Read the last blog post for more specifics on this issue. This is a continuation of that post.
4/29/2009 Fox News report on the Conventions on the Rights of Children
And when the children are taken out of the home by Child Protective Services.....
This speech by Nancy Shaefer about CPS was eye opening. An entire industry has been built around building cases against parents!
Nancy Shaefer and her husband were murdered in their home only a short while later.
Here is a horrifyingly informative interview she had with Prison Planet's Alex Jones:
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
UNCRC- Important Parental Rights Law video!
United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child(wiki link): When I stumbled across the video I've embedded below I was shocked, but not so shocked that I was falling on the floor twitching dumbfounded. Why? We've had enough run ins with our local elementary school which made me pull both my boys out to do cyber schooling two years ago. But this!! this is absolutely insane- and the USA is the only country so far which hasn't accepted it. Read how here. I find it positively nauseating to think that our current method of raising our two sons in Customary International Law, is illegal. If I didn't set boundaries for these boys they'd run over me and burn our apartment down. Or kill us. But hey, what's a little blood and gore between parents and kids if it's what the kids want, right?
Watch for yourself. It's true. After you watch the video think think long and hard about whether or not you want to have more children added to your family. And maybe in the end that's the whole point? Because if the government has control over your children and how you raise them then where has our freedom gone? We've signed them away. We're nothing more than a breeding workforce. There is hope. People are fighting this law. Keep reading and watching.
Here are some main points from the video:
So Readers, what is your opinion of the legislation? What have you seen or heard about it?
Watch for yourself. It's true. After you watch the video think think long and hard about whether or not you want to have more children added to your family. And maybe in the end that's the whole point? Because if the government has control over your children and how you raise them then where has our freedom gone? We've signed them away. We're nothing more than a breeding workforce. There is hope. People are fighting this law. Keep reading and watching.
Here are some main points from the video:
- Uganda and other countries in the middle east: still figuring out whether or not honor killings should still be legal and yet they have passed the UNCRC for their country. So killing women who are raped is/maybe alright but disciplining your children is wrong? Who's raising who here? The parents or the state?
- Holland: children start sex education at the age of four. Why? I'm pretty sure they've seen body parts from both parents or siblings by then to say that there are differences between boys and girls. So why formally educate? So they can learn even earlier how to damage someone? As if the Terrible Two's weren't enough, for crying outloud. Next we're going to have eight year olds raping each other.
- Sweden: homeschooling is illegal. Only state indoctrination for the Swedes, it appears.
- Belgium: doctors can murder a child under a year old if they find the child physically or mentally deficient/disabled. In 16% of cases they didn’t even ask for the parent’s consent. Government sanctioned murder.
US courts are more frequently using ‘Customary International Law’ to decide domestic case outcomes. So we have not ratified the UNCRC here but it is still beginning to take effect in public schools and in the home itself.
Once enough of these bits and pieces of international law have passed here in the USA then a precedent is created and… UNCRC will be passed. Clinton(Mrs.) signed it already in the UN but Clinton(Mr.) didn't push it forward for ratification. And so it sits on the shelf scaring the crap out of parents in the US while it is slowly being obeyed by local family courts even without official ratification.
Taking the opinion of the child into consideration is the priority with CRC:
- The parent cannot have access to medical tests unless the child gives the doctor permission. Think your kid is high and up to no good? Good luck proving it! Even if the child is a danger to the rest of the family because of their mental state you can't do anything because the child will not allow the parents to see the drug tests.
- Anything the parents state the child must do to fulfill family obligations is subject to state approval. Real court case example given in movie: child doesn’t feel like going to church three times a week. Child complains to the school counselor. Child is removed from school and put into foster care and parents not even notified until after the fact. No court case is presented for abuse of any kind or imminent danger. The child simply doesn’t feel like complying with the family’s schedule. “I don’t wanna” becomes “I get put in foster care.” Surprising to the kid but then they decide to go along with it because it's how they can get what they want. Does this sound surprising to most parents? NO! (What, don't you remember being a headstrong little punk and driving your parents up the wall? I can answer honestly- yes, I do. I was a hellion.) Three times a week is too much for a thirteen year old but once a week sounds about right, according to Washington state law for a few years until it was thrown out. Many more cases were brought before family courts before it was taken out of the state’s law.
