[Alive]

Chance,

The parents brought the child to the elders, not the courts (and don't give me this "well they were the ancient equivalent" nonsense because they weren't.

Sorry, but you are wrong. The elders were not the ancient equivalent of the courts, the elders WERE the courts (that is, they were the judges in the courts). Elder was not necessarily even a descriptor of age. The term senator means "old man" too but that's not its meaning in the current political sense (the Roman senators also ran their early judicial system).

Notice also that it was all of the men of the city that carried out the punishment - and not the courts.

Well even today the judge isn't the one pulling the switch on the electric chair. The whole point of bringing the offender to the courts is to attain court sanction for the execution. It's somewhat ironic that you take one of the books famous for being legalistic to support your position of arbitrary, extralegal parental power.

Yes, but my Libertarian values are right and your leftist/socialist values are wrong.

So: Murdering children is morally relativistic, but libertarianism is morally absolute. Interesting. Your moral system becomes stranger every time I look at it.

By the way, claiming that absolute parental authority is a libertarian position is an affront to every true libertarian. No true libertarian believes that anyone should have absolute power over any but themselves! It used to be that most who went under the mantle of libertarianism believed primarily in freedom; freedom from Church authority, freedom from government authority, freedom from as much authority as possible. While some still fight under that banner, it seems that many libertarians today seem more driven by hatred of government than love of freedom.

If you want to hold your perverted views, so be it. But please do not claim to be a libertarian. You are nothing of the sort.

Parents having absolute authority over their children doesn't mean parents get to do whatever they want to their children.

That is what it literally means!! If you have absolute authority over your children, then they must do everything you ask them to without the government interfering. Unless you are using a radically different definition of "authority" than I do.

No, we don't agree. Parents have absolute responsibility for their children and, therefore, absolute authority (which is not the same thing as saying they can do whatever they want to their children).

Ok, so tell me exactly what it IS saying.

Limited government is not impossible. The United States of America was founded as a limited federal government. It's the tendency of politicians, however, to usurp more and more power for government. Instead of letting government put its grubby hands on families, parents should be allowed to carry out their parental responsibilities without interference from the government. That is my position.

The problem is you are talking very much in generalities and not getting into specific responses which pose the hardest counterexamples to your general ideas. That is why it takes us so many posts just to get out of you that parents shouldn't be able to rape their children--that there are some limits as to how parents may raise their children.

You: Is it better to have a situation where there is an occasional instance of abuse in order to let parents keep their intrinsic authority over their children than it is to have a nanny state where government usurps the role of parents? Yes.
Me: Ah, so ideally we would have limited government restricting parental power only in extreme instances but because limited government is impossible, we must give the parents completely absolute power?

Then you go on to talk about something else but don't respond to my question. So, could you? Would it be better to have limited government that just restricted parental power a little to prevent the "occasional instance of abuse" than either extreme of absolute parental power or absolute state power over children? Or is the extreme of absolute parental power what you actually support?

We both know that questions can (and often are) worded in such a way to obtain a particular result.

So? That's what I'm saying. Data is data. You don't get to choose the data that is there, but you do get to analyze it however you'd like. As long as the interviews are real you can read the questions and determine for yourself whether it supports the conclusion of the researcher. That is why the scientific method is so effective, and has brought us so much knowledge in the modern world--it is the closest humans can get to objectivity.

No. Children are rightly under the authority of their parents - who are responsible for raising and nurturing the children. When the children become adults, then they have the liberties that adults have.

Then it is false to say it is liberty you believe in for the context of this discussion. In this discussion, you are arguing in favor of absolute power, while I am arguing in favor of limited power.

Why you insist on calling it totalitarian (which only applies to governments), other than to inflame the discussion, I don't know.

Because I think you are blind to the parallels between power anywhere and power anywhere else. I am in favor of limited parental authority for the exact same reasons I am in favor of limited government power. Power is always liable to corruption, which is why a limited balance of powers and a restrictive constitution is generally a good way of running governments. It is also why limited parental power and a set of rights of children is a good way of protecting children. The same concepts apply.

Of course you think that totalitarianism only applies to government; your viewpoint is extremely narrow in that regard. Somehow you miss the universal ideal of freedom which is not made less important by which entity is encroaching on that freedom.

Every single abuse the government imposes on its citizens has a comparable abuse a parent may impose on their children. How do you figure that?

Well, name an abuse of government on its citizens and I'll name a comparable abuse of parents on their children. You of course already mentioned one--some governments kill citizens who act out of line even when those actions are of no threat to anyone, so do some parents.

Because the parents birthed the children and the children are their responsibility, not the government's.

But that's so arbitrary. Why does birthing have anything to do with who should be given the power? Where is the connection? Your moral system reminds me of the feudal one, with specific classes of people set in arbitrary positions in regards to one another, as determined by birth. It is (not) immoral for government to interfere in parenting in the same way it is (not) immortal for a serf to leave his lord. I thought in America the whole idea that birth should determine status was thrown out. But now you are putting it back in, if only for the childhood years; a person's childhood status should be entirely determined by the authority of the parent. That's what annoys me most about your moral system, it seems completely arbitrary. Why should who births who have anything to do with anything? It's completely random.

What makes government power so much safer than parental power, given that governments take away liberties, torture their citizens, etc.?

Nothing. They should be treated the same way.

Why do you keep saying "power" when I was saying "authority"?

I have been using them interchangeably. If you want me to stop using "power" in place of "authority", why not define authority in a meaningful way?

Saying "parents have the absolute authority to carry out their responsibilities as parents" means nothing to me. Tell me what powers the parents should be given over their children, and what parental powers should be limited by government.