks who
don't take care of their children.  Ergo the parents don't deserve respect.

jc> It is not the childs place to decide who is or isn't worthy of respect.

Thus we see why Christian clergy is allowed to rape children and why the
problem is epidemic in the Christian cult.  The Authoritarian, Totalitarian
dictate that children must obey adults is an ideological cornerstone of
both the Christian cult and society in general.

You, sir, are defending a very sick ideal.

jc> The child is not qualified to make such a decision

Healthy, well-educated children most certainly are.  My children are.  Why is it that
you have children who are not?

If a child is not educated to the point where they can't determine whether an
adult is worthy of respect of not, the failing is not with the child but with
the parents of the child.

jc> nor is it right to put such a burden on the child.

That belief is what makes children such easy victims.

