Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / December 2006

Still want it if it's full?

J.

I'd suggest that there is a "right to adopt" in that there's a right
not to be prevented from adopting. This doesn't necessarily mean that
it will be possible to adopt.

I have a right to drive a Ferrari, but that right is subject to my
being able to acquire one, and to get a license to drive it. And the
ability to protect it from someone who wants to steal it. If the law
said I could not have a Ferrari because I was female, or an immigrant,
or was over a certain age...then it would remove that right. Which I
currently have, regardless of my ability or interest in said Ferrari.

There are some classes of people who do not have the right to adopt in
the US - Minors, in general; probably some classes of legal
incompetents.

In India, the class of people who do NOT have the right to adopt is
much broader: any married female, anyone who is not Hindu, any Hindu
man whose wife refuses consent (unless she is non-Hindu or mentally
incompetent or has renounced the world), any unmarried Hindu man
seeking to adopt a girl, and anyone who has a child or son's child of
the same gender as the child they would adopt.

I'd say that in the US there is a presumption that there is a right to
adopt, but that right may be withdrawn from certain groups of people.

I also wonder if there's a difference between the right to adopt a
minor and the right to adopt an adult. (Adult adoption is permitted in
the US, though not in some other countries.)

Atalanta wrote:

Who cares if a trannie wants to take on somebody's else problem--ie
adopt.  Trannies shouldn't be disqualifed from adoption, but anybody
who wants to destroy themselves through parenthood, needs their sanity
questioned.

Marley

http://basrardette.blogspot.com
http://theoconia.blogspot.com

Protection of rights is subject to "whims" if you like.  But the RIGHTS
THEMSELVES ARE NOT.

So are you seriously proposing that not one member of the Third Reich -
or heck, any of its precursors or followers in terms of denial of
rights, totalitarianism (whether "democratically" enacted or not),
etc., was an attorney?  Are you kidding?  We're in more trouble than I
realized, Cecil.

A well reasoned, articulate, and

Well - I didn't.  I hope you don't expect that each usenet denizen is
going to get to know every other poster before they respond?

I deal in ideas and text, here, Daddio.

ANYONE who asserts that rights are about any "we" at all is edging
dangerously close to fascism (look it up in Encyclopedia Britannica -
any edition - for a good discussion, since Roman times, of what the
word actually means).

Any imposition of any "we" at all above the rights of individuals is
edging toward fascism.  The further assertion that it is RIGHT to deny
human rights is fascist.

So, have fun understanding each other, Dad.  If you ever care to
communicate outside your small party, let me know (this is getting to
be just a bit too much like some of my other RL associations - where
it's all about who you know).

You wouldn't have corrected him if you didn't think he was wrong.

Or are you such a wuss that you're going to know say that "rights" and
"privileges" are exactly the same - and both are rooted merely in what
the two of you (the we in the sentence?  because it sure ain't me and
mine in that sentence) decide?

How does that work out, in terms of logic and reasoning, for the two of
you?

Can you collect a larger group to "make your view more reasonable"?

Or are you now attempting to say that I am unreasonable or irrational?
Please provide proof that you're the judge of that, Dad.

Rights are RIGHTS.

Privileges are not rights.

Rights come with responsibilities - but they are still rights.  If you
want to vote on it - fine, good luck with that.  Not even an entire
nation of Taliban voters makes marrying off an 8 year girl into sexual
slavery a right - or right.

Everyone has certain fundamental HUMAN rights, further.  I can't
believe I have to post this.

Fascism is the denial of human rights based on "majority rule" or
"we're more powerful."  Plain and simple, simple and plain.

A.

Then - are you stating that you, as an individual, are somehow able to
establish rights for others?  Have you changed your view on how rights
get set up in the first place?

I know what both terms mean, J.  But, at least, existentialism gets
around the "people decide what rights are going to be" kind of thing.
There are no rights, everything is existence people start with what
they're born into and proceed along with existence.

I don't like that view, much, either.

No one self-identifies as a fascist, of course.  Fascism has no regard
for individual rights, and is the position that the State is in charge
of all aspects of the individual - the individual is entirely subject
to history (not to any trans-historic system or natural law or
pre-existing rights).

Fascism historically has marched off opposite democracy, but any state
that denies rights to individuals - on whatever basis, is marching in
the direction of fascism, in my view.

Granting privileges to one group but not another, by law, is a way of
denying individual freedom - which is not typically an existential
view, is it?

Rights are rights.  No entity has the right to deny them - whether
through totalitarianism or democratic means.  Since the issue of gay
adoption is within the hands of the state - and not individuals as
existentialists or in any other way - the state cannot rightfully
disallow it and remain a state that favors the rights of individuals.
It has become a state that favors the rights of some groups and not
others, at that point.

