Would you support the idea of a parenting license?

Eh. I don't figure that on principle. The government already has some say over whether or not people are fit to be parents, but tend to stop at preventative measures due to Unfortunate Implications. I don't see this as inherently bad, though. Like I said, it just needs to be planned out very, very well.

There are some people who simply should not have children without passing some sort of instruction. Sure, I'll buy that it's a slippery slope deciding who should have that right and who shouldn't, but people at the very least, this would give institutions some heads up on people who may pose a problem. At its basic, I'd like people who fail to not necessarily not be allowed to parent, but to be subject to regular counseling and inspections to make sure things are going well.

Again, done properly, I don't see this as a bad thing.

Parents who adopt over here are effectivly employees of the government (and are given a stipend to help) thats why they have to go through a lot of regulation.

And its never going to be planned out well, if we are speaking in pure hypotheticals I would like my country to be ruled by Lord Vetenari from the Discworld books, but its not going to happen.

Apples and oranges. No laws or policies are completely perfect, but that doesn't mean they can't be implemented and updated over time. And like I said, off the top of my head, I can think of a few cases where this would definitely work, such as people who fail a certain blood-alcohol level or test positive for substances such as cocaine.

Just because the slope is slippery doesn't mean it can't have any footing at all.

It does mean that the current situation does no harm (at least over here) that could be easily prevented by this.

And Random drug testing isn't really the right way to go. And what happens if someone has an "unliscenced" child? If they manage to keep it secret then it means that (effectivly) that child will not be able to go to school or anything else, whilst at the same time being closeted away by the family.

It seems like it would just end badly because people will want (and succeed) in circumventing it, and making life for people who already had it bad even worse, for a huge outlay of costs on testing kits, bureacracy etc.

They don't in threads where it has nothing to do with the topic.

Someone just proposed random drug testing for parents (presumably to take the children of stoners away). The objection was valid and on-topic.

edited 7th Jun '11 7:40:11 AM by SavageHeathen

And you support allowing meth-heads to keep their children just because you don't think it's fair to stoners?

Should I meekly renounce my right to have children so the government can take away the children of meth heads?

If meth heads are truly neglecting/abusing their children, their sloppiness and incompetency will show in other areas. THEN you take the child away: Not test/search everybody that has children, just in case some have vices!

edited 7th Jun '11 7:50:31 AM by SavageHeathen

I think that you're also ignoring how easy it is (in some states) to get your "green card", which allows the medical use of marijuana, and basically gives you a free pass on THC tests.

If a parent is too lazy to jump through the hoops to get one, then that's also saying something.

edited 7th Jun '11 7:54:05 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

People should be left alone, not made to jump hoops!

Also, I have seen the sort of situations that kids who have strung out parents wind up in. At the local "last-chance" school in the city I grew up in, most of the kids in there had parents with hard drug addictions. I'd say that if this hypothetical parenting license went through, testing for hard drug usage wouldn't be bad, simply because it does have a very obvious effect on the child's life.

It is completely possible to do stuff like pot on a recreational basis. The problem is that you're lumping pot into the seriously addicting stuff that can't.

edited 7th Jun '11 7:56:38 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

The point is moot: The US government just doesn't have the authority to conduct random drug testing of the general population. They're considered searches, and searching everybody cannot qualify as a reasonable search. They can test their employees and people on parole/probation, but not more.

edited 7th Jun '11 7:59:32 AM by SavageHeathen

We're talking about a hypothetical situation in which the government is already violating a whole lot of rights by forcing parents to apply for licenses to breed.

Savage Heathen, I don't think you choosing to use drugs puts you on the same footing as someone who has no choice about being part of a stigmatized group.

Anyway,

That's what I'd like, too. No test is 100% certain.

Regarding punishing someone who hasn't done anything wrong, well, I don't believe in punishment in that sense. I believe in punishment as a therapeutic technique, but not as 'justice' or something. If punishing someone doesn't work, we shouldn't punish them even if they did something incredibly henious. (For example, I don't believe we should punish psychopaths because they don't learn from punishment, so it's inflicting pain for no good reason at all.) But we should take action to protect victims. For example, putting a male-on-female rapist in jail where he has no access to women, not as a punishment but in order to save further women from being raped. Given that view, why shouldn't we do the same to a rapist who hasn't raped anyone yet? (Assuming an unrealistic world where we had 100% certainty that this guy would rape in the future if given the chance.) The point isn't to punish but to protect, so we're not interested in what he already did but in what he will do in the future.

Given that view, why shouldn't we do the same to a rapist who hasn't raped anyone yet?

It's unfair to him. If he did something, we could justify ourselves by saying he brought it upon him by his own actions. But since he hasn't done anything yet, the only reason to lock him up is our own paranoia. Who are we to say it's better to lock this guy up than to risk him raping someone?

And consider before you say anything that this guy we're talking about might be you, or it might be someone you care about deeply. Would you really be okay with the government locking up your father or your brother because they might rape someone?

(By the way, there's no such thing as a "rapist who hasn't raped anyone yet". I think you mean "potential rapist".)