When you really believe the world is full of predators snatching kids right and left, it can drive you crazy. And apparently, it did. CNN is reporting that:
A 6-year-old boy in Missouri endured an emotional four-hour staged kidnapping because his family thought he was being too nice to people he didn’t know, police said Thursday.
The four people involved in the alleged plot — the boy’s mother, grandmother, aunt and a co-worker of the aunt — have been charged with kidnapping and other felonies, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said.
“Family members told investigators their primary intent was to educate the victim and felt they did nothing wrong,” the press release said.
During his reported ordeal the boy was lured Monday into a pickup after getting off his school bus, tied up, threatened with a gun, taken to a basement where his pants were removed, and told he could be sold into sex slavery, police said.
The rest of the sickening story is here. But while we’re discussing the issue of kidnapping kids, let’s remember that even Ernie Allen, the recent head of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told me (when I interviewed him for my book), “Our message is exactly the one you’re trying to convey. We have been trying to debunk the myth of stranger danger.”
His is the organization that put the pictures of the missing kids on the milk cartons (engendering hysteria, but why quibble now?). So if HE says “stranger danger” is an idea whose time has GONE, maybe it’s time for all parents to heed.
And on a strange side note, last week on my show World’s Worst Mom, a mom I was trying to help had had this same idea, except as a business: She would hire a man with a van to “kidnap” kids off the street, to scare the pants off them. (Perhaps literally, like the parents above.)
Maybe that’s not such a great idea, I tried to tell her. And I guess it’s not even that original. (BTW: The schedule for my show is changing, so you can find out when it’s airing here.) I guess if I get a second season, I may be heading to Missouri. – L.
84 Comments
These are the kinds of situations that CPS should be investigating!
How much more proof do we need that hysteria makes people crazy? We understand the effects of drug abuse and alcohol addiction. We’re now starting to understand the hazards of drama addiction. Another shot of Nancy Grace anyone?
Here in the Phoenix area today, there was an odd kidnapping report which triggered a school lockdown and a massive manhunt.
The odd part? No child was ever reported missing, much less kidnapped. Not among all of the kids at the school and other schools in the area, not after stopping hundreds of drivers to see whether a kid who didn’t belong was in the car.
After 7+ hours of frantic activity, it was finally called off because… wait for it… police had not received any reports of a missing child.
And, I don’t mean to suggest these kinds of witness reports should be ignored. I’m just uncomfortable with a hysterical response based on the same old assumption that kidnappings are about to happen anywhere.
In this case, even if the witness had gotten the plate number off the “kidnapper’s” pickup, would that have led to an armored-up, SWAT-style entry of the kid’s family home which went south when the parents believed it to be a criminal home invasion?
Unbelievable. I can’t imagine how that has affected that poor child.
Well, their plan worked on me. It’s wrong to be nice to strangers?
They’re all strangers to me, and I have no inclination to be nice to them.
I guess they were trying to #makesafehappen
My brother has threatened to do this. My youngest child is transgender and we’re meeting with social workers and doctors for her care. The social worker was VERY interested in my brother’s threats, even if they were “off-hand” or “a joke”.
My kid in a skirt? No biggie. Threats of kidnapping? Biggie.
They told him he could be sold into sex slavery? Does a six-year-old even know what sex slavery is?
Something is very wrong with the adults involved in this case if they thought they were doing the right thing by terrorizing the child like that. I suspect they may be mentally deficient or otherwise impaired not to have been able to have thought it through and realized they were committing a serious crime. Maybe they got carried away by the drama of it all but they went way overboard with the gun and the plastic bag and the pants pulling-down.
How did they imagine it would end? With the child thanking them for teaching him a valuable life lesson? Did they think the boy wouldn’t tell his teacher or some other person in authority what happened? I used to teach children about that age, and believe me, they tell the teacher EVERYTHING that goes on at home.
I agree with Amanda that this is exactly the kind of case that calls for CPS to investigate.
Further proof that we need to fear strangers far less than those we know…
Wow. Just how many charges could they pile on here. Kidnapping, assault, sexual assault for the removal of the pants, the threats of sex trafficing.
With the right DA, they could be looking at a very long time, in prison. Which I hope they get.
On the other hand, it is nice to see that the comments on the CNN story are all outraged at these idiots. The unfortunate part is they are probably all the same ones that support the mock life shooter drills in schools.
I’d put them in prison and deny them access to the boy.
@Warren
“The unfortunate part is they are probably all the same ones that support the mock life shooter drills in schools.”
But that’s different! There’s nothing wrong when The Authorities do it!
There was actually a book published recently about a woman who “kidnaps” children she thinks are in danger to scare their parents into taking better care of them. (She doesn’t scare the kids, though – they’re fine.)
Horrific. Glad to see they are being prosecuted.
When the parents did similar stuff on the show “Arrested Development” (through the recurring J. Walter Weatherman character), it was really funny, because it was such an awful way to parent.
