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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Nuclear Family
Message-ID: <1577@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Aug-85 12:51:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1577
Posted: Sat Aug 24 12:51:13 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 03:11:40 EDT
References: <3555@decwrl.UUCP> <628@brl-tgr.ARPA> <1490@pyuxd.UUCP> <886@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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> Somehow, Rich Rosen thinks I support
> >						 Sanctification of an
> > institution that puts itself above the law (the "nuclear family") where one 
> > member can abuse other members of the household without fear of reprisal?
>  
> That's what they had in Ancient Rome, Mr. Rosen.  The head of the family
> was called the "paterfamilias," and he had life or death power over all
> members of the family, children and adults.  That was Roman law, so it was
> all LEGAL, see? [ROSENBLATT]

Rich Rosen also thinks you think "legal" = "right", since that has been the
basis of a number of your arguments.  More importantly, when you said that
our morality represents a "bare minimum", you are in effect supporting
such things (which exist ipso facto today in many cases).

>  But it raises some interesting hypothetical questions:
> 1.  What if the paterfamilias decided to exercise his power of death over
> a grown son who had offended him, say, by refusing to move out of the
> father's building?  And suppose the grown son were bigger and stronger
> than the father, so he couldn't just throttle the fellow.  Now, if the
> father were a rich man, he could hire a few thugs to rub the son out.
> But what about a poor paterfamilias?  He's a "civis Romanus" too -- why
> should he have fewer rights over his family than the rich paterfamilias?
> Don't the Senate and People of Rome OWE IT TO HIM to send a couple of
> armed centurions over to dispatch whichever family members he no longer
> wants to live?

I really fail to see any relevance in this argument.  The government wouldn't
"owe" him any such thing, because the family would thus be a legal entity
unto itself, and interference in family affairs would be frowned upon either
way.  The way the police treat "family discord" at less than murder level
today.

> 2.  Suppose there is no such Government aid to nuclear family tyrants.
> The father who goes to kill his grown son is taking a risk.  Maybe the
> son will fight back.  Maybe the son knows how to use a sword, or a
> ballista, or whatever ridiculous weapon they had for tearing and crushing
> human flesh humanely before the mean old warmongers at the Ballistic
> Research Lab invented un-humane artillery shells.  In any event, the
> paterfamilias could be wounded, or even killed!  Surely Romans wouldn't
> want fathers to face the risk of injury or death just because they want
> to kill their sons.  If the paterfamilias system is to work at all,
> it's gotta be made SAFE as well as LEGAL.

But why should it exist at all?  You make a hell of a lot of bizarre
assumptions about what's "needed" here, Matt.  Why?
-- 
Meanwhile, the Germans were engaging in their heavy cream experiments in
Finland, where the results kept coming out like Swiss cheese...
				Rich Rosen 	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr