Are Children Property? - Page 11

Whaler17 · #**101** (**permalink**) 08-19-2008, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heikstheo

Are children property? Well, if they are, investing in "child property" is a truly dumb investment, compared to other possibilities. It has been said that raising a child costs $250,000 cradle to college (an older number, but let's use it for this spiel). Now, if I were an investment salesman making a sales pitch for "child property," here's how the spiel would go: "Okay, you sign a $250,000, 20-year loan, you get no use value out of your property while you own it, your title to your property expires the minute you pay the loan off, you cannot sell your property or rent it out, and, the minute your property starts producing an income, your property receives its freedom and you get no return on investment." How many people would rush to sign up for that investment opportunity? With any other type of property, I can have the use value of my property, rent it out, sell it, enjoy any income derived therefrom while I own it, and my title thereto does not become extinguished immediately upon having finished making payments. For that matter, I can even physically destroy my own property if I darn please. However, I cannot do any of these things with a child. Conclusion: children are not property.

So your premise is that all property is an investment intended to provide a monetary return. A more flawed premise would be hard to come by! Cars depreciate and provide no positive return yet they are property! Most household goods depreciate (furniture, televisions, etc..) yet they are property!

People have children because having them provides value to the parents! Longevity of the family genetic line, pride in their accomplishments, love and relationships, all reasons people choose to have or own children.

Clearly the law has different rules for different classes of property! Some is subject to sales tax, while in some states there are classes of property that are not subject to sales tax. You can buy an ATV and operate it without a driver's license, but not an automobile. The fact that you cannot kill a child at will does not indicate that they are not treated as property by the current law! Actually, you can kill a child at will if you do it before the child breathes its first breath! But that is a subject all of its own for another thread!

Pets are similar to children as far as the law goes! you can't kill a pet at will in many jurisdictions! There are cruelty and neglect laws that prohibit such things, but pets are clearly property!

In case you missed it in my earlier posts, I oppose this current legal status of children as property! They should have basic human rights independent of their parents, but they really don't right now!

heikstheo · #**102** (**permalink**) 08-19-2008, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whaler17

So your premise is that all property is an investment intended to provide a monetary return. A more flawed premise would be hard to come by! Cars depreciate and provide no positive return yet they are property! Most household goods depreciate (furniture, televisions, etc..) yet they are property!

But even those forms of property that depreciate have use value and can be sold or rented out. Children don't and can't.

Whaler17 · #**103** (**permalink**) 08-19-2008, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heikstheo

But even those forms of property that depreciate have use value and can be sold or rented out. Children don't and can't.

That is not enough to show that they are treated more like people than property by the law! They are CLEARLY treated more like property!

heikstheo · #**104** (**permalink**) 08-19-2008, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whaler17

That is not enough to show that they are treated more like people than property by the law! They are CLEARLY treated more like property!

My primary point is that children should not be treated like property! The part about not being able to use, sell, rent, derive an income from, or physically destroy one's child (which one can do with other types of property) is merely a secondary argument showing that, if children really were property, they are a darned strange species of property indeed (and, hence, they are probably not property).

Whaler17 · #**105** (**permalink**) 08-19-2008, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heikstheo

My primary point is that children should not be treated like property! The part about not being able to use, sell, rent, derive an income from, or physically destroy one's child (which one can do with other types of property) is merely a secondary argument showing that, if children really were property, they are a darned strange species of property indeed (and, hence, they are probably not property).

We both agree that children should not be treated as property by the law, but there doesn't seem to be the attention given to this issue that it deserves!

Unfortunately if it doesn't directly affect Brad and Angelina, nobody seems to worry about it much! I had one poster here all but say that if it isn't in the newspaper headlines, its not important!

Sad isn't it! People are so easily lead astray by the media in this culture!

heikstheo · #**106** (**permalink**) 08-22-2008, 06:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whaler17

In case you missed it in my earlier posts, I oppose this current legal status of children as property! They should have basic human rights independent of their parents, but they really don't right now!

