It's easy to say that America is one of the most racist countries in the world when most other countries have negligible variation in race or culture in their populations on which to test their own racist potential.

Mind you, I'm a bleeding heart liberal and I find the actions of Cheney and every other asshole fuckface borderline inhuman. But my main enemy is ignorance, which is what you're spouting too, kiddo.

So get your head out of your ass.

No, it's not true in America, because it's expected that parents will make medical decisions for their minor children.

It's usually not a problem, because most parents make the decisions we consider the right ones. It wouldn't make the media if the woman had decided to get the kid chemo, for instance.

We have exceptions, of course, such as requiring most children to get vaccinations, but that's a case where there's a clear issue of public safety. In this case, the kid isn't going to infect everyone else with lymphoma.

Sure, the woman is an idiot and her kid will die if he doesn't get proper treatment. But it's a tricky issue whether or not the state can override a person's decisions about medical treatment without a pressing public health need. Or, in this case, the decision of the people legally responsible for making such decisions for someone else.

Seems to me a childs right to life should trump a mothers right to force her beliefs on the child.

edit: trumps -> should trump

The kid doesn't want the treatment either, you know. But since he's not old enough to be considered responsible for his own medical decisions, the responsibility falls to his parents. That's how it works. Or does it only work that way when the parents decide like we think they should?

I'm just arguing the ethics of the situation. In the case in question the state has clearly decided the mother is not acting in the child's best interests and has ordered treatment. This is the reason why they are fleeing.

Edit: Southpark did it first. Cherokee hair tampons.

America is one of the most racist countries in the world

As compared to where? Try almost anywhere in Asia or for that matter Europe. The US isn't perfect but it runs a successful multiracial and multicultural state.

Also don't let your views on racism hide the base political calculus and even baser stupidity from what you are talking about.

Kissinger was one amoral bastard, but he's never been accused of being a racist. he was quite happy to see you killed if it forwarded his goals whether you were white, black, brown or yellow.

Rumsfeld on the other had was incompetent no matter what he was dealing with. The only difference if it had been white Americans is that he would have had Republican Senators and Congress-criters hanging on the phone.

Obama threatens to stop sharing intelligence with UK if torture evidence released

FISA still a go; warrantless searches still a go; Gitmo still a go. If torture is so bad, then why cant we have justice? As well, why in the holiest of FUCKS is the ACTA covered by "national security"?

You are completely uninformed about Gitmo. Read up, come back and apologize.

Do you also love passing on lies?

The form of cancer the boy has has an 80-90% survival rate if treated with chemotherapy, but that rate gets lower the longer he goes without treatment.

The boy's father is begging the the mother to bring him home so treatment can be determined.

No major medical treatment is pleasant. Some chemo does more harm than good (see recent studies of prostate cancer treatment, for instance, that show that the treatment is painful, humiliating, debilitating, and, most importantly, rarely effective, and that prostate cancer spreads so slowly that it is very, very rarely a cause of death, which has led to a shift in treatment methods)


A sick 13 year old who's been told repeatedly by his mother that "Native American" prayer treatment will cure him painlessly does not have the capacity to make the decision whether or not to undergo chemotherapy.

that is a really, really dangerous and thorny stance to take. i'm not sure i want to live in a country that decides one's capacity for self-determination based on their cultural values. not even if those values are really, really dumb.

If you believe 13 year olds have the capacity for fully rational self-determination and long-term perspective in regards to life-or-death medical treatment situations, do you believe the United States would be right to sentence a 13 year old to the death penalty if a 13 year old killed someone?

Bear with me here; I know I'm mixing common hot-button topics, but if you believe a 13 year old is fully rational and informed as to medical treatment, and is completely self-accountable to the point where they can choose appropriate medical treatments for their condition, and are also fully able to choose which cultural or religious influences are true and right for them, then that can easily be extrapolated that you believe that a 13 year old has a fully adult capacity of reason and belief structure and should be accorded all adult freedoms and punishments available under the law.

If you're talking about the mother who has chosen to take her 13 year old son away from his father because she doesn't want him treated... well, then, does "self-determination" apply to your minor children? Should a parent be able to subject a minor child to any form of life that parent sees fit for that child, in the name of self-determination? If a 5 year old died of pnuemonia because its mother believed in prayer-treatment and prayed instead of rendering any sort of physical aid to the child, would that fall under your definition of "self-determination"? How about a parent who decided their child needed to be beaten regularly? How about a parent who decided their child didn't need to eat?

You want to talk about dangerous and thorny stances? Let's talk about "self-determination" and what it means and who it applies to.

i don't believe that most 13 year olds have the capacity for fully rational self-determination. i was commenting on the "who's been told repeatedly by his mother that 'Native American' prayer treatment will cure him painlessly" part. i understand you were presenting that and his age as a single linked concept, but i don't see them as linked.

What were you referring to as "self-determination," then, since my argument had nothing to do with the validity of alternative treatments and was solely focused on whether or not the boy has the capacity to determine his own treatment?

You may have misunderstood what I was saying. Let me remake my initial statement, in question form: The fact that he's been told by a loving, trusted authority figure that his condition can be cured painlessly through alternative treatment, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary (that he may not be fully aware of or able to comprehend), is most likely a major influence on his stated rejection of conventional, short-term-painful treatment, is it not?

yes, it is a factor in his decision, but it shouldn't be a factor in the eyes of the law. it wouldn't be a factor if he were 21--we wouldn't send cops in to drag him to the hospital and force him to get chemo. if the kid's capacity for self-determination comes into question, that capacity should not be decided based on his cultural values, nor should it be based on his age in combination with his cultural values. it should be based on his age alone. it shouldn't matter what his loving, trusted authority figure told him.