This, from @jbouie, is exactly right. And what makes it worse is that the cultural values so many of these parents want to force upon schools are in fact bad and immoral and, to the extent they become more widely represented in our society, the lower and more vicious our society becomes. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/28/opinion/parents-rights-republicans-florida.html?unlocked_article_code=bJ_49bcVvUI_58WtG9TLPyBVR-D4ssqQ9bXTyhHytAtFaYiaj2hATf0GVVZZuhKqZ5P5d6POzOiAhigTPVibOgjMwnW2G4-loBvQh8J7lL8DMd12sDmHNGaAA7l6h7lsH9o-1Dq1xTwHOLyttVEblZAKlhS6AS5er2cBUk5zoZJfRg8KzyrwQiUFK8mmZ-WWdD5eXONkTnPOWn6_km8e0rP8ZF11W4kG7JMAQb1VZgXMrRoI3Jg0IpYbcsZtweZ9GgslP4BD8Ma6eN5xE5cr0JRfEiUXd5zPjh6DCiK80B5MmqPHWwKTicXtszXknKSnIOnYBZ1U8QcdRpOrDDJdIXMqz3D02aHbeV6QGQ&smid=url-share
Yes it's very good. One thing that's missing is that it's important to say #ChildrensRights. There are TWO countervailing priorities to parent's rights: a democratic way of life (our collective need to have an educated citizenry) and the rights of children. Focusing on the debate as between one parent vs another parent makes children into invisible objects to be controlled and dominated. The antidote is to center children within a story that is supposed to be about those children.
@ttpphd @arossp
I must suggest here Talia Levin ( @swordsjew ) whose excellent article this week goes into exactly that.
https://theswordandthesandwich.substack.com/p/on-the-rights-of-the-child-part-i
Most telling is that the United States, in the 33-year-and-counting refusal to ratify the rights of the child, has informed the world that in the minds of Republicans, children have no rights at all.
At least, no rights which would conflict with the demands of parents to prune and abuse their children until they're a shadow of a human being.
@theogrin
Oh my God thank you!
Child rights is that clarifying perspective that encapsulates this whole debate for me. It's the equivalent of bodily autonomy in the abortion debate. A solid moral principle that cuts through all the bullshit.
> children are, in fact, their parents’ property, subject to absolute control, and not accountable to any standard outside the nuclear family unit.
That is so obviously fucked up, who could defend it?
@arossp @jbouie What they also mean is the “parent’s right” to oppress and to abuse - to deprive children of a social life, to “discipline them as I see fit”, to keep them frightened and isolated, to teach them to fear and hate and call it “Christian values”, to ensure they end up as fucked up and brutalised as their parents.