- Spanking? Forget about it. Grounding them? No can do. They have a right to freedom. Standing them in the corner or have them write a repetitive paper on their infraction(That's my personal fave. They hate handwriting assignments)? Get sued by your own child because they disagree with you. Can you imagine it, getting called into court because you tried to discipline your child and every spat turning into a legal battle? It'd be enough to give any sane person the chills when that pregnancy test comes up positive. At that point you might as well hand the child over to the state because everything you say or do is up for review in a court of law. I can see abortion rates rising exponentially as the generations get more and more unruly because to be a parent is to be the ultimate schmuck.
3) From the ParentalRights.org website an example was given of the ‘perfect storm’ which will rise up from the CRC being passed in the US: In the early 1980s, a landmark parental rights case reached the Washington State Supreme Court. The case involved 13-year-old Sheila Marie Sumey, whose parents were alarmed when they found evidence of their daughter's participation in illegal drug activity and escalating sexual involvement. Their response was to act immediately to cut off the negative influences in their daughter's life by grounding her.
But when Sheila went to her school counselors complaining about her parent's actions, she was advised that she could be liberated from her parents because there was "conflict between parent and child." Listening to the advice she had received, Sheila notified Child Protective Services (CPS) about her situation. She was subsequently removed from her home and placed in foster care.
Her parents, desperate to get their daughter back, challenged the actions of the social workers in court. They lost. Even though the judge found that Sheila's parents had enforced reasonable rules in a proper manner, the state law nevertheless gave CPS the authority to split apart the Sumey family and take Sheila away.
ParentalRights.org has put together a Constitutional amendment(SR 99) which will actually spell out parents’ rights since currently there is nothing to protect a parent from saying no to their child and it being Constitutionally legal. That's right. It's not legal to tell your child NO! or that they must comply with your decisions about their friends, medical testings, education, etc. Let's just let the little darlings run wild, yes?
This is the proposed amendment SR99:
SECTION 1
The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right.
SECTION 2
Neither the United States nor any state shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.
SECTION 3
No treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.
Sign the petition to pass the Constitutional amendment!
Reading the 'Parental Rights in the Courts' and 'Families in the News' examples on the site will blow your mind. This is real, people. The state believes it can raise your child better in foster care than you can!
- Parker v. Hurley(2007)
- Brown v. Hot, Safer and Sexy Productions
- Fields v. Palmdale School District
- Graham v. Florida(2012)
- + dozens more in the past twenty years.
More lawsuits are coming and things are coming to a head now.
So Readers, what is your opinion of the legislation? What have you seen or heard about it?
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Thunder - Introduction & Evolution
Thunder is a one of the most perplexing gnostic texts and worth its weight in gold. A worthy read and an even more worthy collection of verses to meditate on. Because its verses contain such contradictory descriptions(sometimes in the same line!) it is necessary to nibble on it instead of trying to digest it in one sitting. It really will give you a splitting headache. I've been 'nibbling' at it for a few months now and finally have a grasp of most of the broad concepts explored therein.
Among Nag Hammadi experts it is most commonly thought that Sophia herself speaks through the voice of an author(unknown) to create a powerful but complicated feminine persona who traverses a thousand years of ancient literary equivalents. There are parallels in Thunder's literary styles with Sanskrit, Egyptian, and Jewish literature devices and forms. Thunder as a historical religious text and Sophia's mystery aren't that mysterious when taken into those contexts, then. The poetic form is timeless.
A few related verses from Thunder has fired my imagination to blog today. In no particular order:
"I am silence incomprehensible
and an idea remembered often."
"I am the utterance of my name."
"I am hearing for all,
and my speech is indeciperable.
I am an unspeaking mute
and enormous in my many words."
