Posted on 10/01/2006 6:21:08 PM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
Charleston City Councilman Larry Shirley says the robbery of a downtown video store - allegedly by a band of kids, including one too young to be charged - is a sure sign society has gone awry, and it's time to start a "dialogue."
And one of the things he says needs to be talked about is whether bad parents should be sterilized.
"What we've got is a failure in society, whether it's in Mount Pleasant with yuppie parents or whether it's on the East Side with poor crackhead parents," Shirley said Friday. "We pick up stray animals and spay them. These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs. ... Once they have a child and it's running the streets, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable." Deadbeat dads might ought to be sterilized as well, he said.
Wednesday night, police arrested a 14-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy in connection with a stickup at the Hollywood Video at East Bay and Calhoun streets.
A 9-year-old who was apparently involved was taken home to his mother by police, saying he was too young to charge.
Shirley, like many in the community, was aghast that someone could be turned loose for being too young to be charged with a crime, and that the parents of these kids had no idea what they were up to at 9 p.m. on a school night.
"It is a tragedy to bring a child into this world and subject them to the world in that video," Shirley said, referring to a DVD found by police earlier this year that featured local residents flashing guns and drugs to the beat of gangsta rap.
If a child is too young to do time for a crime, his folks ought to do it, Shirley said.
This, Shirley says, is not about race. He said that the only difference between the East Side holdup and the Wando High School students who were charged with a string of robberies is that "Mount Pleasant parents have the money to get lawyers for their thugs."
State Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, says Shirley is correct, that this is a societal problem, but that the notion of sterilizing people is just "crazy."
"What Larry Shirley needs to talk about is getting City Council to provide some recreational facilities and activities for these kids and creating an atmosphere conducive to a normal society," said Ford, a former councilman.
"We've got all sorts of things for kids to do in my neighborhood in West Ashley. They need that downtown. But he's upset that kids aren't listening to their parents. So what's new?"
Charleston police have made no new arrests in the video store robbery, and the kids detained for the holdup face a hearing Monday morning.
Police said Friday that it's up to the Solicitor's Office whether to call in social workers to investigate the home life of the 9-year-old sent home after the robbery.
Shirley said sometimes social services is part of the problem, making parents afraid to whip their kids when they need it. Ford says that's the way it is supposed to work.
"Hasn't he heard, 'It takes a village'?"
Well, it certainly doesn't take the kind of village provided by our current nanny state. While I don't think it's wise for the government to involve itself in sterilizing people (even tho I can think of a few it would be a good idea to do), I do think that if we stopped subsidizing having more children than you can care for and made parents responsible for the havoc their children create, it would go a long way toward solving the problem. But we won't do that.
susie
Wow, is this one loaded. What a can of worms this opens. With the way some on the left feel about Christianity, it'd ONLY be a matter of time before people of faith are considered *bad* parents.
Because of that, I oppose forced sterilization, even for those who kill or maim their own children. In those cases, the death penaly would suffice for murder, or life in prison without possibility of parole for maiming.
Shirley you can't be serious
Just jail the parents concurrently with the kids. I bet that would clear up the problem real fast.
The left, however, are still aborting themselves out of existance.
Not caring for a child is abuse and the parents should be incarcerated for such abuse.
But, ..but,.. but,..
He's such a nice young boy, he'd NEVER do that !!!!!
And who would you suggest takes care of the "maimed children"? The Government?
Actually, I have thought for decades that scientists should work on a "yes" or "no" biological switch which can be turned on to allow pregnancy to take place. A committee of social scientists (yes, yes, I know, an entity created by the government) would allow the "yes" switch to be turned on to allow pregnancy. Under those circumstances, pregnancy could be a positive decision, not the result of some wild, emotional five-minute experience by two often-stupid individuals with no sense of what they're doing. And if you don't like this sort of opinion, well, we'll just have to disagree.
So you want the government to decide whether you should become a parent or not. So if you had the wrong political or religious beliefs (which would of course defend on who is in power at the time) they could make sure you never have children.
By the way, "a committee of social scientists" are almost assuredly going to be overwhelming liberal. What makes you so sure you would be allowed to have children?
I guess so.
There's so much wrong with that thinking that it's hard to even know where to begin.
For one thing, a lot of pregnancies ARE planned and NOT the result of a five minute fling. They are positive decisions. What an insult to all those people who have been responsible about the whole process.
You would condemn the good because of the actions of a few?
How can you tell who's going to be a *bad* parent BEFORE they have kids?
Who and what determines whether parents are *bad*?
So what kind of system would you propose? One like Nazi Germany? Or communist China?
The man was obviously frustrated and irate that a 9 yr. old was out committing crimes already. The problem is their are people out there doing nothing but breeding, resulting in children being raised on the streets like feral cats. Most of us love and cherish our children. Every day I pray that I raise 3 boys to grow up to be GOOD STRONG MEN, who exhibit character and strength. I really feel that God gave me that responsibility, if I only do that I've done good. The welfare system has got to stop. If you do have a child and need assistance you need to earn it by finishing your education and getting a job. If it happens again, you're on your own. Also, a father MUST be named and have to take responibility as well. Besides, an IUD is highly effective against pregnancy and is not sterilization.
Letting the government control your reproductive choices is not even worth talking about.
Thanks for the bump and run ping
Here's the deal: the OldPossum doesn't care about having children and never did, so that takes care of that concern.
The OldPossum's concern is about teenagers and others not experienced with life, retarded people and others with absolutely no future, those who spend their time rotating in and out of prison, and other such riff-raff who go out and produce children that the world is not prepared to take care of. These are the groups that I am concerned with and with which this "committee" would be concerned with. The rest get a pass.
Read my post 16 and then come back and express the concerns you would have then.
Or perhaps you are happy with those who produce the hordes of gangbangers that infest the streets of our cities, making them unfit for decent people to live in.
Perhaps I should have included further details in my initial post. I am not--repeat, not--concerned about most people, but we need to get a handle on the dum-dums and the too-young couples out there who either are not ready or who never will be ready to be parents.
If a government committee bothers you too much, then try to see if a private committee of people in various disciplines (physicians, sociologists, that sort of thing) can be established. Whatever works.
It really does not impact me a bit. I have two nice houses in rural sections of two States and they are nowhere near crime areas or other parts of the country impacted by the influence of children who are the products of people who are not ready for parenthood.
Neither am I a parent. So, you can see I have no dogs in this fight. Once my wife and I are gone, what transpires hereafter will mean nothing to us. It's you with children and grandchildren who ought to be looking for a solution.
Good luck!!!
OK, like in the USSR where Christian parents were arrested and sent to Siberia, and their kids were made wards of the state and put in orphanages?
What do you think would happen if the likes Hillary, Kerry, Edwards, got in power with that kind of control over peoples lives?
Fine if you don't want kids, that's your business, don't have any. Just don't dictate to anyone else how they should run their own lives.
But you would have to install the fertility switch in everyone, and thus a person would have to prove themselves worthy of having a child before a panel of human beings with their biases and beliefs. It may be "riff-raff" today; people of a certain political or religious belief tomorrow who will be deemed unworthy to breed by the State.
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