Sigh.
“Family members told investigators their primary intent was to educate the victim and felt they did nothing wrong”
In their next “educational” life lesson (which statistically is more likely to happen to him than a stranger abduction),
the boy holds large, metal rods in a lightning storm because he didn’t have enough fear of being struck by lightning.
In the summer while he swims in the ocean, they educate him by submerging underwater to gnaw at his legs and partially drown him because he was too nice to sharks.
It’s like paranoia redneck kumon.
Sick sick sick. I can’t imagine doing this to any child, no matter how friendly they are to strangers. I have a four year old son with autism, and we say he’s never met a stranger. He loves people and the only thing we are worried about is that he likes to try and kiss people on the lips and he has a poor immune system. We just explain that people have bubbles around them and don’t like their bubbles popped (personal space). We are more afraid of him freaking out strangers than strangers hurting him! Although, we also say that if anyone ever kidnapped him, they would bring him back…
That’s abuse. Period.
Do they also drive their cars into ditches to emphasize seat belt safety? Feed him bad food to show what food poisoning feels like?
When my kid brother was 7, he used to ramble all around town alone after school and all summer. He ignored instructions to come home, check in, curfew, etc. He would show up for food if none of his friends’ moms decided to feed him. Or he’d turn up as late as 10pm after his last friend’s mom kicked him out. Discipline was completely ineffective with this boy.
That summer, he wandered off during the County Fair (which was located in our town). No biggie, we looked around for him and then figured he would come home after it closed. He didn’t. We searched the fair again, and all his usual haunts. No boy. Finally he showed up between 1-2am. His explanation? He was trying to help a drunk guy find an open bar.
We (his older brothers and sisters) had gotten scared enough that we told him what some crazy people do to little boys. He didn’t know what sex was, but we told him someone might cut off his wienie. Now that got his attention. He didn’t ever do anything quite that stupid again, at least not as a kid.
I wasn’t sure whether that was the right thing to do or not. Even at the time, it felt extreme, and yet, here was this uncontrollable child doing things even a free-range parent would never allow. And it is true that some crazy people hurt children sexually.
Of course the OP is an entirely different thing. Physically “kidnapping” him and taking his pants off? I don’t know how that (especially the pants part) even occurs to a sane adult.
Can a 6yo be too friendly? That really depends on the situation. If the kid was regularly entering strangers’ houses when his parents didn’t know where he was, that would concern me. I had multiple neighbors who let us kids in and proved to be perverts. Kids need to have some boundaries. Obviously parents need to act like sane adults in setting and enforcing the boundaries.
If I may use this opportunity to make a point about what I like about this blog and what I sometimes don’t — This incident perfectly illustrates the difference between (1) promoting the notion that kids need freedom to grow and learn without constant helicopter parenting and (2) promoting parents’ “rights” to do whatever they want to their children. Idea (1) requires defending parents _who take a free-range approach_ that is contrary to the prevailing helicopter norm, but it doesn’t require defending parental authority in all circumstances. The blog sometimes leans too far toward the latter.
You’ve got to hand it to the family on at least one count: they taught this child that the people most likely to present a threat are the ones who are supposed to protect him. Argh.
In the words of the state legislator from Colorado…they know what’s best for their child…. Don’t they??? Maybe they should have said they were trying to educate him on not needed to be vaccinated. Now THAT seems to be OK.
This story doesn’t quite add up: I can’t believe this was in any sense well-meaning on the adults’ part, especially the unrelated coworker who got involved. Is it just me, or do others here also suspect there must have been quite a bit of plain old sadism involved here? It seems like to some extent the adults must have been getting off on the child’s terror.
Lenore, great column. Interesting to note that a child advocate like Ernie Allen is downplaying ‘stranger danger’, but wow! Those people in Missouri are downright weird, treating their relative like that.
Not sure that prison would be the best, though. Perhaps kidnap the adults by fake ISIS fighters, and pretend to, uh, that’s best left unsaid. Just weird.
The hysteria is similar to the Salem witch hunt and McCarthyism. The xenophobia is making the hunters far worse than that which they are hunting. The parents did an outrageous thing. However if we let the outrage control us and make us hell bent on revenge, we’re part of the problem. We’re only fueling the source. This is the reason why things are so bad today.
CPS can’t fix this. Police can’t fix this. Politicians can’t fix this. They are only the ‘dancing bear’ performing to the music of the outrage.
We need to control our response to outrage. This is easy to say. Actually changing your point of view (so the outrage doesn’t control you like a puppet master) is the hard part. I encourage all to read http://www.chimpparadox.co.uk/
Good conservative ‘Christians’ I’ll be.
While I wrote the last letter, a relation of mine is glued CNN. They are discussing how ISIS is the master of emotional terror.
