[Bob J]

And I believe your making rationalizations and excuses for a parental decision, that, if the tables were turned and it was young children splattering blood on themselves and laying down in the middle of the street with their parents to protest animal testing, you would be condemning and calling for a child service investigation.

I don't know you personally but I've seen this scenario played out on FR so many times I can state with an amount of certainty most FReepers would be up in arms.

[Critter]

I have taken my youngster to pro 2A raliies and she did wear a gold star that said "Gun Owner" on it, at the protest at the UN when they held their small arms conference a few years ago.

And then there's the time she carried the sign that said, "It takes TWO PARENTS to raise a child!" at an anti-Hillary protest.

And another time, at the capital in Hartford, when the state was considering some kind of sport utility rifle ban, and she held a sign that said, "I own more rifles than most politicians. What do they know about guns?" and it was the truth. She does own a few and she knows how to use them.

So, if I were in Florida and decided to bring Terri a bottle of water, would I bring her? No. That would be going a bit far. Not that I would be afraid for her to get arrested with me. That would be the least of my fears. My fear is that this will become violent at some point, and would not want her there to see me get shot. If I was there, and all hope was gone of saving this woman peacefully, I would not hesitate to try and do it in other ways. In fact, I believe that it has to be tried in other ways once all legal means are exhausted. The courts CANNOT be allowed to kill the innocent. If we let that happen, America is doomed in my opinion.

[HKMk23]

I'll grant you that I would find that disturbing, but not because the parents dragged the kids out there, too. I'd find it disturbing beacuse it strikes me that anti-animal testing cause is predicated upon a fabricated equivalence between mankind and lower animals, which is a lie, and I find it morally repugnant to indoctrinate children with lies. So, it is on that basis that I would object.

But I think we're missing the larger issue, here, which is not whether these particular parents are "using" their kids to "grandstand" for the press, but whether the overarching cause in which the kids are being involved -- saving the life of an innocent woman from judicial tyranny -- is moral and reasonable.

I have to commend the action of these kids -- even if their parents really DID put them up to it, as you suspect -- because I think that the cause is moral, righteous, and wholly worthy of people, even young people, taking such action.

Of course, if we were discussing children participating in some kind of cause where there was a fairly high potential for an outbreak of violence, I'd be incomplete agreement with you from the beginning as that sort of environment is no place for kids.