I never advocated that anybody from the government should do anything to these people...just pointed out that this was an incredibly wreckless, publicity hound stunt.
This couple should be pariahs. They should not be celebrated for this. Don’t watch their reality show. Don’t donate to their web-site to recover their boat. Don’t feed their attention addiction.
Look, there will always be a push and pull with government intrusion on children. I like home schooling...but when I see the police drag a dozen filthy, illiterate, children out of a home...that’s not home schooling.
I guess I’d be alot more sympathetic to the personal liberty argument, if these people were really able to do this without affecting anyone else...but they just incurred a $300k bill, and the wife has snarkily declared that she’s not paying. Looks like the Aussie gubment (translation: taxpayers) get to pony up for that bill.
Now I have heard, on this board, several calls for Abbey to try again. What? Would people really expect the Aussies to rescue her again?
If they want to be stupid and risk their daughter’s life, they should at least be able to pay for it themselves, right? Pretty conservative thought, right?
Now, I’m going to use one of Rush’s questions. How young is too young? Could a 12 year old girl try this? 10? 8? 4? Why not? As arbitrary as it seems, there has to be a bright dividing line between childhood and adulthood. Its arbitrary for sure, but its 18 in our present society.
Right. Based on a pile of compounding suppositions as to the unknown motives of people you've never met.
...but when I see the police drag a dozen filthy, illiterate, children out of a home...
...an event that happens almost — what — twice a decade (maybe?), and has exactly ZERO relevance to this story?
...but they just incurred a $300k bill, and the wife has snarkily declared that she’s not paying.
Not that she's been asked to. I seem to recall news reports quoting Aussie authorities saying that this sort of rescue effort isn't something they plant to, or intend to, charge for. Not that they wouldn't accept remuneration, I suppose, just that it wasn't a requirement.
I have heard, on this board, several calls for Abbey to try again. What? Would people really expect the Aussies to rescue her again?
Are you expecting — even hoping? — that if she does try again, she'll encounter bad weather again, have another equipment failure again, and need to be rescued again? Do you REALLY want to go negative like that?
Yeah, if she tried again and got into trouble down under, I expect the Aussies would head out and pick her up again. Probably some of those guys would clap her on the back, and give her props for her indomitable spirit.
As arbitrary as it seems, there has to be a bright dividing line between childhood and adulthood. Its arbitrary for sure, but its 18 in our present society.
Emphasis on the "arbitrary" part. And, don't look now, but Obamacare just bumped it all the way up to 26. Whereas we've got an arbitrary line drawn, it still MUST remain the purview of parents to decide with their childern what it is they will and will not allow their kids to do.
Look, at the day's end, my point's NOT to be snide and disparaging of people for disagreeing with the decision Abby and her parents made, it's that I SO much HATE to see normally good-hearted conservative people leaping into the place of being wild-eyed detractors of the very brand of risk-taking spirit of adventure, perseverance, grit and determination that forged the iron reinforcements in the Foundations of this great Republic.
Apart from the kind of intrepid, "into the teeth of potentially deadly danger" determination that Abby has demonstrated, the United States wouldn't ever have achieved half the stature it did at the height of its greatness. And, if that greatness is to be snatched back from the jaws of socialist oblivion, then future leaders with big visions and the guts to lay it all on the line to make those visions real are exactly the kinds of leaders we're really going to desperately need. But we're going to have a hard time building leaders like that if we make a habit of shooting them dead just because life dealt them a wounding blow on their way up.
In some measure, all of the criticism directed at Abby and her parents is a shameful manifestation of conservatives' willingness to cut off our nose to spite our face, and I'll have no part in it.