"Those unconnected to me are unfamiliar with me,
and those in my substance know me.
Those close to me are ignorant of me,
and those far away have known me.
On the day I am close to you, you are far,
and on the day I am far, I am close to you."
"Hear me, hearers,
and find out about my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing all can reach;
I am speech undecipherable.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
and the designation of the division."
also
"Come to childhood and don't despise it, because it is small and tiny."
The last line seems to be the icing on the cake, for me anyway. The punctuation at the end of a sentence. A gentle hug after a good long cry. Because you know we all royally pissed off our parents during childhood. It's not easy being a parent. It's hard to know whether to let your child suffer for a bit in order to learn or to help them right up after a fall.
And along the lines of Night Reflection's post concerning FEELING and recognizing that divine connection to God in our lives, how can we write about these conversations with the All? At times I am so stumped for words I cannot even think of where to begin. This is why having eloquent verses like Thunder available in print is so vitally important for those of us who strive to learn and feel more than what is available for common consumption on CNN and MSN.com with our cup of coffee.
In my own struggle to come up with an adequate description of what this divine connection and communion feels... I feel inept and not up to the task. My conclusion is that this is because I am such a visual person. And my relationship with Pleroma seems to be one of fewer words and more emotional surges. There's only so many words in a thesaurus to describe warm, fuzzy, loving, adoring, universal, all encompassing, endlessly compassionate, endlessly forgiving...
And I have arrived at a solution while writing out that paragraph. In one word. My search has ended.
Endless.
Now of course I can come up with a dozen more synonyms for that. Boundless. Eternal. Infinite. Unceasing. Etc.
But endless seems to cover it.
Like an endlessly overflowing cup of joy. When I was a child I recognized this. Instinctively. And it was terrifying! I didn't know what this visualization was(cup of overflowing substance) or what it represented. I had nothing to hang onto. There was no edge to that cup. It was just me in my little bitty body floundering in that emotion. All I knew was that I felt too much, knew too little, and had no one to help me with such a thing.
It took me another twenty years of living to discover what it was. Him. Her. Them. The All. Everything!
Picture a continually overflowing cup. Our very analytical human minds will constantly try to grasp at ideas of where the substance is being sourced from. But here's the answer to the riddle: there is no Place where it resides. There is no Beginning to find. It simply is. And that is what we find so unfathomable. And outrageous in our narrow human view, therefore we make up and even accept the most absurd allegorical stories to be fact to stop us from being faced with that endlessness. It terrifies us. Deep down, it terrifies us. We don't see an edge to that great big swimming pool. There are no life rafts for us to grab onto.
Occam's razor isn't just a mathematical term. And we shouldn't believe myths to be facts simply because it's easier to bear. We cannot evolve as truly responsible adults in the eyes of the All if we shackle ourselves to these literal interpretations. By releasing our bonds we are letting go of the edge we have superficially created and float free in His substance; content and liberated in our spiritual growth. Endlessness doesn't make us tremble anymore. We dive into that tranquil sea and don't touch bottom.
Among Nag Hammadi experts it is most commonly thought that Sophia herself speaks through the voice of an author(unknown) to create a powerful but complicated feminine persona who traverses a thousand years of ancient literary equivalents. There are parallels in Thunder's literary styles with Sanskrit, Egyptian, and Jewish literature devices and forms. Thunder as a historical religious text and Sophia's mystery aren't that mysterious when taken into those contexts, then. The poetic form is timeless.
A few related verses from Thunder has fired my imagination to blog today. In no particular order:
"I am silence incomprehensible
and an idea remembered often."
"I am the utterance of my name."
"I am hearing for all,
and my speech is indeciperable.
I am an unspeaking mute
and enormous in my many words."
"Those unconnected to me are unfamiliar with me,
and those in my substance know me.
Those close to me are ignorant of me,
and those far away have known me.
On the day I am close to you, you are far,
and on the day I am far, I am close to you."
