DAVID GOLDMAN & SON: WHATAYATHINK ?

A fact that is not lost to your readership, I am sure.

In my town, a "child" cannot get a drivers licence until the age of 16 when they take a test to ensure their competency. At the age of 80, that "child" must take a test every year to ensure they still have that same competency behind the wheel.

My dead friend, Neil, told me of his illegally driving
an old jalopy in New York at age 14 in the 1930s.
He was so accustomed to driving without a license
that he did not apply for one until he was around 25.
He knew from experience that he did not need it.
His car worked just fine without it.





David

That would be fine if the licence was for the car. Since the licence was for the driver, your argument holds no water or substance of any kind.

Oh, and I do wish you a Merry Christmas, David.

MY argument??
My dead friend, Neil, said that with an element of wry humor, Richard.





I hope that your Christmas will be 1000 times Merrier than mine, Richard.





David

David, not every 9 yr old is competent to make decisions for himself. You may have been an anomaly. Awareness comes late to some people. Some people stay kids forever. Yes, he will bear the consequences of his actions (don't we all?), but allowing him (I know you hate that word) to make major decisions at this young age is not giving him good guidance and direction.

Children have guardians for a reason...

And you didn't answer my question about what age do you think children should be making their decisions. I would really like to know.

This is all moot now -- the Brazilian SC has ordered the family to relinquish David's son by tomorrow morning and they have stated they are not going to appeal. About the only thing they have done is make is unlikely they will ever hear from either Goldman or his son for the rest of their natural lives. However, I don't believe Goldman is going to hold a grudge that long. After, all this is mostly due to the Grandmother who is Goldman's Mother-In-Law, keeping alive the cliche about Mothers-In-Law.

Agreed, but is there another age at which everyone is competent? not everyone



Yeah; I 've been called worse.

True; I feel like I 'm still a kid on the inside.




We do


Anyone can offer him advice and guidance,
so long as it is not forced on him against his will.
The court insulted him by refusing to hear him AT ALL.
He WAS treated as his dad 's property. That is an indignity.


Yes, but with whatever good intentions, some parents can be bullies. Sometimes we hear about it.
Elian 's dad was his official guardian, and he is a communist.
That 's much worse than being a dope peddler or degenerate gambler.




I apologize for not answering that.
I don 't have a particular age in mind. I don 't know how to choose a number for that.
I believe that when a person is able to express himself, speaking,
and to reason, then he shoud be advised (as when I 've advised
young boys n one girl not to smoke) but not be coerced n extorted.

In any case, if a child dislikes a parent
I don t see that he has a moral DUTY to remain in residence with him.
There was a lady on Abuzz whose history included a mother
who loathed and despised her, uttering very cruel condemnations against her.
I met a fellow in his 40s, who told of his mother torturing
him, his brother and sister and keeping them in a state of terror.
Some of the tortures that he described were alarming.





David

I'm sure you think you were doing those children a great service when you sat down with them to explain your logic to get them to make the best decision. And you may have even felt that you were making progress. Maybe you were... until some other adult came along to "explain" that smoking is cool or they saw an ad where the cool guy was smoking. As I said earlier, if we living in simple groupings, maybe this would be sufficient. 10 year olds can definitely pick up a gun and shoot people who are attacking them. That's not the issue. The issue is that they lack both the background and the advanced reasoning skills to understand the complicated situations that arise in complex societies. From your posts, I take it that you feel this is rank discrimination, but saying that people grow into their reasoning skills is not any different than saying they grow in other physical ways. Humans are not physically mature at age nine or ten. To allow children at that age all the freedoms you offer them would just be to put that at the mercy of every unscrupulous adult willing to abuse them. I could convince a ten year old to vote for my candidate every time, to vote against policies that would benefit him (heck, you can do that with adults), to work for substandard wages, to buy into any religion, to be a suicide bomber, etc. Your belief that children that age can reason out a solution against an adult willing to twist them is just not correct. You mentioned Elian Gonzalez in an earlier post and that is a perfect example. Elian was twisted so many ways by adults that saw him as nothing more than a political pawn. He had two parents who loved him. One decided to take him to the US in what could be considered a bold attempt at freedom or a foolhardy risk. Elian was not asked about whether he wanted to leave his friends and home behind. Like many other children before him, his mother made the decision that there was a better shot at a happy life for him somewhere else. At age six, he likely would not have made that decision himself. Of course, following your approach, his mother could have sat down with him and explained the advantages of the US. Likewise, following your approach, the Cuban government could have sent a representative to do likewise and let six year old Elian decide. But of course that is silly - Elian would not have understood about the near mythical US and the value of freedom versus the value of his friends and access to his father. He would have never left. When in the US and handling the death of his mother, he was manipulated by adults who turned him into a freak show, lavished him with gifts and told him to say he wanted to stay in the US. Yet you think he was making an intelligent, informed decision? You can make a six year old say anything you want - really, you can. I appreciate you feel strongly on the value of personal rights, but where children are concerned, you have to take into account the lack of maturity. A child may be convinced to enter into a sexual relationship with an adult, but that doesn't make it ok. Just ask those coming forward in the Catholic sex scandals. Remember in those cases, boys around age 10 where convinced to submit to sexual exploitation by clergy. No force, just persuasion. And they were convinced not to tell anyone.

Yes, we the people have empowered the government to step in to protect children. Your idea of giving them guns and telling them to protect themselves would be great if they understood the line between self defense and anger and many children don't understand that. While you may have the occasional justifiable homicide, you will have a lot more regular homicides and jails full of children.

The Brazilian family gave up Goldman's son this morning but made it a point to ignore the two private entrances to the courthouse and purposefully drug him through a crowd of news and TV reporters. What a bunch of thugs.

At least they didn't make the police come in after them.

You are correct - many children want to stay with a parent that is abusing them. They do not know anything else and all they know is they love that parent. They don't realize that isn't love.

Yeah why would they do that? It isn't helping them or the child...doesn't make any sense at all.

What I really wished for the situation is for both families to get together and work it out - to me personally it makes sense as long as the natural parent is fit to be a parent for the child to be with the natural parent. If the families could work it out, then there was possibilities for visits back and forth. That is what would have been best for the child.

Maybe they have shown another reason why the boy should be returned to his father.

Unfortunately, what is best for the child is seldom given any relevance. I agree with what you said about possible visits.

In this thread, I 've endeavored to defend Sean 's natural rights
to self determination, personal liberty and dignity.

However, in so doing, it probably appeared that I was not
sympathetic to the plight of David Goldman,
which is not the case. He is a very, very patient man who
appears to be of very sound mind.

I guess this development was a good Christmas present for David Goldman.





David

They sure did -- if this is the kind of raising tactics they were practicing all along, David Goldman has some work to do. It was the U.S. Consulate, BTW, not the courthouse and I guess they had no time to enforce their not returning Sean in more privacy as offered. Brazil has some "living this down" to do now. I don't think the family cares.

Right -- armed while they hid him in a closet?

welcome home david and son....welcome back to America and I dont mean SOUTH AMERICA. Thanks to NBC for supplying the private jet to whisk them back to Jersey. This travesty is finally over and they shouldnt have gotten the Olympics either. Let them and their government solve their own problems. We shouldnt give another dime to them either.

Another possibility was to hit the road, with the boy.
That sort of thing is not without precedent.





David

I think that would really have been bad news. I think the father would have too much to lose -- money would deter him from "saving his child," which means Sean wasn't really worth a lead penny to him.

I think it appropriate now to refer to them as The Prick Family.