From: Randall Parker 

In , note these
cogitations from blucy{at}mediaone.net Bill Lucy:
> The variable is a boy. Freedom is too abstract, and not a given in either
> "phase".

Freedom is too abstract? And later on in the message you take me to task
for supposedly delegitimizing your position for ranking family above
freedom.

> > My problem with this case is that there is more than one value at stake
> > for the kid. If he stays here and his father doesn't he loses something.
> > If he goes back to Cuba he loses something (though he gets to spend
> > about 6 years with Dad).
> I agree with that assessment, with a caveat. It seems to me that one does not
> "lose" their parent in Cuba. Look at the situation with Juan
Miguel's parents
> and Elizabeth Broton's parents. They were still around, even to the point of
> taking care of Elian.

Well, doesn't the kid get taken away from its parents from around 12 to adulthood?

And if the Cuban government decided _on a whim of its leader_ to separate
them sooner would there be anything that the father could do about it?

Its not a free society. Therefore any value that a person there might
achieve could be taken from that person with no warning, no rules to govern
it, and no means of appeal to courts or to public opinion.

> > But what I object to in this whole debate are the people who take the
> > position that there's really nothing more stake here besides family
> > values. That is so obviously not the case that I begin to think that
> > some people here (as if I didn't suspect it already) don't really value
> > freedom all that much.
> Wow. In a previous message, you were saying I delegitimized a position based
on
> "Clinton/Reno haters". Now, you try to deligitimize my
position (which I
> wholeheartedly ascribe to) on family.

Bill, Obviously you value family a lot more than freedom. Do you deny this?

How can you call this a delegitimizing of your position? I'm working out
the logic of your position. Seems like you are putting certain values much
higher than others. So am I. My relative ranking is different though.

However, there are others here who value freedom less than you do. Still,
you are assigning it a relative ranking as compared to family ties.

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