Q. Why do they keep playing the outrage card?
A. Because we love to swallow it hook, line, and sinker. We then watch THE SAME STORY 10 times? 50 times? 300 times? until we can replace it with another outrageous story.
We all owe this family our thanks. They proved conclusively what we have said all along. That children are more likely to be kid napped and abused by a family member or someone they know than a stranger.That guys lucky that a white hat didn’t see the “kid napping’ and dish out vigilante justice on him. And while I’m glad all involved are going to be prosecuted, the family friend is going to face the harshest penalty if found guilty. A, he did the kid napping and B, he’s a man. The mother grandmother and aunt will get off lite.
@Andy: Not unless there’s a mandatory minimum sentence involved and the charges are the same for everybody.
Before we lock these folks up and deny access to the child in a punitive spirit, let’s hope those assisting the child carefully consider what will best serve this child. All people are capable of doing tragic things that they imagine are serving life but are not serving life at all. Maybe get to the heart of what they value, like safety and security and learning, and then help them find successful ways to support those things. Perhaps this child receives many benefits from his relationships, except in this one area, “educating him on safety,” they completely missed the mark. Perhaps there could be healing for the boy, education for the caregivers… But let’s not seek “revenge.” Punishment of the adults will not necessarily bring about safety for the child either. Maybe some separation while things get clarified, but not punitive separation.
GAH,
This is not leaving your kid in the car too long or anything like that. No mistake. This was a planned out operation. Which took place on a public street, in a concealed carry state.
Now even if you want to dismiss the actions against the child as misguided, not really causing harm, that is fine.
Now you have to address all the things that could have gone terribly wrong, in public.
Had the child put up a fight, I know myself I would have acted. Now in Missouri, that could be anything from physical confrontation, ramming the truck with mine, or shooting at the kidnapper. All of which the family and coworker had total disregard for. Which also includes a disregard for all the people on the street as well.
Now, second scenario. Someone just reports the kidnapping and lic. plate of the truck. Do you think when found the police are just going to quietly knock on the door, and ask the truck owner nicely?
Nope, sorry way too much wrong with this whole thing to let any of them just walk away.
The only possible response to this is: WTF?
I’m sorry, but that child will never be the same after this. If he was “being too nice to people,” he clearly was a friendly, happy child. Now he’s just one more traumatized statistic. This is sickening.
The slam to Christian conservatives was uncalled for. The religion of these people has nothing to do with this story. Let’s try to keep our focus on the actual issues, and not drag our own issues into it.
Although I agree this is a sick act, let’s not jump to the conclusion that the boy is ruined forever. Don’t we believe that kids are resilient? If this was a one-time thing, he’ll be OK.
Jennifer – exactly, I agree entirely.
I would suspect that some of the people outraged by this behavior (rightly) disagreed with me a few posts ago when I said that parents don’t have the right to kill their children, or let them die, over their religious (or other) beliefs. Why the difference? These parents have a “belief” and they’re forcing it on their kids, just like religious parents who don’t let their kids have a blood transfusion.
The religious parents are afraid of their kid going to hell. These parents are afraid of their kid going to the Dominician Republic. What’s the difference? Why should these face charges (as many believe – me included) but not parents who let their kids die?
I really, REALLY wanted this to be an Onion article. My heart breaks for that little boy who is going to need lots of therapy now 🙁 I hope his father is less crazy and can help him cope with what his mother has done.
Puzzled,
You are comparing apples to oranges. These parents did not like their child being friendly. That fueled their fear, which is based on a current social phenom. They enlisted the help of others. They endangered others.
You cannot compare the actions above to the preservation of an immortal soul, that is based in someone’s centuries old faith.
Nice try. Nice fail.
Yes, Jennifer, thank you!
I read this story this morning, and guessed that Lenore would blog it. I half expected to come on here and find half a dozen regulars defending these people in the name of freedom of parenting, claiming that they had been subjected to multiple fake kidnappings in their own childhood – and that was in Chicago, where it’s REALLY cold – and that they did them a world of good by teaching them that they were not the center of the universe.
As for the consideration of what “might have” happened in this incident, I thought fear of the “mights” was not generally allowed here. Since nobody reported this to the police, the kidnaping was apparently done out of the view of any witnesses, or busybodies, as they are sometimes called.
WTF!! That is all I have to say.
Let’s hope this child is one of the resilient ones. Some are more so than others. It’s just the genetic lottery. An episode like this has the capacity to re-wire the brain so dramatically that there may be no coming back. Anyway, with completely wacko parents like these, the chances that he has had a normal, loving childhood so far are slim. This sort of trauma will call for very skilled foster parents.
They taught the kid that he isn’t safe anywhere.
I grew up like that. No, fake kidnappings were not involved, but there are other ways to teach a child that nowhere is safe and nobody is trustworthy. It is a literal Hell on Earth.
Place that child with relatives who weren’t involved and don’t agree, if he has any, and get him into play therapy that emphasizes that people are not out to grab him and crow over his fear. Somebody. Please.
