The State as Parent: Quotations: The Sanctity and Privacy of the Family

The State as Parent
State Intrusion into the Sanctity and Privacy of the Family

"We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families.
We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them"

"[T]he most vulnerable children in our society ... are in our care; we, the state, are their parents"

"The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children,
to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families,
and indoctrinate them in their rulers' view of the world"

The State's Usurpation of Parental Authority

"Disputes about parental rights are ultimately disputes about authority. Either childrearing authority fundamentally resides in the political community (which partially delegates that authority to parents), or parental authority is natural and pre-political, based on the nature of the parent-child relationship ... if parents' authority over their own children is natural and pre-political, then the family is effectively a little sovereign community within the larger political community. Like any sovereign community, it has the right to direct its internal affairs free from coercive external interference, except in cases of abuse and neglect ... Crucial to the claim that parents have primary and pre-political authority over their children is that parents' responsibility for their children's upbringing is personal, and therefore non-transferable ... even the most loving adoptive family can never replace the biological parents, with whom the child retains a permanent, personal bond" [source].

"The rights of parents to fulfill their obligations in accordance with the dictates of their consciences can be understood as a kind of sphere of sovereignty within which parents have the authority to make controversial child-care decisions free from coercive state interference" [source].

"Sometimes, of course, even conscientious parents do a bad job ... but except in cases of genuine (non-ideologically defined) abuse or neglect, the state should refrain from interfering coercively against ... parents. The state lacks the authority to do this, and a pattern of over-zealous state intrusion into family life undermines the social conditions necessary for the formation of the intimate and trusting parent-child relationships that are so important for the well-being of children" [source].

"It is helpful to think of the relationship between the state and the family as analogous to the relationship between the community of nations and each sovereign state. Within the community of nations, each state has a right to direct its own affairs. Thus, a norm of non-interference binds other states. For matters that are properly within the competence of the state's own authority, there are limited exceptions to the norm of non-interference, such as serious human-rights abuses. Likewise, every political community is composed of numerous families, natural communities with their own natural authority structure in the service of the well-being of the family's members, especially the children. In the areas that form part of the proper competence of the family - the primary one being the raising of children - the state has a general obligation to assist, but to do so in a way that respects rather than usurps or contradicts the authority of parents" [source].

"The State has its role, parents have theirs. Parents have a God-given responsibility for raising children and we must be on our guard against the State trying to impose its secular values on families. Politicians at Westminster and in the devolved assemblies seem to be dreaming up various ways to undermine parents. Foisting LGBT propaganda onto kids without their parents' knowledge, and imposing state guardians. Criminalising loving parents for a mild smack, and inspecting home-schoolers. Christians should be profoundly concerned. It is vital that we seek to protect the autonomy of the family, whether these particular issues affect us directly or not. We must speak and act with wisdom and courage to combat such overreach" [The Christian Institute, Newsletter, Winter 2017].

The Primacy of the Biological Relationship

"By acting as the biological cause of their child's existence, and by providing the genetic and biological basis for their child's personal identity, parents establish a personal relationship with their child. This relationship gives them the special responsibility to, in a sense, finish what they started when they brought a new human person into the world. For it is important to remember that human gestation is not completed at nine months: although physical gestation is over at birth, after birth a prolonged period of psychological, moral, and intellectual growth must take place before a mature human being is formed" [source].

"The personal relation that parents establish with their child beginning at conception gives them the special, personal obligation to provide for their child's developmental needs at all levels until that child can take charge of providing for those needs on his own. It also makes them uniquely competent to carry out this task" [source].

"Children gain important insights about their own identity through their interactions with their biological family, and, perhaps most importantly, benefit profoundly from experiencing the secure and unconditional love of those who brought them into being" [source].

Adoptive Parents

"Crucial to the claim that parents have primary and pre-political authority over their children is that parents' responsibility for their children's upbringing is personal, and therefore non-transferable ... even the most loving adoptive family can never replace the biological parents, with whom the child retains a permanent, personal bond ... although adoptive parenthood lacks the biological aspect, adoptive parents are genuine parents, and the ultimate root of their parental authority is also pre-political in the sense that it derives from the parent-child relationship and not from the state. Adoptive parents form deep psychological bonds with their children and profoundly shape their identity, giving 'birth' to them psychologically, morally, socially, and intellectually" [source].