It's true that mid-20th century fascism was mostly about nationalism
and economic interests (not adoption, human rights, etc.) but a state
that would deny (for example) the right to come and go freely from a
household (divorce), ownership of one's own labor (arranged marriages
without possibility of divorce) are bad.  Choose a different word if
you like.

The state should not be involved in our reproductive and sexual lives,
in my view.  We have a chance to back ourselves out of this dilemma by
refusing to allow the state to intervene (for or against) particular
parties in adoption.

No, it doesn't.  What a foolish thing to say.  So now you're saying
that the Constitutional Convention, since it had so many people who
believed rights are "self-evident" was actually not a discussion?
Amazing.

So - okay.  Let's have it your way.  No rights are self-evident.
You're basing them on "whatever people decide," right?  Well - I refuse
to base that, then, on "people organized as a state."  That means I
won't uphold your apparent "rights."  I don't have to.  If you think
declaring that a bunch of people believe in your concept of rights
makes it more discussable, you're on your own in discussing it - with
whomever you can find.

Nothing about the fact that a "right to pursue happiness" (for example)
is self-evident keeps anyone from discussing what the legal and social
limits of that pursuit may be.  But one thing is clear, from a natural
rights perspective - if the state or any other entity holds that a
certain thing constitutes "pursuing happiness" for even ONE person -
and that that person has a right to do that thing - then, it must be
true for everyone (in my, rights are self-evident viewpoint).

In your viewpoint, people can construct this however they want.  And
yes, I do believe that any restrictions on individuals obtaining to the
same pursuits of happiness as other individuals must be carefully
inspected, including laws involving age limits, rights of children,
rights of individuals to their own bodies, etc.

I think you get my point.  If you're going to claim that Nazis aren't a
type of fascist, I think you're odd.  I was just being more specific.
You're going to rely heavily on history in your "people get to choose
whatever rights to protect for themselves or for others" - and that's
going to be whatever folk notion of history "people" have.
Nationalism, history, "we just do it this way and you will too," "all
others banned or damned," - sound familiar?

That's an unusual way of seeing it.  Usually, people note that rights
are mentioned almost as soon as writing is invented.  The codes of all
ancient civilization make implicit or explicit mention of certain
rights.  And, if you think people didn't react (for example) when the
state came and drafted their sons (often for life), whether it was 1000
or 6000 years ago, you'd be wrong.  People knew that they could not
resist, but they didn't think the State had a right to do what it
pleased with their children, either.

Again, your argument is simply that because the State was so powerful
and few people resisted, they must have been happy campers.

If you look at thousands of nativistic movements in pre-literate
societies (where we have records at all of the thinking of the people)
you'll find it's hardly just some Brits who come up with the idea of
inherent rights.

I don't see that you have an argument - but you like responding to me
anyway.

What's your argument for "rights being whatever"?  How do we get from
"whoever happens to be voting or present right now gets to decide" to
an idea of rights?

If what you say is true, then there are no rights - there are merely
laws.

I thoroughly disagree.  Human beings are a wide set of creatures, some
of whom behave as you state.

Would you like to change the topic to species, now, too?  Read a little
anthropology.  And some philosophy.

You keep outting yourself more and more, though.  You see humans as
basically like cows - or maybe intelligent ponies.  If that's who you
are,  then let's hear your argument on how to make someone like me
"join" with you in being a human being.

You have no ability to force social membership in this cowlike group
that votes on rights, upon me.  That's the rub.  You could have known
that from history - or simply from thinking.

You'll have a tough time imposing this view on virtually anyone I know
- but then, I don't hang out "in general" with people, nor do I know
the cowlike ones of whom you speak.  My children were not this way, my
family is not this way - I see people who MIGHT be this way (but I
doubt it).

I think people are more than balls of snot rolling around with rare
bursts of coherent motivation (you have no evidence of "thought"
actually, for the people of whom you speak - do you?  Just potassium
and sodium currents in the brain...)

But, you know, I'm thinking you may be convincing me.  Among those
whose cells contain patterns apparently consistent with being fully
modern Homo sapiens, there are cows and non-cows.  I wonder why.  I'd
always thought that modern individuals arise when individual rights are
protected by the state, society and the family - but, since you say
these rights are entirely on an ad hoc basis, I guess there's no reason
to extend any of them to anyone, if I choose not to.

Interesting point of view.  If in addition, I discover like-minded
individuals, we could in theory regard each other as possessing rights
- but have no necessity of reciprocating with the cow- and pony-
people.

It's interesting, of course, that gay people are typically using the
rights argument in a fashion similar to my own, so many are not
cow-people.