@GAH
I’m sorry, but I totally disagree with your suggestion. Unlikely many other stories conveyed on this blog, this was not some hypothetically dangerous situation where authorities and other adults are overreacting.
I’m not sure why are you trivializing the incident. This is not a matter of a simple mistake or a spur-of-the-moment misjudgment that is best addressed with counseling to parents and child.
Much on the contrary, this was a truly diabolical premeditated crime, one that modern mental health research predicts as a common trigger of a hoist of mental issues, short and long term and sometimes lifelong. The whole situation shows the parents are really incapable of making the most basic judgment calls about actual dangers.
So this is not a situation where a parent let a child walk in a place where it shouldn’t exactly be, or something like that. Parents conspired to submit the children to an extremely traumatic and brutalizing experience.
I don’t accept any justification on what they did. It is wrong, period. The child should be removed from the family and the parents sent to prison for a very long time, hopefully until an age when the child will be an adult already.
These (grand)parents are dangerous and should be kept away from children for a long time. Four adults were involved, not one of them had a hint that this could be a really, really bad idea.
>These parents did not like their child being friendly.
These parents did not like their child going to hell.
>That fueled their fear, which is based on a current social phenom.
That fueled their fear, which is based on a long-standing social phenom.
>They enlisted the help of others.
They refused the help of others, and relied on laws prohibiting doctors from saving their child.
>They endangered others.
They killed their child – which implies that, prior to death, the child was in danger.
>You cannot compare the actions above to the preservation of an >immortal soul, that is based in someone’s centuries old faith.
It’s based in a faith which cannot be proven, yet is taken to justify actual, provable harm. This assault is based in a belief that cannot be proven, yet is taken to justify actual, provable harm.
Just to be sure I’ve gotten your view right:
1. Parents must be allowed to force their beliefs on their children.
2. Those beliefs can justify actual physical harm, included death.
3. No one else may force their beliefs on anyone else.
4. These particular parents may not do physical harm to their child, even if it is based on their (false) beliefs.
It seems to me that, as often as you may use the word ‘belief’ you actually only mean religious beliefs. Parents are not, seemingly, protected in doing harm to their children based on their beliefs, if those beliefs aren’t based on organized religion, but instead are based on organized media.
Puzzled,
The whole problem is you are forcing your beliefs on others. Under what power do you claim that right? Who made you God, President, or chief cook and freaking bottle washer?
Why are your beliefs more important than anyone else’s? That does not make you right. It just makes you an arrogant, judgemental you know what.
I do not know what happened to you in years gone by, to be so anti faith, but it is actually sad how you live your life.
Puzzled,
1. Nothing wrong with being friendly.
A lot wrong damning an immortal soul to hell.
2. Faith is not fear.
3. Parents refusing medical treatment is not the same as enlisting help from others, making them accomplices. Nice try but so far off.
4. They did not kill the child. Whatever ailment did. Big difference.
Your hatred for faith and religion is obvious. When you call parents raising the kids in their faith, forcing their beliefs on them………..that is all the proof needed.
Is it just the ones against medical treatments, or do you hate all of them Catholics, Jewish, Voodoo, which ones do you tolerate and which ones do you hate?
Do you hate certain races as well?
Are you sexist, or does your prejudice and hatred only fall on those with faith?
Total insanity!
This is a shocking story! It’ll be interesting to see how much time they get in comparison to the family who left the toddlers in the car for an hour. Was it up to 10 years they could be facin? which just seems so extreme. I live in Scotland, UK and a man has just been sentenced to 7 yrs in prison after raping several women around Scotland, a way worse crime than leaving toddlers in the car (although clearly that was the wrong decision). Regarding this crime – it’s exactly what I keep telling the other parents around me inc my husband – kids are way more likely to be taken or hurt by someone they know (but still the chances of that are even pretty low). We’ve had several big cases in the UK of situations just like it. Parents, parents boyfriends, grandparents etc kidnapping and hiding children for strange ends ad some unfortunately ending up in death. It’s very sad but we can’t let it scare us to the point where we can’t allow our kids age appropriate freedom. I want my children to be capable of leaving home from 16 onwards and being ready to face the working world. If I shelter them until they’re 13 how on earth can I expect them to learn the life skills they need in such a short space of time?!
Wait…so their plan was to make the six-year-old more scared of strangers? Umm….if it didn’t work, it’s an idiotic plan because why would you? If it worked, it’s still idiotic because I’m sure they don’t want to deal with the scared kid after …. le gasp… SUPPLY TEACHERS.
I still dont understand why this was kidnapping. If the legal guardian/parent of the child authorizes a friend to pickup the child from school and deliver the child to her home, who exactly is the kidnapper, the authorized friend delivering the child or the mother?
“These are the kinds of situations that CPS should be investigating!”
they’d probably think it a good idea and start an official program, heavily subsidised, to promote it…
The boy did exactly the right thing: he told his teacher what happened.
