[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

This article is so perfect, there's nothing I could possibly add.

Pay attention at the apt use of 'execrable'.

Thanks a lot Ms. Mercer. I didn't know you existed until this morning but I will be looking for more of your pieces.

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

And this is her most excellent CV:

About Me

 

Talk about a wandering Jew: I'm an ex-Israeli and ex-South African.  I'm now a permanent resident of the U.S.A., having been lucky enough to escape from the inhospitable, dreary, and socialistic Canada.

 

My father was a South African anti-apartheid activist who fled to Israel where I grew up (to add to the crosses the poor man bore, he was—and still is—a rabbi).  Unfortunately my youth-related follies, not least of which was being on the left of the political spectrum, included acquiring degrees in psychology. The extent of my folly became clear when I immigrated to Canada in 1995. Fully intending to pursue work in this field, I discovered that psychology, for the most, had gone pop.

 

Ruminations about the corrosive effects on society of the therapeutic culture and the cult of the victim soon led to other realizations. Whether it was in promoting official multiculturalism, radical feminist orthodoxy, critical race theory, affirmative action policies or literary deconstruction—the State was everywhere. What's more, neatly factioned into special interests, citizens now lined up to cheer the State's assault on basic liberties.

 

Freedom had become synonymous with qualifying for some government entitlement. Charity was dead, usurped by government. Newly minted "human rights" decreed that equality had to be achieved through the State's divide-and-rule wealth confiscation and distribution activities. The State was eroding private property not only by distributing it, but by regulating how its rightful owners could use it.

 

I began writing editorials. Besides an innate dose of Randianism, I knew nothing about the libertarian political philosophy. Yet, unbeknown to me, I was espousing it. Fancy that, being a libertarian took no more than attempting to be immutably fair. My gratitude goes to Professor Walter Block, AKA Liberty's Pitbull, who found me, and introduced me to his remarkable corpus of work, as well as to the works of economists Ludwig von Mises, Murray N. Rothbard and other seminal thinkers.

 

All is not grim. I do pause to turn the arrows in my quiver away from The Thing the inimical Sir Humphrey Applebee of "Yes, Prime Minister" called a disorganized criminal organization (the State). In addition to political economy, the topics I write about include popular culture, pseudo-science and in particular pop-psychology. From sex to music, it's all here, with plenty sauce, but absent the impoverished frame of reference you'll find in mainstream media.

 

As a freelance editorial page columnist, I wrote weekly columns for the Calgary Herald and for the Vancouver-based North Shore News. I've written for the Foundation for Economic Education's Ideas on Liberty and Insight Magazine, for the Financial Post, the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen, the Vancouver Sun, the Report Newsmagazine and the Colorado Gazette.

 

My commentary has been posted on free market, liberty-oriented web sites such as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and Laissez Faire City Times. When he will have me, I contribute to the inimitable LewRockwell.com. I've also made Column Du Jour on WorldNetDaily and feature on Free-Market.Net, including recently as Freedom Page of the Week.

 

When I'm not tilting at windmills, reading, or spending time with my family, I can be found running. I'm a devoted runner. Music is another passion. Chamber music and Bach—any Bach—are my first loves, but the hard core, intricate and masterful brilliance of metal outfits like Symphony X and Dream Theater is as alluring.

 

On January 16, 2002, I joined the WorldNetDaily as a regular columnist.  The WorldNetDaily is a leading independent newssite, which gets 40 million hits monthly from 165 countries.  It runs neck and neck with The New York Times and USA Today Internet sites.  For my formal welcome to this news and commentary website, please follow the link.  Since joining the WorldNetDaily, I have been a guest on the following radio shows:

 

- TalkNetDaily,

- Mark Scott Show (Where I'm becoming a regular)

- American Breakfast, hosted by Phil Paleologos, and syndicated in 250 markets.

- The Harry Browne Show on Radio America.

 

I welcome inquiries concerning guest appearances. (Please don't send attachments; they won't be opened.)

 

Join me every week on the WorldNetDaily: Remember, I'm Wednesday's child.

 

 

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Contact Ilana Mercer

[Lizard_King]

Bravo. Excellent points, all. I knew when O'Reilly sided against Toogood there must be something of a media consensus to villainize her, which is usually a good indicator of the opposite of what they are saying being true. Rather like the technique Bobby "I AM the Law" Kennedy used against mobsters...rather than nail them for what they may or may not have done wrong but there is not sufficient evidence for, get them on a technicality, Toogood is being strung up by any means necessary.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Pinko liberals almost always plump for the state, but get- tough-on-crime so-called conservatives are not much better.

