And another one- Mother May Lose Custody of Obese Boy

[??????????]

Hercoolees Hercoolees!!


(please someone get the movie reference)

[Michael Z]

I'm not really sure what this issue has to do with "freedom" or "fascism", and I think it's a bit of a false dichotomy (as is also the case with the German/homeschooling thread) to suggest that this is the case. If anything, this thread seems to follow what I would see as the Law Of AuH20 (after the Atlas forum user) - take a minor, isolated incident that is not necessarily representative of the situation at large and use it to support a vast, generalised point - in this case, that there are elements of British law that are denying people's freedoms and/or are somehow "fascist" (and that by implication Britain is a Fascist country).

However, the problem with this is that it still is that, an isolated incident. If I looked hard enough I could probably find something in a blog or website or column with a distinct ideological agenda about a similar incident in the United States and then bend and twist it to support the argument that the US is a Fascist country - which would be nonsense, of course, just as it's nonsense to suggest that Germany and the UK deny people's freedoms (for now ignoring the fact that one person's freedom is another person's tyranny - ie. different people have different definitions of freedom).

[GOP = Terrorists]

Sounds like the mother needs to be curb stomped.

[David S]

If I was his parent I would get him to a fat farm where he could get some help losing weight. But I'm not his parent and neither is the government.

How much of your freedom are you willing to hand over to government? How much control do you want to give government over your life and the lives of your family? Lets look at the issues we've discussed on this forum. These are issues where governments have enacted bans, proposed bans or implemented other controls over people's lives.

Smoking
Trans fat
Saturated fat
Aspartame
Obesity
Homeschooling
Owning a gun
Owning a sharp knife.
Owning a BB gun
Owning a toy gun that looks real
Supporting your child's decision not to have chemo
Incandescent light bulbs
Certain sex acts between consenting adults
In some countries - the right to pay a doctor for healthcare.
OOPS forgot a couple;
Listening to an Ipod while crossing the street.
Dancing in a restaurant

Gabu you may look at these things and agree with each of them. But each and every one takes a little bit more of your freedom. I can assure there are bureaucrats who would happily take total control of your entire life. If we allow these things to continue we will wake up one day with no freedom and wonder how we got that way.

That's a nice speech, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.  This is not the mother hurting herself; this is the mother hurting her child, who is completely and entirely dependent on her to provide him with what he needs to leave a healthy life, a job at which she has completely and utterly failed thus far.  A mother should not have the freedom to kill her child through obesity and gross neglect in the form of feeding him nothing but junk food.  The child is not some sort of possession that the government is cruelly denying her ownership of.

Gabu why do you paint the mother as abusive?

Does the article say the mother holds a gun to his head and forces him to eat junk food? No. Does it say she ties him to a chair and shoves twinkies down his throat? No. The original article doesn't say much anout what he is fed but another article on the subject says this:
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.1218500.0.at_risk_of_being_loved_to_death.php
"Unemployed Mrs McKeown, who suffers from depression, said she tried to make sure Connor followed a healthy diet.
During an average day, Connor will eat three pieces of buttered toast for breakfast, sandwiches or a school meal for lunch, and pasta or a rice dish in the evening. ...
She said Connor steals and hides food, and loves curry, chips and junk food. "
None of that does not sound like abuse to me.

Now this story is in the UK but your rationale could equally well apply to the US so lets apply some numbers and see how it works out.
The American Obesity association claims that about 15% of children and adolescents  ages  6 to 19 are obese. http://www.obesity.org/subs/childhood/prevalence.shtml If I interpolate data from the census bureau a bit I find that about 18% of the US population is in the 5 to 17 age bracket. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0101&-ds_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-redoLog=false&-format=.Using today's population of approximately 300 million that would amount to about 54 million children. So if 15% are obese then there are about 8.1 million kids in the US who  are obese and according to you should be removed from their homes. Is that correct?

[opebo]

It is absurd to blame the mother for that which is caused by the owning class.  American obesity is caused by corporations/the State/poverty.  Expecting one poor woman to do anything about that is ridiculous.

[??????????]

It is absurd to blame the mother for that which is caused by the owning class.  American obesity is caused by corporations/the State/poverty.  Expecting one poor woman to do anything about that is ridiculous.

Same old song, eh?

[opebo]

It is absurd to blame the mother for that which is caused by the owning class.  American obesity is caused by corporations/the State/poverty.  Expecting one poor woman to do anything about that is ridiculous.

Same old song, eh?

Same old world, States, same old world.

[David S]

It is absurd to blame the mother for that which is caused by the owning class.  American obesity is caused by corporations/the State/poverty.  Expecting one poor woman to do anything about that is ridiculous.

Except this case happened in the UK.

[John Dibble]

It is absurd to blame the mother for that which is caused by the owning class.  American obesity is caused by corporations/the State/poverty.  Expecting one poor woman to do anything about that is ridiculous.

Except this case happened in the UK.

Don't expect little things like 'facts' or 'logic' to matter to opebo.

[Bono]

It is absurd to blame the mother for that which is caused by the owning class.  American obesity is caused by corporations/the State/poverty.  Expecting one poor woman to do anything about that is ridiculous.

This is British obesity though.

[Frodo]

Freedom, bitch.