And from what I understand, a kidnapping involves someone being taken somewhere or held against his or her will in furtherance of another crime. It’s not as if the aunt’s friend just picked the boy up from school with his mom’s permission. He brandished a gun, bound his hands and feet and made terroristic threats.
What I don’t understand is why the boy didn’t recognize his aunt’s voice when she pulled down his pants and threatened him with being sold into sex slavery. His head was covered, but wouldn’t he have known who it was? This story fascinates me because the geniuses who planned this little escapade didn’t appear to have any idea that what they were doing was against the law.
How terrible!! Now, after this staged event of terror, they may have damaged this child. Once a child that was friendly to others may now be cold and show resentment to others.
I’m absolutely appalled that any family would do this to a kid!
And I agree that investigating this would be a far better use of CPS’s time than questioning parents who let their kids walk to the park (something I remember doing, by myself, at five).
I hope some much kinder relatives can be found for the young boy to stay with, and that he can get some counseling to get over it.
And a huge hug to his teacher, too! I was shocked enough hearing this on the news. To have heard it and had to react in front of 20-some other kids must have been one of the hardest things she’s done.
I also think it is odd to call this kidnapping. But the guy who did the “kidnapping” went beyond just snatching him. From what I read he terrorized him in various ways. Possibly the fact that he was tied up and blindfolded made it a kidnapping even though his mom knew where he was?
I did wonder if this story would turn up here.
What idiots! If they wanted to make a point it would have been enough to have their friend deliver the child home and then tell him that they arranged it, but what if he hadn’t taken him back to his house? And that’s why he shouldn’t get in someone else’s vehicle, even someone he knows, unless it’s by previous arrangement with his parents.
Message delivered, no one traumatised and (presumably) no laws broken.
To answer your question, my hatred to limited to killing kids, and is independent of the particular beliefs that cause you to do so.
RE: Being nice – actually, you and I believe that there’s nothing wrong with being nice to strangers. This kid’s parents disagree. You’ve stated the principle, which I agree with, that you can’t force your beliefs on others. So, why does it not count as doing so for you to advocate throwing these parents in jail? It’s because their beliefs didn’t just stay beliefs (you wouldn’t, presumably, put them in jail just because they think that, but because of their actions.)
The alternative, of course, is that you’re just forcing your beliefs on these parents – you arrogant SOB, etc.
To contrast ‘nothing wrong with being nice’ to ‘a lot wrong with damning an immortal soul’ is to presume that the second one is actually true. Is your argument that it’s fine for parents to choose to kill their kids assuming that the Biblical God exists, or just that it’s fine so long as they believe the Biblical God exists?
What description other than fear can you possibly give for the idea that “if I don’t let my child die, SkyFather will send him to hell?” Of course it’s fear that allows a person to make that choice.
The most reasonable point I can see you making is that the parents just let the kid die, whereas the disease or injury did the killing. But I think this ultimately fails. If I find you after you’ve been hit by a car, it’s at least arguable that I have no moral duty to assist you. But if others are coming to your aid, and I prevent them from getting to you, it seems rather easy to say I’ve, if not killed you, at least participated in killing you.
As I’ve asked multiple times, and never once been answered: Why doesn’t the principle that people who push their beliefs violently on others are arrogant SOBs, and so on, apply to people who, based on their beliefs, kill their children?
Would you be equally accommodating if someone’s religion actually did require actively killing their children? The principles you’ve elucidated, other than one, seem to apply just as well to that case as to refusing the blood transfusion. If so, well, at least you’re consistent. If not – you arrogant SOB, who the hell made you God?
I have trouble imagining just where the line can be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable things for parents to do to kids based on their beliefs if the incident described here is to be unacceptable (agreed) and killing your kids is to be acceptable (not agreed.) Or do you, for some reason, not recognize these parents as acting based on belief? I suspect the answer is that by belief you mean only religious belief, likely only organized religious belief – why should parents be free to do whatever that belief compels them, but not other beliefs, just as strongly held?
I cried when I read this story on CNN.com. I have a son who’s not quite six. Having someone take him away and tell him he won’t ever see his mommy again would be the psychological equivalent of waterboarding for him. Unbelievable that a mother would allow this to be done to her child, and that several other adults would participate. And the sexual element? Sick, sick, sick. I hope they are charged with as many crimes as possible and spend quite a bit of time in prison. And I hope that child ends up in a healthy family environment in which he is valued and kept truly safe.
