If the Germans Loved Their Children Too

When you value something, you take care of and protect it. When you don't, well, you don't. A German mother kills eight of her children. The German people must be outraged and the judicial system barely able to contain its punative urges, right? It must be so because we universally value children. Well, apparently the universe isn't as big as we suspected. All Germany can muster in the way of punishment for this two-legged force of evil is 15 years in prison. Less than two years for each murdered child. My first thought was that this must be a story about the failure of the German justice system. Not so, the journalist doesn't even allude to this being a controversial ruling. Which is not to say that many Germans weren't outraged, but how many? Not even enough to register on the cultural radar? Or just the radar of one monstrosly calloused reporter? I don't know the answer, but what I read made me sick. I hope decent people still outnumber the other sort in Germany, but if what this story implies is correct...I have to stop and wonder.

When Libertarians Go Bad

"Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.[2] The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive.[3] (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g., by not feeding it)?[4] The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die. (Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian society the existence of a free baby market will bring such "neglect" down to a minimum.)"

Creepy.