First, they fail to understand that the law must protect people from – not subjugate them to – the formidable power of the state.

The DA thinks the Toogood film bite is his ticket to Washington. The media has invested 1000 times more scrutiny into a MINOR SPANKING (no contusions, no broken bones, no fatalities) than they have to the hate-crime murders of five people by a gang of ethnkic bank robbers.

Flame away at me, all you "mock conservaties."

[wita]

I have to agree, we have made a business out of child kidnapping. When your CPS budget depends on how many children you "protect" from their natural parents, no matter how bad or good they may be, and measured by that mythical parental quality scale, you are in the business of finding those to "help", and by golly miss molly, you are "Gonna find em".

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Commenting on the American conservatives' embracing of the liberal "children's rights" movement, Kenneth Anderson discusses how this movement has aimed "to break down the autonomous family into children on the one hand, who are ultimately wards of the state, and parents on the other hand, who are regarded as something like low-level civil servants raising children according to the state's therapeutic directives."

The "best interest of the child" standard, notes Anderson, is simply a license for the state to substitute its own judgment for that of the parents.

Take that, all you self-righteous, shallowly judgemental do-gooder wannabes.

[Raymond Hendrix]

The assorted execrable commentators, however, nonchalantly spoke about the need to place Martha with a loving family.

I suppose in their eyes two "loving" lesbians would make a good "family". The girl is better off with her mother than with the child "protective" Nazis. I use to be a foster parent and there is need to intervene at times but the state does not own our kids and they certainly do not know what is best.

[fone]

>>>Toogood is a member of the migrant community of Irish Travelers<<

Profiling! Profiling! Where is the NAAIP???? Sue them!

In related news, God has issued the following press release:

In order that the Irish may not dominate the world, I invented whiskey.

/s

[SalukiLawyer]

Excellent article. This is the way it works, in case you don't know. There is a suspicion of abuse and Department of Children and Family Services presents information to the county prosecutor which results in the child being removed by the court from the parents and placed into "temporary" foster care through DCFS. Now the fun really starts.

DCFS is aided by a number of allied agencies motivated by the principle that it is the government's job to decide exactly how and by whom children should be raised. Child advocates. Home-makers. Psychologists. Social workers. Government bureaucrats. A service plan is drafted with "goals" established by the government, and whether the parent accomplishes these goals or not is determined by -- you guessed it -- the government and their degreed allies.

For instance: the court orders the parent to undergo "psychological testing." The psychologist diagnoses a "borderline personality disorder," which is not uncommon nor considered to be a mental illness. Nonetheless, the parent must then show "improvement" to the satisfaction of the government psychologist or the kids never come back.

Another example: the home-maker comes in and teaches parenting. She may not have any kids of her own, but she does have a degree. She will teach the 21 separate steps for changing a diaper, and woe be to the mother if she cannot recite all steps in the proper order. (It is particularly fun to cross-examine such a government agent when she doesn't have her checklist with her. Of course, she can't recite them all, either, but no matter.)

Of course, the government witnesses tell the court that there is insufficient progress, and in any case the goal posts are moved at the whim of any of the state agents. Eventually the child has been in foster care long enough that they begin to talk about the need of the child for "finality" and how much better off the child would be if the foster parents were allowed to adopt the child outright.

And the whole system is designed so the court is merely a rubber stamp on whatever the government decides. Typically, the parent cannot afford to have a lawyer fully litigate what I will laughingly call her "parental rights," much less obtain expert testimony of her own to challenge the dubious premises and practices of the government's experts.

Yes, many children would be far better off in foster care. At times in my life, I have little doubt that my OWN kids would have had a better week if they were living with someone else. Interesting, though, how we all just came to accept the idea that it is the proper function of government to rearrange family ties -- family ties -- according to that it thinks is best for children.

Oh, by the way. Putting a child in foster care is no guarantee that that child will be protected from sexual or other abuse by foster parents or other foster children.

[537 Votes]

Libertarians are getting whacky these days. The dictators of Iraq and China are good, America is always evil. The Confederacy held four million slaves, but the South was right. Now they're coming down on the side of child abusers.

Suppose I came up to you and shook you like this mother shook her child. I'll bet you'd run to the nearest law enforcement officer and complain, and try to get me thrown into jail. But if you were a child, and I was your parent, it would be okay?

Ladies and gentlemen, now and then government is there for a reason.

I also don't get the point with Andrea Yates. "Andrea Yates murdered her children, so I get to beat up mine!" Is this what libertarians call 'logic?'