Then what do we do to liberate children from their current legal status as quasi-property?

perdidochas · #**107** (**permalink**) 08-22-2008, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heikstheo

Then what do we do to liberate children from their current legal status as quasi-property?

We shouldn't. Parents have the responsibility to take certain care of their children. As part of that responsibility, they have a power to control most aspects of their children's lives. None of that should be changed. Children aren't property in any practical way. If they were property, they could be bought and sold, etc.

From http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/property

The quote below from "A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856."

Quote:

PROPERTY. The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels to the exclusion of others. 6 Binn. 98; 4 Pet. 511; 17 Johns. 283; 14 East, 370; 11 East, 290, 518. It is the right to enjoy and to dispose of certain things in the most absolute manner as he pleases, provided he makes no use of them prohibited by law. See Things.
2. All things are not the subject of property the sea, the air, and the like, cannot be appropriated; every one may enjoy them, but he has no exclusive right in them. When things are fully our own, or when all others are excluded from meddling with them, or from interfering about them, it is plain that no person besides the proprietor, who has this exclusive right, can have any, claim either to use them, or to hinder him from disposing of them as, he pleases; so that property, considered as an exclusive right to things, contains not only a right to use those things, but a right to dispose of them, either by exchanging them for other things, or by giving them away to any other person, without any consideration, or even throwing them away. Rutherf. Inst. 20; Domat, liv. prel. tit. 3; Poth. Des Choses; 18 Vin. Ab. 63; 7 Com. Dig. 175; Com. Dig. Biens. See also 2 B. & C. 281; S. C. 9 E. C. L. R. 87; 3 D. & R. 394; 9 B. & C. 396; S. C. 17 E. C. L. R. 404; 1 C. & M. 39; 4 Call, 472; 18 Ves. 193; 6 Bing. 630.
3. Property is divided into real property, (q.v.) and personal property. (q.v.) Vide Estate; Things.
4. Property is also divided, when it consists of goods and chattels, into absolute and qualified. Absolute property is that which is our own, without any qualification whatever; as when a man is the owner of a watch, a book, or other inanimate thing: or of a horse, a sheep, or other animal, which never had its natural liberty in a wild state.
5. Qualified property consists in the right which men have over wild animals which they have reduced to their own possession, and which are kept subject to their power; as a deer, a buffalo, and the like, which are his own while he has possession of them, but as soon as his possession is lost, his property is gone, unless the animals, go animo revertendi. 2 Bl. Com. 396; 3 Binn. 546.
6. But property in personal goods may be absolute or qualified without ally relation to the nature of the subject-matter, but simply because more persons than one have an interest in it, or because the right of property is separated from the possession. A bailee of goods, though not the owner, has a qualified property in them; while the owner has the absolute property. Vide, Bailee; Bailment.
7. Personal property is further divided into property in possession, and property or choses in action. (q.v.)
8. Property is again divided into corporeal and incorporeal. The former comprehends such property as is perceptible to the senses, as lands, houses, goods, merchandise and the like; the latter consists in legal rights, as choses in action, easements, and the like.
9. Property is lost, in general, in three ways, by the act of man, by the act of law, and by the act of God.
10.-1. It is lost by the act of man by, 1st. Alienation; but in order to do this, the owner must have a legal capacity to make a contract. 2d. By the voluntary abandonment of the thing; but unless the abandonment be purely voluntary, the title to the property is not lost; as, if things be thrown into the sea to save the ship, the right is not lost. Poth. h.t., n. 270; 3 Toull. ii. 346. But even a voluntary abandonment does not deprive the former owner from taking possession of the thing abandoned, at any time before another takes possession of it.
11.-2. The title to property is lost by operation of law. 1st. By the forced sale, under a lawful process, of the property of a debtor to satisfy a judgment, sentence, or decree rendered against him, to compel him to fulfill his obligations. 2d. By confiscation, or sentence of a criminal court. 3d. By prescription. 4th. By civil death. 6th. By capture of a public enemy.
12.-3. The title to property is lost by the act of God, as in the case of the death of slaves or animals, or in the total destruction of a thing; for example, if a house be swallowed up by an opening in the earth during an earthquake.
13. It is proper to observe that in some cases, the moment that the owner loses his possession, he also loses his property or right in the thing: animals ferae naturae, as mentioned above, belong to the owner only while he retains the possession of them. But, in general,' the loss of possession does not impair the right of property, for the owner may recover it within a certain time allowed by law. Vide, generally, Bouv. Inst. Index, b. t.

