Re: Children and the Net

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>> On Sun, 31 Jul 1994, Mike Duvos wrote:
>
>> > Had it not been for the fact that having children covered with
>> > scars, welts, and bruises is not considered child abuse in the
>> > state of Texas, all the children would have been removed from the
>> > compound prior to the raid, and only the adults would have been
>> > toasted.
>
>> Puh-leeze! There has been little to no evidence of ANY abuse of the 
>> Branch Davidian children. The only thing we know is that Koresh liked his 
>> mates young but that doesn't mean the rest of hte children were abused 
>> and, of course, Koresh's kink is quite normal in quite a few places. Are 
>> you forgetting that the BDs were investigated for child abuse and cleared 
>> earlier?
>
>These facts were well documented.  Child welfare workers visited the
>compound and examined the children.  Signs of previous physical
>punishment were noted as well as a room devoted to that purpose and
 ^^^^^^^^^^
>the appropriate paraphernalia.

We were talking about physical ABUSE, not physical PUNISHMENT.  There is
a difference, unless of course you're one of those people that believe
that they're one in the same and that parents shouldn't be allowed to
physically discipline their children in any manner whatsoever.

When I was a child, we had a room devoted to the physical discipline of
us children: my parents bedroom.  And in that room, specifially the closet,
my father kept the appropriate paraphenalia: belts.  Do you believe my
parents should have been arrested for "child abuse"?  I don't.

The fact stands that there was no evidence that the children in the 
compound were ABUSED.  The Texas department of child welfare cleared 
Koresh of all such charges.  If you have any documentation to the
contrary, I would certainly be interested in seeing it.  I don't want
to see evidence of PUNISHMENT, only ABUSE.

Ken

=============================================================================
Ken Kirksey            kkirksey@world.std.com            Mac Guru & Developer
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"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to
dismember it or overthrow it."                              - Abraham Lincoln

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Lately there has been much tedious back and forth concerning
child abuse.

This has very little to do with cryptography.

It has however something to do with privacy.  Should they
government meddle in peoples homes and make sure they
are bringing up children in the proper government approved 
fashion?

Regarding child abuse and Koresh:  The government was fishing
for stuff to get him on.  The Davidians were charged, came
to court, and were aquitted.  The infamous warrant that
led to the Davidian children being crispy fried concerned
guns, not child abuse.

If we look at famous child abuse cases in California they
are mostly cases of gross abuse by government.

Do children get abused:  Yep, almost always by step
parents, as in the wicked stepmother.

We are unsurprised when someone murders a rival.  We
take for granted that two women under one roof will
lead to grave trouble.

Yet a stepchild is a more formidable rival for a spouses
attentions than any lover could be.

In fact, step parents are more strongly motivated to murder
step children than they are to murder their wife or husbands
other lovers.

For this reason the evil step parent has for centuries been
a stock character to make the plot move along.  Until recently
anybody who read a book would take for granted that step 
parents were a hazard to life and limb.

And when I talk to a kid who is hanging out a long way from
home, a common reason is to avoid being alone with a step
parent.   Step parents are still a hazard to life and limb.

Yet in todays literature and TV shows and movies, it is
generally assumed that step parents and step children
will get along tolerably well.

For a reason that is very unclear to me, this obvious
fact is being systematicly denied in Western culture
generally, and in American culture in particular.

To support this fiction, it appears to me that "Child
Protective Services" agencies make a deliberate effort
to go after natural parents.  It appears to me that
they are trying to make some kind of quota so as
to create the appearance that child abuse is not
biologically driven problem.

Similarly, when a natural parent abuses their child,
this receives vastly more media attention than step
parent abuse, in a disproportion similar to the
extreme disproportion given to incidents of white
racial violence against blacks as compared to black
racial violence against whites.

Yep.  Its a conspiracy.  But what is the point of such
a conspiracy?