Gobsmacked. Is there still a cultural idea out there that the best way to teach a kid to swim is just throw them in deep water and let them thrash around in fear until they get it? Is there still that denial, “I got belted every day of my childhood and it didn’t do me any harm, so why should you (child) complain”? I feel for the dysfunctional mindsets among adults that put children into harmful situations. The distinction between harm and a high risk challenge is that harm occurs when the child is made powerless, and when the child is powerful, they can continue to try to solve their own predicament until it is solved or completely failed. Yes, in worst case scenario, a child may die. But, even in the case that a child is sexually or physically abused, their power in the situation is the inability of that event to effect powerlessness on the rest of their life. Powerfulness comes from powerful adults in conversation with the child about the wonder, the risks, the potential gains, the strategies possible. For sure, play games, play real games, and in them ensure that the child is powerful and in control. It could be that a generation of adults are raised to be so powerful that they are even happy for their own lives to be on the brink for the gains to community, as an adult choice made in knowing and skill that is developed from childhood.
They were afraid he’d get kidnapped, so they kidnapped him themselves?
I guess we should be glad they weren’t afraid he’d get murdered then.
Puzzled,
Until you can at least be respectful when speaking about people’s faiths, there is no need for further debate. A wise man once said, “When you insult one man’s faith, you also insult mine, your’s and everyone else’s faith.” To blindly insult another’s faith is the purest form of ignorance.
These idiots planned and executed actions with the intent to do harm. They admitted they were trying to scare the crap out of the kid. Saving a person’s soul is the exact opposite. You may not like it, but sucks to be a bigot like yourself.
Because you cannot wrap it around that wee little brain of yours that some people can and do believe that their soul is more important than the body, do not stand in judgement of them.
Again, parents that raise their kids in a faith that does not accept medical treatments is not the same as killing their kids.
By your logic, parents with sick kids should do everything and anything to save or prolong their life, no matter how much suffering that would cause the child.
But like I said you have a complete disrespect for faith, as is shown in your insulting SkyFather crap. So please take your hatred elsewhere, because it is only getting worse by the posting.
My son at that age was “too friendly.” He would run up to strangers walking along a trail and give them a hug. I have no doubts that he would leave with anyone who asked him to do so.
BUT….I NEVER would have scared him into not trusting strangers. I ALWAYS want my kids to feel like they can approach someone if they need help.
Yes, to me, these people certainly crossed the line and made a lot of bad choices. Just like the police who made the choice to do a live “active shooter drill” with guns and without warning the teachers or students ALSO made really bad choices.
Warren,
Withholding basic, life-saving medical care from your child because your faith requires you to seems to me to be about half as wrong/bad/unethical/immoral as stoning your daughter to death for being unclean under Sharia law, give or take.
“My daughter is unclean because she was raped by the neighbor boy and now we must deliver her an agonizing death for her affront to god.”
Or
“If god wants my child to die from this illness I must let him die even if this death is preventable and torturous. I cannot allow the doctors arguably created and guided by god to intervene, even with blood transfusions and antibiotics and painkillers and other very basic care, as this would be interfering with god’s will and the destiny of our immortal souls.
That’s freaking cuckoo for Christ, dude. Most non-nutter people can see this. Puzzled’s analogy of preventing first aid is apt.
This is not bigotry. This is challenging ridiculous, reflexive, regressive dogma that kills. Religions are, on a micro level, fundamentally unproven, unprovable, subjective beliefs and, on a macro level, systems of control and subordination. They are not genders, races, or sexual orientations. Just because most people are dull enough to practically inherit an operating mythology from their parents doesn’t mean religion isn’t ultimately still a choice.
What other American Taliban nutter child abuse behavior do you care to defend? ‘Pray away the gay’ reeducation camps? Anti-vaccination? Maybe that thing where they try to rebirth autistic kids by swaddling them in blankets until they almost (and sometimes do) suffocate?
Warren,
Withholding basic, life-saving medical care from your child because your faith requires you to seems to me to be about half as wrong/bad/unethical/immoral as stoning your daughter to death for being unclean under Sharia law, give or take.
“My daughter is unclean because she was raped by the neighbor boy and now we must deliver her an agonizing death for her affront to god.”
Or
“If god wants my child to die from this illness I must let him die even if this death is preventable and torturous. I cannot allow the doctors arguably created and guided by god to intervene, even with blood transfusions and antibiotics and painkillers and other very basic care, as this would be interfering with god’s will and the destiny of our immortal souls.
That’s freaking cuckoo for Christ, dude. Most non-nutter people can see this. Puzzled’s analogy of preventing first aid is apt.
This is not bigotry. This is challenging ridiculous, reflexive, regressive dogma that kills. Religions are, on a micro level, fundamentally unproven, unprovable, subjective beliefs and, on a macro level, systems of control and subordination. They are not genders, races, or sexual orientations. Just because most people are dull enough to practically inherit an operating mythology from their parents doesn’t mean religion isn’t ultimately still a choice.
What other American Taliban nutter child abuse behavior do you care to defend? ‘Pray away the gay’ reeducation camps? Anti-vaccination? Maybe that thing where they try to rebirth autistic kids by swaddling them in blankets until they almost (and sometimes do) suffocate?
Please pardon the double post.
