Apologia - Serious debate only, please!

[Anonymous]

On 2003-12-22 18:28:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Never trust an authority figure to determine if your kid is being abused, Spots?  Aren't you the one that is attempting to enlist authority figures to do this in Montana?  You discount what parents know, but you are saying here the parents are the only ones to know for sure?



Seems that the parents AND the authority figures say there's no abuse, but you can't accept that.  



Your contact with the representative in California, so far, has gone no where. Your contact with the Mexican Government didn't say what you wanted to hear, either.  IS that the reason you are now saying that the authority figures won't determine abuse is going on or not?  



"

Uh....hello?  The stupid sophistry is not flying.  Can you say "false alternatives"?  I *knew* you could.

[Antigen]

I actually don't advocate for new laws. I think these programs break laws already, every day. We only need to enforce the laws we have.

The trouble is that people have come to accept torture as an accepted way of dealing with their fears about youth and the next generation.

There's big money in it. Not just the program fees and all the direct funding. This industry did not grow out of a vacume. We have an established cultur-wide mental illness when it comes to parenting and families.

We have turned over the sacred right and responsibility of family to talking heads on the idiot box like Dr. Phil, Oprah, Salley Jessy Raphael and Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters will never do an unbiased piece on the industry because her daughter owns a program. Law enforcement aids and abets the scam by criminalizing and disenfranchising normal adolescent behavior.

Kids ta' day! You hear so much about how out of control, wreckless and dangerous kids ta' day are. The fact is, teen pregnancies are DOWN. Teen drug use is DOWN. Teen's never were the perp class in violent and property crime, but they've shown less interest in that in recent years than before. The real dopers and drunks are the baby boomers. We're the ones getting into all the trouble.

We are the ones who have neglected to inform ourselves well enough to even know what the hell laws they're passing that effect our kids. When did the razor wire go up around the highschools? I don't remember that from when I was a kid just 20 years ago. We're the ones who have failed as parents. The kids aren't coming out any different. If you think it's a different world, well don't punish the kid and don't break them to make them fit it. This is the world that we have brought about. If it's too fucked up for kids, then we need to fix it. It's that simple.

To the extent that a society limits its government to policing functions which curb the individuals who engage in aggressive and criminal actions, and conducts its economic affairs on the basis of free and willing exchange, to that extent domestic peace prevails. When a society departs from this norm, its governing class begins, in effect, to make war upon the rest of the nation. A situation is created in which everyone is victimized by everyone else under the fiction of each living at the expense of all.

--Edmund A. Opitz

[Anonymous]

May be a bit off what you said Ginger, but how do you explain this:

You have the same two parents to two or three kids.  Two of them came through their teen years very differently than one of them...where did they "fail?" The one wasn't loved any less.  Just some food for thought on laying blame on the parents.

[Anonymous]

Zero Tolerance.  For unwanted behavior in the school, home or community. Trip the wire and you could end up facing the ultimate penalty. Forced Behavior McModification in a school or program where nobody gets out until they learn to equate love with obedience, freedom with servitude.

Welcome to the brave new world of emotionally sterilized parenting.

 :smokin:

[Anonymous]

Spots where do you get your info?

[Antigen]

On 2003-12-22 21:28:00, Anonymous wrote:

"May be a bit off what you said Ginger, but how do you explain this:



You have the same two parents to two or three kids.  Two of them came through their teen years very differently than one of them...where did they "fail?" The one wasn't loved any less.  Just some food for thought on laying blame on the parents.



 "

Maybe just when they thought all kids are the same and should be treated so. Or maybe not at all. Maybe the one kid just marches to the beat of a different drummer. Or maybe he actually has some problems and could use some help. But brainwashing isn't helpful to the person receiving it. It only seems to benefit the control freak paying for it.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.  
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0136374069/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'> Andrew Tannenbaum

[GregFL]

How about laying blame on no one and realizing that life, especially your child's life in the teenage years, isn't totally in your control?

