Re: Spinning NCLB "accountability" as civil rights: neocon girly manh...

[aburke5054@aol.com]

These interpretations of citizenship are seriously flawed.

Anyone (almost) born in the United States is a citizen of the United 
States.  This means that children may be citizens even if their parents 
are not.  The interpretation that children's civil rights depend on the 
their parents is false in essential respects.  From one point of view, 
it would mean that orphans have no civil rights.  Children may 
naturally depend on their parents to advocate for their civil rights, 
but those rights belong to the children.  Brown, for example, said that 
segregated schools directly offend the rights of children.  Note too 
that a child can be dependent on parents in some ways, but have rights 
equal to those of adults in others.  In Oregon, for example, the age of 
consent for medical purposes is 15.  That means that if a 15 yo says 
"No" to a shot, medical practitioners can not administer the shot even 
if the parents want the child to have it and are paying for it.  15 
yo/s can't vote in Oregon, but they have the right of medical consent.

Art


-----Original Message-----
From: Laurelathome@cs.com
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 9:46 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Spinning NCLB "accountability" as civil rights: 
neocon girly manh...


"civil rights" is a synonym for "citizen rights."  Citizens always have 
been
and always will be people who qualify to vote. Children are the 
dependents of
citizens; they aren't citizens.  They can have rights of person and 
property,
but they can't have civil rights. Their parents can and do have civil 
rights
in some nation, not always the US, and if there is something in the 
nation's
principles and laws that imply a right to certain educational services 
financed
by the taxpayers, well then, the parents can exert the right, but not 
the
children.
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