"Step away from the candy and come with me, kid"

That does not alter the fact that thay were deemed livestock, bought, sold and rented as such. That was the sense of the situation, the spirit of the times. I thought everyone knew that.

Colonial American women's rights were restricted by the patriarchal view of English Common Law. As in England, women were viewed as chattel and had no individual legal rights.

The most interesting and disturbing aspect of chattel law is the notion of women as chattel that has woven itself into legal codes throughout history. In various times, places and cultures such as Merry Old England, the Hebrew Bible, The Code of Hammurabi and the Middle East, a bride price was/is an amount of money or property paid by the groom to the parents of his bride, she thus becoming his possession like a horse, a wagon or household utensils. Its origins were before recorded history and it established the wife as property, or, chattel. That practice established the world-wide dominion over women by men. Most European noblewomen were joined to their husbands in chattel marriages. In the patriarchal society of Old New York, women were treated as chattel and only valued as objects. For many men a wife still remains his chattel, in theory.

Historically, under common law, damages could be awarded to a husband on the loss of his wife due to the actions of another because his wife was considered chattel. In certain Middle Eastern societies, women (and women in some Orthodox Jewish cultures) are still considered chattel having no legal existence outside their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. A husband owns his wife and any children of the marriage. In some areas, that chattel status is modified to only include sexual and reproductive rights that are owned by husbands.

Most American treated married women according to the concept of coverture, a concept inherited from English common law. Under the doctrine of coverture, a woman was legally considered the chattel of her husband, his possession. Any property she might hold before her marriage became her husband's on her wedding day, and she had no legal right to appear in court, to sign contracts or to do business. Although these formal provisions of the law were sometimes ignored—the wives of tradesmen, for example, might assist in runing the family business—married women technically had almost no legal identity.

...Anamarie ... weighed 67 pounds at 16 months, 97 pounds at 28 months, and 130 pounds by July of 2000, when she was ... three years old.....What Anamarie’s mother didn’t know was that the state’s Child, Youth and Families Department was already preparing an affidavit that would accuse her and her husband, Miguel Regino, of endangering their child’s life by making her fat.

Too many folks (liberals) believe that the answer to every problem
is put another iron chain on the citizens; curtail their liberty
n choke their freedom, that the ideal State will be achieved when thay can 't move at all.

This is precisely what i mean about hysterical [??] ideological cant.

By the way, bright boy, if people of African descent were considered livestock, if that was the sense of the late 18th century as you hilariously allege, how do you account for people of African descent who lived in states which had no institution of slavery,

which would later be called free states? How can one be livestock if one happens to be held in bondage, but be human if one is not?

Leaving aside the drivel quoted above, this is one of the best examples of your willingness to distort reality in aid of your hysterical ideological cant. You're making up this story about Africans being considered livestock in the attempt to deny that the institution of slavery in the constitution is evidence that the founders were not the wild eyed libertarians you allege them to have been.

I've not read all of the thread and apologise if this has already been mentioned, but the sweet tooth in America is stronger than over here. I hope I don't sound smug, because obesity is beginning to be quite a problem over here as well.

Then you agree with Paul Campos (author of article just linked), professor of law at the University of Colorado, that "the lock-up diet" for children is illegal?

I have no interest in your state of mind, obsessive or otherwise.

I can see that you are hysterical by your use of caps, bold face and colors,

and the wild, invidious accusations against those who don't hold your troglodytic poltical views.

Your ignorance of history has been demonstrated to be so profound, that i see no point in discussing this with you. You don't know what you're talking about, you made a wild claim which Thomas shot down in one try, and now you'll say anything to attempt to defend your witless thesis.

Bye.

Thay did not favor liberty for livestock, but rather for citizens.

Thay did not favor liberty for livestock, but rather for citizens.

By this logic, you can declare the Nazis to be libertarians

using your neat little bit of linguistic trickery.
They, too, were champions of liberty---but for the Aryan master race,

not for the Jewish world conspiracy against it. Your logic is flawed.

There. I mentioned the Nazis. Can we end the Founding-Fathers subthread now?

They and Ana live under this remarkably repressive regimen not because there is any medical evidence that it will protect their daughter’s health, but simply because it gives the authorities a false but comforting sense that they are ‘doing something’ about what is, for them, a profoundly disturbing sight - the sight of an unusually large child.

That was an eye-opening article, High Seas. Thanks for the link.

This....

Quote:

They and Ana live under this remarkably repressive regimen not because there is any medical evidence that it will protect their daughter’s health, but simply because it gives the authorities a false but comforting sense that they are ‘doing something’ about what is, for them, a profoundly disturbing sight - the sight of an unusually large child.

.... is downright scary.