"Hear me, hearers,
and find out about my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing all can reach;
I am speech undecipherable.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
and the designation of the division."
also
"Come to childhood and don't despise it, because it is small and tiny."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The last line seems to be the icing on the cake, for me anyway. The punctuation at the end of a sentence. A gentle hug after a good long cry. Because you know we all royally pissed off our parents during childhood. It's not easy being a parent. It's hard to know whether to let your child suffer for a bit in order to learn or to help them right up after a fall.
And along the lines of Night Reflection's post concerning FEELING and recognizing that divine connection to God in our lives, how can we write about these conversations with the All? At times I am so stumped for words I cannot even think of where to begin. This is why having eloquent verses like Thunder available in print is so vitally important for those of us who strive to learn and feel more than what is available for common consumption on CNN and MSN.com with our cup of coffee.
In my own struggle to come up with an adequate description of what this divine connection and communion feels... I feel inept and not up to the task. My conclusion is that this is because I am such a visual person. And my relationship with Pleroma seems to be one of fewer words and more emotional surges. There's only so many words in a thesaurus to describe warm, fuzzy, loving, adoring, universal, all encompassing, endlessly compassionate, endlessly forgiving...
And I have arrived at a solution while writing out that paragraph. In one word. My search has ended.
Endless.
Now of course I can come up with a dozen more synonyms for that. Boundless. Eternal. Infinite. Unceasing. Etc.
But endless seems to cover it.
Like an endlessly overflowing cup of joy. When I was a child I recognized this. Instinctively. And it was terrifying! I didn't know what this visualization was(cup of overflowing substance) or what it represented. I had nothing to hang onto. There was no edge to that cup. It was just me in my little bitty body floundering in that emotion. All I knew was that I felt too much, knew too little, and had no one to help me with such a thing.
It took me another twenty years of living to discover what it was. Him. Her. Them. The All. Everything!
Picture a continually overflowing cup. Our very analytical human minds will constantly try to grasp at ideas of where the substance is being sourced from. But here's the answer to the riddle: there is no Place where it resides. There is no Beginning to find. It simply is. And that is what we find so unfathomable. And outrageous in our narrow human view, therefore we make up and even accept the most absurd allegorical stories to be fact to stop us from being faced with that endlessness. It terrifies us. Deep down, it terrifies us. We don't see an edge to that great big swimming pool. There are no life rafts for us to grab onto.
Occam's razor isn't just a mathematical term. And we shouldn't believe myths to be facts simply because it's easier to bear. We cannot evolve as truly responsible adults in the eyes of the All if we shackle ourselves to these literal interpretations. By releasing our bonds we are letting go of the edge we have superficially created and float free in His substance; content and liberated in our spiritual growth. Endlessness doesn't make us tremble anymore. We dive into that tranquil sea and don't touch bottom.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Teaching Children Gnosis?
Oy vey. I had a truly mind blowing moment today.
Long story short(describing incidents spanning over five hours) my oldest stepson tried to shove silly putty down his younger brother's throat and this younger brother sprayed his silly putty wielding brother in the face with extra strength ammonia Windex.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd had it with the non-stop bickering and whining over everything imaginable. They were having a truly Bad Day. Now eight and ten year olds don't always make the wisest of decisions. I know this. But I really felt the need to teach them the seriousness of what they tried to do. The youngest boy could have choked to death and the oldest could have had damage to his eyes and needed hospitalization.
My knee-jerk reaction after five hours of their tantrums? "Keep it up and I'll make you write two pages front and back of the Ten Commandments!"
*slaps self* What was I thinking?! Why would I want those two precious kids to be indoctrinated any more than they already are by other well meaning family members during Summer Vacation and other Holidays? After shaking my head a few times at my outlandish statement to the boys I resolved to combine the most meaningful aspects of those Commandments into one statement and yes, the boys wrote two pages front and back. I meant business and was tired of their behavior.
The one sentence I had them write was: "Family members honor, protect, and teach one another."
Afterward, my ten year old thanked me for teaching him a lesson, apologized, and hugged me.
