Re: You missed my point

As if real emancipation can be forced by the State! There's a point that you have been missing for a long time.

Freedom for blacks and women have been enforced by the state for a long time, and there is no reason to doubt the same cannot be achieved for youths. The point you have been missing for just the past few months is that without the power of the state, there would be nothing to force younger people to adhere to the authority of their mother.

So why have you been painting me as some supporter of parental supremacy?

When you started saying that the mother has the right of total authority over her genetic progeny. If the state didn't enforce your conception of maternal sovereignty, then how would the mother accomplish this on her own? For that matter, how would the fathers be forced to submit to the mother's wishes? Who currently awards custody of the kids to the mother in the vast majority of cases whenever two spouses split up? The state, of course. If not for the state, what would stop the kids from choosing to live with their father instead of their mother? I am using common sense here!

Just because I don't agree with everything you say?

You never agreed with everything I said, and I had no problem with that. Nobody on this board agrees with everything I believe. But you used to agree with me on all the important and fundamental issues of freedom and civil rights. As long as people agree with me on a few fundamental issues, I can be their ally. Just as I am staunch allies with many people who are not socialist, not religious/spiritual, and not attracted to the same age group or gender as I am.

Once again, I do not support state enforcement of parental authority. Got it?

Yes, I got it--loud and clear. But in my opinion, it's sort of odd to support maternal sovereignty without the necessary power to back it up. This would mean that kids would have the option of not listening to the demands of their mother, and for seeking emancipation even if the mother forbid it, choosing a different method of education that their mother wanted for them, and choosing to live with their father rather than their mother if the relationship didn't work out. I am not sure how you would expect parental authority--either with the mother alone or both the mother and father deciding jointly--to have any gravitas without a power such as the state backing it up (as it does today).