I've only briefly met and spoken with Jim Davidson, so all I really have is his words, which I enjoyed reading.

Your expansion of your thoughts were helpful to me and I better grasp the question you are grapling with.

On another forum (Liberating Minds, I hope you don't mind my mentioning other places here, Sunni...) I was involved in a moderately deep discussion of the concept of morality. I tend to think that morality a) exists, b) is crucial to human civilization, and c) may be something that many humans are incapable of grasping as they appear to have a genetic inability to empathize. This latter is a subject I'm mostly ignorant of, but am learning more about and it includes things that align with the words Asperger's Syndrome, psychopath, sociopath, anti-social behavior and so on. It appears to be a (as most things in life are) sliding scale kind of thing where there are vast differences in the condition, from the Ted Bundys to those who fart in elevators. I guess I'm pointing out here that it appears to be a natural part of nature for morality to be non-functional in some and highly active in others.

But that doesn't even begin to deal with the question of just what the hell IS morality anyway? As I mentioned elsewhere, I am leaning towards the idea that "voluntary" and "morality" might be close to synonymous, and I think that you, too, Mama, may be inclined along that thinking path.

I do want to point out that the fact that I do not believe that "rights" exist (absent a specific agreement between two people in which the rights of each relative to the other are laid out and agreed upon) does NOT mean that I think that it is acceptible for anyone to do anything to anyone else anytime. As per your problem with what to do when you see a child in harm's way, I don't think I need a "right" to do what's "right." If I believe it is for the best, I will do it. That's all. And I will suffer the consequences of that choice, if any. I think that is how we all operate. I don't think that we sit down and say, "Hmm, do I have a right to do this?" I think we just assess the situation and take the actions that we believe are appropriate, rights be damned.

Actually (this just popped into my head), perhaps the only problem here, Mama, is that you are trying to fit the enormously complex issue of living within the artificially confined space of the idea of "rights" and that is where you are having trouble. Just a thought, you understand, I'm not trying to think for you or tell you what's right, but you can see if it fits. I don't see, from my experience, where very many things are as clear cut black and white as we would like for them to be to assuage our inner doubts about our choices. I have made and continue to make lots of choices that may not be optimal. That's life. I regret some of them, but still I feel pretty good about the person I am and I hope that I continue to learn and improve and I don't see that it can get any better than that.

Another point I want to make before I wrap this up is that the idea that children are children and adults are adult is, to my mind, hugely damaging to those small individuals we sometimes feel we have the "right" to control. As with most other things, I think that "voluntary" is the key word. Except in rare instances, I do believe that children should be allowed to make their own choices and find out the results of them and make their own learning. (Disclaimer: I have no children of my own, and I know that may totally discount everything I'm saying on this subject, but I HAVE been a child, in fact may STILL be one!) If a child is frustrated with his or her parents and wants to run away, for instance, it would seem to me that it would be much better to allow the child to do just that. It would be nice to keep a watchful eye and to notify the neighbors and such, but I think that it would be far more beneficial for the child to learn that it gets cold at night and food isn't magically available and so on, and then to understand and learn that life is filled with compromise than for the child to be grabbed up and forcefully returned to a place he doesn't think he wants to be, than to allow him to come to that decision on his own. And really, if we as a culture granted more respect for the autonomy of ALL individuals, then you know darned well that the neighbors and friends would be keeping a protective watch out for that runaway and helping to see that no serious harm came to him in his explorations of the limits of his autonomy.

Anyway, dems' some of my thoughts. Take 'em for what they're worth.

- NonE