Moo.  I take back entirely the fascist/nazi statement, that was
presupposing far more philosophical and intellectual purpose to what
you're saying.  You're saying that people are mostly muscle, nerve and
snot, and that occasionally, one gets some electrical current in its
brain and the rest may or may not notice or get excited.

Odd that you tell me to read history, when you must apparently think
you've read it and somehow concluded that until history happens, people
aren't the same nature.  If people are the cow-like clods that you say
(and I suppose they may be), then tell me why I should classify myself
as one - or be bound in any way by their views of what I should do?

Get back to how you people (because I'm not one of you) are going to
make these decisions for other people?  I'm beginning to see (clearly)
why private adoptions, construed however individuals wish, shall always
be possible, non-preventable by the state (no matter how hard it tries)
and are obviously the way to go.

I think someone else said that on this thread.  So - there's no
argument for why "gay couples in general" should be "permitted" to
adopt.  They will adopt, depending on what relinquishing parents -
particularly mothers - decide.

Now that you've abolished the state and its entire purpose for existing
(from my point of view), I feel strangely liberated.  Thanks.

I advise you to start with prehistory, actually, and lots of it, and
then proceed to history - again, since you seem to think you've read
some and I think you've missed many of the points.  But since you
assume I"ve read none (isn't that always the case on usenet when a man
decides he needs to trump a younger person or a woman), I'll assume
you've read a whole helluva lot of it - just wrongly.

So you're one of the cheesey windy posters who really cannot or will
not read.  All right then, I'll finish up.

Do you see "quotes" there?  Do you know what "quotes" (especially scary
quotes) usually mean?
\
 Ain't one in

You are SO delighted to announce this - but of course, I already
indicated my belief in "god's" ontological status with the quotes - but
you couldn't wait.  You're as religious as anyone else in your desire
to get your atheism into the discussion.  Fine.  You don't need a god
in the formula (hence the quotes).

but I suppose its existence is as self-evident as these

Hardly.  But again - I get you.  And I will remember that you are out
there - that I could be interacting with people exactly like you.  I'll
be careful.

Oh, wait.  Do you mean the god

No - I meant no god at all, which is why I put in quotes.  I see this
kind of writing and discussion is beyond you.

And you'd be stupid, actually, to ignore that they exist - and their
relationship to your health and wellbeing.  Are you seriously asking
the really sophomoric question (I thought you were a lawyer, somehow -
didn't someone say so?) of "what do we do when individual rights
conflict?"

Well, that's where it gets interesting.  But as you have no respect for
me, or what I have to say, I don't see as how I should be the one to
enlighten you.  Stay unenlightened - I don't really care.

But what a dopey question.  Think about it.  Conflicts among
individuals with rights occurs day in and day out - think about all of
known planetary prehistory and history (i'd have used "history" in
quotes to denote both - but you don't understand what the use of quotes
denotes, so I'll just add a few more words in - not to enlighten you,
of course, but to finish what I've started, which is a post).

No.  It's attached to my definition of a human being.  So next, I'll be
telling you that either you (by yourself, if you really are all alone
in your conceptions) or people who use the word the way I do get to
"define" the word human - but, since I think you're still permitting me
to at least have an individual view (although I'm not sure you're
really keen to do it - you're much keener on telling me what's inside
your mind and worldview than in debating whether humans have anything
in common) - I'll  state that my definition of a human being is
different from yours.

I find YOUR thinking disturbing - and I think I made that abundantly
clear.  If not, I just said it again.  That you're so narcissistic that
you'd conflate "yourself", "your thinking," and my posts to you about
rights and adoption with "thinking itself" is actually not surprising,
now, is it?

But, if you want to state that *I* find thinking disturbing, you said
that with no knowledge of me, to insult me, to stop the argument when
you were losing and for all the other reasons that individuals (not
acting like humans) attempt the tactic.  Whatever those are.  I'm not
sure, I've never said that to anyone.

You're not happy to be profoundly wrong - it would upset you greatly.
I recommend you plod along with your viewpoint exactly as it is:

no one can disagree with you, you and whoever else you mean by "people"
get to decide things, I (and others like me) don't think, you are the
Master Thinker Apparent of the thread.

What more do you want?  Kowtowing?

A.

A.

I hope you snapped your heels and thrust your right arm to the heavens
while writing that, young woman.

We have ways of dealing with people like you.

Der J.

On Dec 4, 5:00pm, "Atalanta" <atalanta.brillia...@gmail.com> wrote:

You can argue natural rights all you want, but that doesn't meant the state
will "acknowlege" those rights. The state and rights are opposites.

In adoption for instance:  the right of identity is an established right,
but 45 states do not recognize the right for adopted persons.  They're
special.

Calling anybody who says that rights are what we decide they are, is
ignorant.  That's the way the world operates.  Do you live on the moon?

Marley