Go on. Do that double take. You know you want to. Read the sentence again. It's true. He actually thanked me for explaining just how dangerous his actions were and letting the punishment for it revolve around honoring, protecting, and teaching one another instead of just spanking him and his brother. The above sentence directly contrasts what his actions were, ergo, he sees just how wrong he was. Is he going to do something similar in the future? Absolutely. And we'll talk about it all over again. Such is childhood.
Is outright teaching gnosis to children advisable? Not really. It can't be taught in your stereotypical Sunday School fashion. The basic outline of the gnostic vision of our world and universe is tricky to teach when mainstream religion dominates the family outside your own home. I haven't been able to do it successfully for this reason. They look at me like I have two heads and regurgitate what is crammed in their heads by their birth-mother. One thing I have to give her credit for- she really teaches with consistency. Hellfire this and damnation that. (And have her "lessons" changed their behavior? No. If anything it has gotten ten times worse. When they come home from visits with her we have to break the kids back in to recognizing the house rules and to act like human beings again instead of animals. The longer they're with her the longer this process takes. Turns the house upside down for a month.)
The last resort is, of course, to teach by example. Let life be a child's own professor. Problems come up every day which are wonderful opportunities for us as parents! Gently guide them to see other options and solutions, not just the easiest one. While you are building additional flexibility in your child's mind by doing these exercises you are, in fact, giving them room to grow and come to gnosis when they are ready as adults and on their own terms.
Long story short(describing incidents spanning over five hours) my oldest stepson tried to shove silly putty down his younger brother's throat and this younger brother sprayed his silly putty wielding brother in the face with extra strength ammonia Windex.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd had it with the non-stop bickering and whining over everything imaginable. They were having a truly Bad Day. Now eight and ten year olds don't always make the wisest of decisions. I know this. But I really felt the need to teach them the seriousness of what they tried to do. The youngest boy could have choked to death and the oldest could have had damage to his eyes and needed hospitalization.
My knee-jerk reaction after five hours of their tantrums? "Keep it up and I'll make you write two pages front and back of the Ten Commandments!"
*slaps self* What was I thinking?! Why would I want those two precious kids to be indoctrinated any more than they already are by other well meaning family members during Summer Vacation and other Holidays? After shaking my head a few times at my outlandish statement to the boys I resolved to combine the most meaningful aspects of those Commandments into one statement and yes, the boys wrote two pages front and back. I meant business and was tired of their behavior.
The one sentence I had them write was: "Family members honor, protect, and teach one another."
Afterward, my ten year old thanked me for teaching him a lesson, apologized, and hugged me.
Go on. Do that double take. You know you want to. Read the sentence again. It's true. He actually thanked me for explaining just how dangerous his actions were and letting the punishment for it revolve around honoring, protecting, and teaching one another instead of just spanking him and his brother. The above sentence directly contrasts what his actions were, ergo, he sees just how wrong he was. Is he going to do something similar in the future? Absolutely. And we'll talk about it all over again. Such is childhood.
Is outright teaching gnosis to children advisable? Not really. It can't be taught in your stereotypical Sunday School fashion. The basic outline of the gnostic vision of our world and universe is tricky to teach when mainstream religion dominates the family outside your own home. I haven't been able to do it successfully for this reason. They look at me like I have two heads and regurgitate what is crammed in their heads by their birth-mother. One thing I have to give her credit for- she really teaches with consistency. Hellfire this and damnation that. (And have her "lessons" changed their behavior? No. If anything it has gotten ten times worse. When they come home from visits with her we have to break the kids back in to recognizing the house rules and to act like human beings again instead of animals. The longer they're with her the longer this process takes. Turns the house upside down for a month.)
The last resort is, of course, to teach by example. Let life be a child's own professor. Problems come up every day which are wonderful opportunities for us as parents! Gently guide them to see other options and solutions, not just the easiest one. While you are building additional flexibility in your child's mind by doing these exercises you are, in fact, giving them room to grow and come to gnosis when they are ready as adults and on their own terms.
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