At some point, you have to trust that they will either make it or fail on their own. Taking drastic measures such as thought reform camp for your child often results in tragic ends and/or lifelong problems for your child and more often than not complicates the existing problems.

You may as well be rolling the dice in vegas with your child's life on the come line, and you are subjecting your loved on to intense trauma and possiblity spliting your family apart forever.

For what?  Some perceived gain that cannot be measured...in a place that is overtly abusive and controlling?

Brave new world indeed....


"for $250 dollars Art Barker will turn your brooding, dope-smoking, average rotten teenage into a right-thinking American Kid.  Send him a 15 year old Janis Joplin, The way a retired Army colonel did last October, and Barker, who operates out of Florida, will return  a Karen Carpenter by Mid November."



These are New Times, 1974 in a national article about the seed.

[Anonymous]

The thing about bullshitting a bullshitter is that its very easy if you are telling him what he wants to hear.

If he wants to hear that you did drugs and you tell him you shot 1000 grams of morphine, he'll believe you (even though you couldn't fit that dose of morphine into a syringe and it would kill even a stone junkie if you could).

If he wants to hear that you had sex and you tell him you fucked 100 men in 15 minutes, he'll buy it, even though it's physically impossible.

If you say I *didn't* do any drugs or have any sex, however, you could be telling the god's honest truth and have physical proof of virginity and a negative drug test and you would never be believed in a million years because there is no possibility at all that your parents could be wrong and you could have been put in the program by mistake.

[GregFL]

right, and eventually you will admit to anything they want you to say just to get out of there.

In fact, a common thing that happens is that if you are in one of these programs, the more outlandish your story, the faster you progress out of the early stages. The longer you hold steadfast to the truth, the longer you are severly tortured.

Therefore, culturally, the program early one encourages you to become a liar and to embellish your past. Often, you repeat it so long you start believing it. Then you get 30 years later, people saying they would be deadinsaneorinjail without the program and really believing it to be true, and when you dig a little, you find that they were just smoking some pot at age 14 or something.

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
--James Madison

[Anonymous]

Bullshitting, lying, looking good?  What's so different about those that choose to do this INSIDE the program?  They are all over the world,outside of the programs... your next door neighbor, your co-worker, maybe even a good friend.  It's easier to be secretive by what you learned from your first "spanking" from your parents, who learned it from their parents.  You may still do the same thing, but decide not to be caught. In the program, you're with your peers 24/7, you're with the staff 24/7 in the beginning. Those that merely "play the game" will eventually show their true colors and then is when their healing begins.  If they don't, then that's their choice and the way they will continue to live their life.  Neither good or bad, really, just sad.  

Maybe, a kid says what they want to hear.  Flipside of that is that they are learning to make better choices, even if they don't think so, even if they think they're pulling the wool over everyone's eyes.  


What you don't accept is that programs don't work for everyone. You think just because a parent pays for it, it's a guarantee!  You gotta want it, or it won't work.  Did you ever have a job you hated and couldn't wait to get out of there at the end of the day?  Did you ever learn anything from that experience? If you didn't, then you didn't want to.  

Yes, programs are here to stay.  There will always be kids crying abuse, crying brainwashing, and always parents that believe them. Co-dependence and control are two of the worst drugs I know of.  It takes a true commitment and a lot of work to overcome that addiction.  

I know that with all the publicity that Tim Weiner started (from the bogus information provided to him from those outside of WWASPS) that wwasps programs are among the safest programs around now.  Who would want to fan the flames in their program now?  

I full heartedly agree with the philosophy and the process of change that this program stands for.   I love and respect children and feel that everyone deserves the best possible way to be happy.  These kids and families learn what happiness is.  It's a process and I trust that process.

You can look at it positively or negatively, agree or disagree with the process.  No, the parents can't control their kids choices, but they can control what they do about it.  In the process they learn a better way to relate to each other, a better way to BE a family.