@Some Dude,
Tell you what. Bring me imperical evidence that the soul does not exist, and then we’ll talk. Until you can prove that, at least to the same extent that we can prove stranger abductions are rare incidents, I think you should just keep your blatant bigotry and hatred to yourself.
All of you remind me of the missionaries that went into new worlds to convert and save the savages.
Just out of curiousity, you faith haters. Where do you stand on DNRs, assisted suicides and the like? Where are you going to draw the line, state forced vaccines, state forced steriliaztion, just where are you going to stop?
On the upside, these people make MY job easier. I’ve been telling people for years that statistically speaking, most children are abused at home by someone the kid knows, and that person isn’t on any registry. Yet.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/262948
Because no one posted this yet…
Warren,
Um, the burden of proof is kind of on you there. “Prove that god doesn’t exist!” “Bring me definitive proof that there is no soul!” “Convince me that god won’t actually damn me to eternal hell for getting a blood transfusion!” Where does the madness stop? Prove to me that I’m not actually the second coming of Christ, Warren. Lol.
And while I’m at it, just because I might be saying that parents should not be legally allowed to deny their children basic and especially life-saving medical it does not follow that, “By [my] logic, parents with sick kids should do everything and anything to save or prolong their life, no matter how much suffering that would cause the child.”
Slippery slope arguing there, Warren. And also the hilarity of a man spouting fallacious tripe chastising others for their supposed fallacies. Now tell us more how reasonable you are while calling others “wee-brained” bigots and demanding they disprove your woo.
See, non-fanatical, non-fantastical, reality-based people can contemplate and possibly even agree that yeah, maybe religious nutters shouldn’t be allowed to refuse their children basic, life-saving aid, AND also simultaneously imagine horrible situations where it makes sense to have and execute DNR instructions or refuse further life-support. It’s groovy here in the grayscale of the real world.
Is there really nowhere else you guys could meet up and discuss the religion stuff? You have now hijacked two threads with this argument.
All the relevant remarks about this disturbing act have been made above. I will focus on this “I Want my wwm show back!” I put it on autorecord and saw the first four episodes, but was dismayed when nothing appeared last week. I hope there is more to come. These people are interesting. Lenore, you treat their phobias with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. If you were a therapist, I think “get over yourself” would be your catch phrase. It’s kind of hilarious how annoyed they are by you. The best part is the light in the children’s eyes when they get to live a little, and the light bulb moment that some of the parents experience. My kids enjoy watching with me.
A 6-year-old girl in Missouri endured an emotional four-hour staged kidnapping because her family thought she was being too nice to people she didn’t know, police said Thursday.
The four people involved in the alleged plot — the girl’s father, grandfather, uncle and a co-worker of the uncle — have been charged with kidnapping and other felonies, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said.
“Family members told investigators their primary intent was to educate the victim and felt they did nothing wrong,” the press release said.
During her reported ordeal the girl was lured Monday into a pickup after getting off her school bus, tied up, threatened with a gun, taken to a basement where her pants were removed, and told she could be sold into sex slavery, police said.
So this was a girl, not a boy? Is journalism that hard that getting a gender right is a challenge? Or are you trying to make a point that I’m too dense to understand?
“Just out of curiousity, you faith haters. Where do you stand on DNRs, assisted suicides and the like?”
The like: Euthanasia, child euthanasia, euthanasia on newborns, abortion, abortion in the second trimester…
“Where are you going to draw the line, state forced vaccines, state forced sterilization, just where are you going to stop?”
To me all of these are about quality of life and preventing (severe) suffering. So I’m not principally against any of these, because even the more radical ones can be a good solution to specific cases.
Some Dude,
First of all, you coward, don’t hide behind a screen name and call people nutters and other insulting names.
And Buffy you are right. After this I am done dealing with these bigots and haters on this subject. Because if you remember there was a man that disagreed with a certain population based on their faith. Not that I think Puzzled or this ahole Some Dude are willing to send masses to the gas chambers.
@Pap,
I know I am not the only one that feels this way, in our area. The day the gov’t shows up on my property to force any medical treatment on a member of my family, they will be to busy ducking bullets to do much else.
@Warren: A couple I know has adopted a 5-year-old boy who was placed out of his home at age 2 or so, dirty and with developmental delays from simply not receiving the care and attention he needed. He has 6 siblings, none of whom still lived with their biological mother (who at the time was pregnant with no 8), all had been neglected as babies and toddlers and now lived in foster care. Mother can’t take care of children, but keeps breeding. I could definitely imagine sterilization for that woman, before the next child arrives and suffers the same fate.
Another scenario: the mother of a 18yo daughter with an IQ somewhere below 75 knew daughter wasn’t able to take care of herself, much less of children. Daughter didn’t see her own incapabilities as that much of a problem and planned on having kids anyway with her equally challenged boyfriend. I could imagine mom would want daughter to be sterilized, even though daughter doesn’t want to. Perhaps that’s not state forced the way you meant it, but still.