Abuse and Neglect

"Coercive intervention is justified only in cases parallel to the international intervention cases, as in cases of abuse and neglect. Determining what counts as abuse or neglect may be difficult at the margins, but the burden of proof for justifying intervention lies with the would-be intervenor. In unclear cases, the parents should be given the benefit of the doubt" [source].

Marxism's Hatred of the Nuclear Family

"Marx and Engels considered that the nuclear family was one of the main obstacles to Marxism and they therefore, in their revolutionary zeal, counted it as one of the principle enemies to be destroyed or undermined. Since the 1930s the Frankfurt School's Cultural Marxism, and its 'march through the institutions', has been seeking to achieve this end by the Fabian tactic, not of outright revolution, but of wearing us down, bit by bit, in the hope that we will give up and that the family will then fall. This is the real drive, apart from materialism, behind getting women to abandon the home and to deposing the man from his responsible role as head and breadwinner. ... The attempt in Scotland to appoint 'named persons' for every child is one of the latest attempts to achieve this goal by appointing what is really a State Intruder into the family. They want to corrupt our children at school with 'sex education' and 'citizenship' lessons - really promiscuity and class war - and then provide the conditioned child with an anti-family 'champion' in the home. ... All these moves are part and parcel of a horrendous Marxian package. What did the Jesuits say about giving them the child and they would give us the man?... We need to be ever vigilant about all of these related threats. Above all things the child needs protecting from the State" [Letter to British Church Newspaper, 20 September 2013, p.9].

The Stability of the Nation

"[S]trong and stable families are the bedrock, or foundation, of a strong and stable society ... the destruction of families inevitably leads to the destruction of society and thence the nation" [Elizabeth McDonald, {source yet to be uploaded}].

"[T]he family unit [is] the initial building block of communal social life. Family life initiates one into societal life. The stability of the community depends on the stability of the families composing it. As heads of the family unit, parents represent on earth the ultimate Father in Heaven. The sanctity of marriage and family reflects the oneness of G-d and His creations. When we override this structure, we ignore G-d's eternal truths and our own common sense. We are witnessing foundational elements of [Western] society ... being destroyed. There are consequences for disobeying covenants between G-d and society, illustrated by the many social and emotional consequences attendant on the destruction of traditional family units. We must return to the universal moral Biblical values ... and reestablish a G-d-centered family-based culture" [source].

Social Care: A Poem

by Anne Murray

"It has become apparent that, in this modern day,
our health and social services are rife with compliancy.

"And if you dare to tell them, this system isn't right,
Prepare yourself for battle; you're going to have a fight.

"They twist and turn the subject; to them we're all the same,
They will take away your dignity, and blacken your good name.

"Then you'll be abandoned, to suffer a bureaucratic fate,
Targeted by the social sharks; that use our babies as bait.

"The destruction of the family will be their only goal,
It has become apparent: the social care system has no soul"

Withdraw Thy Foot...

"God gave children to parents, not to the State, to love, nurture, teach, discipline, and train up into adulthood. It does not take a 'village' or the 'Collective' or State-run 'Care' homes to raise a child; it takes a loving and biological/adoptive/foster family. Please see the article Communism and the Family for the ideology underlying the 'Collective'.

"The issues are:... [continue reading]

"And he that stealeth [a child], and selleth him..."
(Exodus 21:16)

"The words of a talebearer are as wounds,
and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly"
(Proverbs 18:8)

"Every fool will be meddling ... Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour's house:
lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee"
(Proverbs 20:3b; 25:17)

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him"
(Proverbs 26:12)

"Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees,
and that write grievousness which they have prescribed"
(Isaiah 10:1-3)

"Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds!
when the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. ...
So they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage"
(Micah 2:1-2)

"It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea,
than that he should offend one of these little ones"
(Luke 17:1-2)

"Let none of you suffer ... as a busybody in other men's matters"
(1 Peter 4:15)

"Never, anywhere in the Holy Bible will you find God giving civil government
any authority to rear or direct the rearing of children ...
God told parents, not the government, to 'train up' their children."
(Laura Rogers, Societal Structures vs. Restructuring, as quoted in Berit Kjos, Brave New Schools, p185)