I don't see how children fall into the above definitions.

Children do have rights, however, their rights are a subset of adult rights. Parents have power over children, however, that power is tempered by children's rights.

Whaler17 · #**108** (**permalink**) 08-22-2008, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by perdidochas

We shouldn't. Parents have the responsibility to take certain care of their children. As part of that responsibility, they have a power to control most aspects of their children's lives. None of that should be changed. Children aren't property in any practical way. If they were property, they could be bought and sold, etc.

From http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/property

The quote below from "A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856."

I don't see how children fall into the above definitions.

Children do have rights, however, their rights are a subset of adult rights. Parents have power over children, however, that power is tempered by children's rights.

NO IT ISN"T!

It ISN"T tempered by "children's rights"!
Regardless of what some legal dictionary might say, it simply doesn't work that way in the real world. In the real world, abusive and neglectful parents are allowed to maintain custody simply because of the blood relationship they have with their children! Child protective services (or whatever the agency is called in your area) would take temporary custody of the children from the abusive parent, but if the parent attends an anger management course, that parent will get custody back easily. Even if this parent is a habitual drug user and a felon.

A child has no way to bring legal action against his or her parents, in most states, to terminate their parental rights due to the parents being unfit! That is simply wrong!

A videotape of the parent abusing the child after having been brought up for it at least two times before MIGHT be enough to terminate parental rights, but nothing short of that seems to be!

perdidochas · #**109** (**permalink**) 08-25-2008, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whaler17

NO IT ISN"T!

It ISN"T tempered by "children's rights"!
Regardless of what some legal dictionary might say, it simply doesn't work that way in the real world. In the real world, abusive and neglectful parents are allowed to maintain custody simply because of the blood relationship they have with their children! Child protective services (or whatever the agency is called in your area) would take temporary custody of the children from the abusive parent, but if the parent attends an anger management course, that parent will get custody back easily. Even if this parent is a habitual drug user and a felon.

A child has no way to bring legal action against his or her parents, in most states, to terminate their parental rights due to the parents being unfit! That is simply wrong!

A videotape of the parent abusing the child after having been brought up for it at least two times before MIGHT be enough to terminate parental rights, but nothing short of that seems to be!

Of course it is tempered by children's rights. Is it perfect? No. Nothing done by humans is perfect.

Yes, children can ask for legal action to be brought against their parents. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law were investigated because their son said they abused him. It wasn't the truth, but they did have a major investigation because of it. That was in Mississippi, which isn't the most progressive state in the world. I highly doubt that same scenario wouldn't have played out similarly in most states.

Whaler17 · #**110** (**permalink**) 08-25-2008, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by perdidochas

Of course it is tempered by children's rights. Is it perfect? No. Nothing done by humans is perfect.

Yes, children can ask for legal action to be brought against their parents. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law were investigated because their son said they abused him. It wasn't the truth, but they did have a major investigation because of it. That was in Mississippi, which isn't the most progressive state in the world. I highly doubt that same scenario wouldn't have played out similarly in most states.

My point is that even in cases where the allegations are proven true, the child is almost always placed back in the home with the abusing parents. The fact that there is an "investigation" really means nothing.

They are really treated much like pets. I can turn you in for alleged abuse of your dog and the authorities will "investigate" the allegations. One major distinction is that they are more likely to leave a child in a neglectful and/or abusive situation than a dog. Its sad but true!

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