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@arossp @jbouie "Parent's rights" is a claim of ownership over another person and nothing else

@arossp @jbouie Think of the most belligerent backward loudmouth parent in your school.

They have the power to restrict what your kid is taught.

@arossp @jbouie
Children also have rights.
To be protected from abuse, including by their parents.
To learn (age-appropriately) about the world as it is, and not to be fed lies and misinformation as truth.

@arossp

Yes it's very good. One thing that's missing is that it's important to say . 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.

theswordandthesandwich.substac

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.

The Sword and the SandwichOn the Rights of the Child, Part IBy Talia Lavin

@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?

@ttpphd @arossp @swordsjew

@arossp @jbouie Parents rights must not interfere with other parents & their children. This is part of religious extremism in action!

@arossp I really like that phrase "institutionalization of the heckler's veto" -- powerfully descriptive and succinctly summarizes the problem. Thnx @jbouie for that

@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.