Justme
How would a license have stopped that idiot from having children? In what way would testing have prevented the father from abandoning his children?
How is testing and licensing going to stop people from being bad parents and how can you tell who is going to be a bad parent by testing?
An excellent concept…since I and my minions control the appointments to the Fertility Board.
You don’t agree with my notions? T.S., Eliot; it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. Plus, the rising generation will agree with me; after all, I controlled the circumstances of their conception and rearing.
So, justme, you’re willing to state right now, unequivocally, that the world would be better off if none of those children had been born (presumably those cases would be screened out by any licensing scheme)? Also, exactly what percentage of people have comparable cases to those you mentioned?
Forgive me if I don’t give up my very personal rights because of a small sampling of anecdotal evidence gathered from talk-radio. That’s just the way I am.
Since JustMe didn’t bother to identify the show, that’s LoveLine with with Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla.
http://www.mtv.com/sendme.tin?page=/mtv/tubescan/loveline/
I listen to the show from time to time on the way home from class. Adam’s job is to make outrageous statements and the occasional insight. Dr. Drew provides the expert advice.
The incidents described are fairly common on their show. I have no idea how it relates to a sample of the American public, but it gives Adam plenty of incentive to go on about licensing, or putting birth control medication in the water system or somesuch.
Practical way of implementing the system? In a suitably totalitarian state, simply make DepoProvera shots required except for those with a license to have a set number of children.
Actually, China has quite successfully lowered the birth rate by limiting families to one or two children, with penalties for more, and readily available birth control.
I have no statistics as to whether this has improved the quality of life for children in China.
Life in China is OK for the kids who were male and perfect.
In all actuality, such a requirement would never get made. Nonetheless, it would be nice if a requirement was made to have all kids within 9th grade to 12th given a psychological test - who would care - and then be required to attend a semester of a parenting and a semester of a good sex education class. The psych test would give the teachers an indication of who might need some extra attention.
I get real weary of finding guys of (enter minority here) who brag about all of the kids they have by different women and the State picks up the tab and the women seem to accept it like it’s all just a fact of life. I used to have a job where I had to go into low income areas in several cities to ‘observe’ conditions and there would be the women, living at home with Mother or Grandmother with two or three kids, never married, the kids by one or two different guys, who came by now and then to drop off a little cash. They actually seemed to accept this.
Either the woman wanted to get pregnant by the guy to ‘keep’ him, which rarely worked, or to have a kid to announce her ‘womanhood,’ or the guy sweet talked her into having a kid by him so he could strut around, bragging about all of the kids he had whelped. Kids have been born to legalize an illegal family, to add another ‘warrior’ to the fight, because the mother thought it would be so sweet to have one, to prove manhood or to prove womanhood.
In these instances, love doesn’t mean a lot.
I’ve met girls who seem to be able to be sweet talked by just about anyone into hopping into bed with them who have a couple of kids before they’re 19 and several abortions. You can usually find them quickly. They used to be pretty and still sort of are and the guys are sniffing around them like hounds in heat.
I’ve met parents who I figure need to be locked up from the casual way they take care of their kids, in all races and economic levels. Parents who let the kids out at all hours of the night ‘cuz they friendz all out dere playin,’ parents who have barely the brains to boil water, parents who carry drugs in the infants diapers, parents who feed newborns beer, canned soup, sour milk or something like grits and bacon grease.
I ran into Dads who smacked their kids for loosing a fight and instructed them how to pick up things and use them as weapons, Dads who teach the kid about guns and home defense almost as soon as it can walk, Dads who don’t give a crap about the kid one way or another, and Dads who praise the older kid for knocking up some girl and helps him fight having to pay support.
I didn’t last real long on that job. I kept getting this tremendous urge to bring along an ax handle and whip some sense into the morons I met who have full adult and parental rights.
A test would be cool. There are many times when I figure that humans should not be allowed to run around loose because they can hurt themselves and get into trouble.
Justme:
Wow! You need some help with that axehandle?
Seriously, I can’t see parental licensing as an effective means to prevent people from procreating unless it was administered by draconian methods. My suggestions (based upon my understanding of the state-of-the-art of modern contraception):[list=1][li]Mandatory tubal ligation for all females upon reaching puberty.[/li]
[li]Illegal for pubescent males to be alone with a member of the opposite sex except as required by law.[/li]
[li]Mandatory harvesting of eggs from females and sperm from males when it has been determined that these gametes are mature enough for harvesting.[/li]
[li]Mandatory sterilization of all males (vasectomy) once sperm has been harvested pending licensing of said male for parental responsibilities. (Even if he doesn’t subsequently get a license, you might want to keep his sperm to preserve genetic diversity.)[/li]
[li]All pregnancies must be initiated by in-vitro methods.[/li]
[li]Prospective parents may only have children when authority is granted by government-administered parent accrediting bureaus.[/li]
[li]Since neither tubal ligation nor vasectomy is 100% effective, pregnant females must provide credentials upon request, to ensure the pregnancy is authorized. Failure to do so will result in either mandatory abortion or assignment of the child to approved parents (not the mother and/or father).[/li]
[li]Persons convicted of unauthorized procreation shall have their gonads removed to prevent further violations of the law. Only in very rare circumstances will such persons be permitted to apply for parental license.[/li]
[li]In the event of the death of one licensed parent, the remaining parent will be required to provide evidence that parenting will not be significantly impaired by the absence of the deceased parent. If the approval authority does not consider the evidence compelling, the child will be reassigned to accredited parents who do not have a child.[/list=1]Of course, such a program would have to be enforced at gunpoint, but what the heck? If we want to have well-adjusted minions of the state, I guess the death of a few reactionaries is a small price to pay.[/li]
~~Baloo