I assume these scenarios don’t apply to your family members.
Pap,
Even though the scenarios you brought up could be valid for state forced sterilization, I would still oppose it, on its principle. Have people not learned that once you start allowing the gov’t that kind of power that they build on it, expand it, until people’s rights are eventually legislated away from them?
Yes they always say that the line has been drawn “here”, until the next time and the line keeps getting pushed further and further. Sorry, not giving them that opportunity.
I cannot believe that hysteria was the motivation here. There are four adults involved here and I have to conclude that their motivation was drug induced or as some else said, sadism.
The most exciting thing I see in this post is “second season”. I believe the first season is all the episodes you filmed a few years ago and broadcast to Canada and maybe some other countries, right? So a second season would be entirely new.
I bet there would be a lot more talk of technology in a second season, given how so many more kids and teens have smartphones now.
@Warren: Sorry, I’m not that afraid of the slippery slope. Of course it’s a tricky discussion whether these measures should be allowed in certain circumstances, but we’ve had many tricky discussions like it that haven’t got out of hand after legislation. So I don’t consider ‘tricky’ a reason to just avoid the discussion altogether. Principles, like any ‘100% rule’, can be very valuable, but there will always be exceptional cases that require a different take, and there needs to be room for that.
Warren,
“Some Dude,
First of all, you coward, don’t hide behind a screen name and call people nutters and other insulting names.”
…
“Because if you remember there was a man that disagreed with a certain population based on their faith. Not that I think Puzzled or this ahole Some Dude are willing to send masses to the gas chambers.”
That’s some freaking weak tea, nutter.
“Rather than addressing the multiple logical fallacies that you highlighted in my arguments, I am going to claim some moral high ground for my use of an unidentifying first name as my nom de plume, and further refuse to engage your comments because I, Warren, am above your anonymous insults, you azzhole bigot who thinks like Hitler even if you are not going to literally commit genocide.”
LOL.
>Because you cannot wrap it around that wee little brain of >yours that some people can and do believe that their soul is >more important than the body, do not stand in judgement of >them.
Some people do believe that. They have every right to, as I said multiple times. As both you and I said, they do not have every right to force their belief on others and require others to die because of their beliefs. I have no reason to stand in judgment of a person who chooses to die for their faith. My objection is to forcing their beliefs on others. Since you’ve said you agree with that, I’m still waiting to know why the equation changes when they’re forcing that belief on their children – I don’t mean teaching their beliefs to their children, but making their children die for those beliefs without any reason to think the children agree.
>Again, parents that raise their kids in a faith that does >not accept medical treatments is not the same as killing >their kids.
Of course not. And if they manage to teach their faith to their children, such that the children decide that they, too, would rather die than accept medical treatment, fine. What if they don’t? Two scenarios: a) a child too young to choose, b) a child who has decided they disagree with their parents but is under the age of 18. Do they both die, in your view?
>By your logic, parents with sick kids should do everything >and anything to save or prolong their life, no matter how >much suffering that would cause the child.
Doesn’t even begin to follow. In fact, again, the context I began with on this question was specifically an attempt to draft a bill to prevent the government from forcing the type of treatment you describe on children against both their and their parent’s refusal. The difference is between clearly life-saving treatment and treatments that harm quality of life – and between children who can make conscious decisions and those who can’t.
Your “you hate faith” nonsense is absurd. I’ve said I’d oppose parents killing their children for any reason, not just a belief in God. I have no idea why it’s unacceptable to reference a religion that believes in SkyFather, but if a religion believes in God (different word, same concept) I must allow parents to force that faith on their children, to the point of death. Yet somehow the term “SkyFather” demonstrates a hatred of religion – as does opposing allowing people to force their religious beliefs on others. I do not understand your use of words.
Again, Puzzled. Who are you to tell anyone that their soul does not matter? Easy question. The moment you do that for one faith, just one, you are doing it for all.
Now what are you going to do?
Arrest parents after the child has died?
Forcibly remove the child, strap them down and force the treatment on them?
Either way, it would not be easy, if at all possible. Nothing creates solidarity like faith. What do you think will happen when police and cps show up at a home to kidnap a child, to force a medical treatment on them, that is against their faith? I would not be pretty, and it would probably turn violent.
Arresting the parents afterward, would only serve your lust for blood, and nothing else.
Now to set the record straight. Raising children within your faith is not forcing your will on others. Those that hate faith and religion always go there, just like the helicopter mom screams about the “if it saves one child”.
When you and that moron Some Dude can show imperical evidence that the immortal soul does not exist, then we can discuss forced medical treatment. Until then, you have no right to tell an adult, because of your beliefs you have damned their soul for eternity. Because you don’t believe in the soul, and forced them to get a blood transfusion as a child, against that adult’s parents wishes. I hope he or she is very forgiving.