How a story is worded and presented by the author has a profound influence upon the reader.
This particular story hit the blog waves Jan. 28, 2009 and caused a minor flap. It was the story of two children in the U.K. being raised by their grandparents. In a remarkable example of age discrimination, and after two years legal wrangling, the children were taken from their family and put up for adoption.
So how old were these decrepit people? 59 and 46 according to the report.
Maybe there are other reasons that these grandparents were unfit.
Perhaps it was because the grandfather was a "farmhand." In that case this is class discrimination.
Maybe it was because the grandmother has "diabetes" and the grandfather has "angina." In that case it is health discrimination.
The article only mentions the age of the grandparents as the reason. They were "too old."
There must be more to the story. Did the writer present all the facts, or just selected facts to gin up our emotions?
You can imagine the outrage racing across the www.
I don't think the outrage has anything to do with the fact that the children are to be adopted by... read it here...
I wish I could leave a longer comment, but that would necessitate providing examples which would violate some of the ethical rules which govern my conduct as a lawyer. Suffice it to say, there has been a move afoot in recent years, even here in the U.S., advanced by social engineers, which holds that "family" is not as important to children as making sure they live in a loving prosperous household: the so-called "best interests of the child" standard. Thus, children who lose their parents or who have parents which neglect them, are seldom placed with relatives, whom they've known for their entire lives. Rather, they are sent to foster or adoptive homes in a misbegotten attempt to "break the cycle" of poverty or whatever. Alas, this philosophy, which is becoming ever more beloved among social service institutions, has never been the subject of any longitudinal study prior to it's implementation. I fear that we are raising a generation of children who have no connection to their past, but only a deep void where their love for parents and family used to be. The results of such a policy may be ultimately more frightening than the problems we were try to solve in the first instance.
ReplyDelete(My own belief is that this sort of thing is part of a greater social agenda to destroy the institutions of marriage and family so as to make all our children minions of an ueber-State. But, of course, that makes me a paranoid whacko.)
Cheers.
(Actually, that was a pretty darn long comment after all.)
RS -- you're not a "paranoid whacko" at all. Caesar has been in competition with the Lord Jesus for messiahship for a long, long time...
ReplyDeleteThe story has legs. For more read this article from the Christian Institute.
ReplyDeleteThe most poignant part of the story was the fact that the grandparents won at every level, but ran out of money. Thus, do we see the state using it's power and unlimited resources in a war of attrition against its own citizens.
ReplyDeleteMarvelous.
Although I mentioned this trend has been around for a while, at least in the U.S. there are substantial avenues for support for those who find themselves in such a position.
Again, I wish I could be more specific, but one of the insidious things about the juvenile court system is it's insistence on total secrecy with respect to the proceedings and participants caught up in its web, secrecy which is enforced through threat of criminal prosecution. Of course, the "star chamber" quality is said to protect children, but in reality it protects judges and social workers who can pursue an agenda of social engineering outside the prying eyes of the public.
We should all be very, very afraid.
Cheers.
Buns.
ReplyDeleteMuffed the possessive "its" in the prior comment.
My bad.
Cheers.
Another case was just brought to my attention over at SF.
ReplyDelete