Posted by
grad_1986 on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 3:30:14 PM
The old classic song by Sinatra that he ended all of his concerts singing was: "I did it my way". This song speaks of the freedoms we have as individuals to make choices in our lives whether they be to our good or to our detriment. I sometimes wish the founding fathers had put in an 11th Bill-of-Right called, "The Right to be Stupid". I use the word "stupid" with some tongue-in-cheek here. I am not saying that the people in the following story I am going to comment on are stupid in any way. Instead, I am meaning it in the view of the judge and our government who must be by all means viewing these people as "stupid".
I read a story of a boy in Minnesota who is refusing to receive Chemotherapy for cancer which his parents also disapprove of. But according to state law, the medical profession can declare the parents as being "unfit parents" if they are not providing the medical care that they deem necessary. This case has made its way all the way up to a Minnesota judge who has sided with the medical profession and is "ordering the child to receive chemotherapy". This ruling cuts at the very hart of our rights as citizens from many angles.
First there is the rights of the parents. For decades our country has sided with parents on how to raise their children. We may not always agree with their decisions, but we respect (there's a word not used much anymore) their place in our society. We know what goes around comes around eventually back to us. From the top to the bottom our country has lost all sense of respect for lower forms of government. The federal does not respect the state, the state does not respect the local and it seems no one respects the family. But respect is a two way street. If the government does not show respect towards the family, then families will stop teaching their children to respect the government. From there its a quick trip from democracy to anarchy.
Next there is the rights of the child. The government in this case has decided that the child has no rights to his own body and no rights to his own privacy. They have determined that they "know better" and the rights of the child must take a back seat to smarter, more intelligent people such as judges and doctors. If this were a 12 year-old girl and she was being forced by a judge to get an abortion or NOT get abortion, this would be front page news!! My hope is this boy bites, claws, kicks, punches every medical person who gets within 10 ft of him and that his parents get it on video for all to see. I find it ironic that some in our nation are worried about harming some terrorists with "waterboarding" but we will strap down a 12 year old boy to inject him with all kinds of chemicals that will make him vomit, lose his hair, feel weak and rotten inside and maybe even kill him. What a strange world we live in today.
But I doubt it will end here. We have been sliding down this very slippery slope of government "intervention" for a long time now. While to some degree I understand "no man is an island unto himself", but I do believe we all reserve the right to build moats if we so desire. Activist judges and nanny-state politicians will continue to push their "government knows best" agenda until all of our freedoms we enjoy are lost. Most of these decisions will affect parents and children. Imagine a government which no longer values religious education and decides that a child will be unduly harmed by his parents decision to put their child in what they deem to be a less qualified religious school? Can they be considered to be "unfit parents" as well? What if the child says they want to attend the religious school? Can the government declare (as they did with the boy in this story), incapable of making his own decision?
We all think none of this will ever effect ME. Its always the other guy. But if this can be done to a 12 year old boy, what about
1) The mentally disabled
2) The elderly (we will all fall in this category sooner or later)
3) The disabled
4) The different (looks, culture or ideology).
Will they lose their rights as well?
Think about it.