 :wink:

[Anonymous]

Please explain what you mean by "healing" and why you would equate controlling the attitude and behavior of a "captive teen" and their check-writing parents as good for "change"? Personally, I think anybody that forces children out of their home, school and community and into some behavior-changing-money-making-institution is guilty of abusing the rights of their own child.  Go on and admire yourself but know your self-adoration is looked upon by others as pathological, not miraculous.

 :roll:

[Antigen]

On 2003-12-30 18:18:00, Anonymous wrote:

Those that merely "play the game" will eventually show their true colors and then is when their healing begins.  If they don't, then that's their choice and the way they will continue to live their life.  Neither good or bad, really, just sad.  

On what, exactly, do you base the assumption that most fakers get caught or that those who get away with it are somehow to be pittied? My pov derives from watching 4 older siblings and half their friends go through the program and then having known them for the 25 or so years since. Then, over the last 6 years or so, I've talked to a LOT of former Straightlings. What's your basis for knowledge on the subject?

Maybe, a kid says what they want to hear.  Flipside of that is that they are learning to make better choices, even if they don't think so, even if they think they're pulling the wool over everyone's eyes.  

Who defines the term "better" in this context? The kid who will live with the consequences of those choices, possibly for life? Or the strangers who view them with disdain as lying, manipulative, contemptable human beings? What you're describing here is brainwashing. Can you even imagine the horror of discovering that, even in the privacy of your own mind, you can't be sure what you believe and what you're just pretending to believe?

The only place I know to look for stats on that would be to study the pshych pathology of undercover police. Well, that or you could take a frigging look around these forums and see what kind of psychos who graduate from these programs. Not quite exactly like the kids in the brochurs, huh?

What you don't accept is that programs don't work for everyone. You think just because a parent pays for it, it's a guarantee!  

Oh no! I don't know where you get the impression that I thought these programs worked at all, far less for everyone. I'm not the one who came up with the bogus 96% success rate or the warranty. Those are entirely the doing of WWASP
http://www.teenswithproblems.com/treatm ... l#warranty

Straight and The Seed always had the same policy. Art called it an open door policy. Any graduate could drop back in anytime they wanted to bask in the love and support of every person they'd been allowed to talk to for the past year or two. Of course, if someone thought you looked stoned or unhappy or had heard rumors about you, you might not be allowed to leave. That "Open door" policy was always a whole lot more popular among the more controling parents than among any of the clients. One thing I can say for WWASP, at least they're a little more up front about it.

You gotta want it, or it won't work.  

And how, exactly, is that compatible with lying to the kid to get them there or outright tying them up and hauling them in against their will? Ya know, one of the significant effects of brainwashing is a total lack of cognative dissonance. When you're able to hold two completely contradictory beliefs and not even notice that they're contradictory, it's a good sign that you might be pretty fully baked.

Did you ever have a job you hated and couldn't wait to get out of there at the end of the day?  Did you ever learn anything from that experience? If you didn't, then you didn't want to.  

Absolutely. So I can speak from a position of authority in saying that there is NO comparison between tolerating a job that you hate (aside, maybe, from orderly at a particularly stressful psyche ward) and the kind of fatigue, lonliness and constant, nerve rankling stress of being in a 24/7 lock down where they practice confrontational therapy or coercive pursuesion, whichever term you prefer.

Yes, programs are here to stay.  There will always be kids crying abuse, crying brainwashing, and always parents that believe them. Co-dependence and control are two of the worst drugs I know of.  It takes a true commitment and a lot of work to overcome that addiction.  

Yes. And control over others is the most addictive substance nown to mankind. Way more addictive than crack sometimes.

"Tough Love: Abuse of a type particularly enjoyable to the abuser, in that it combines the pleasures of sadism with those of self-righteousness. Commonly employed and widely admired in 12-step groups."
--Chaz Bufe

I know that with all the publicity that Tim Weiner started (from the bogus information provided to him from those outside of WWASPS) that wwasps programs are among the safest programs around now.  Who would want to fan the flames in their program now?  



I full heartedly agree with the philosophy and the process of change that this program stands for.   I love and respect children and feel that everyone deserves the best possible way to be happy.  These kids and families learn what happiness is.  It's a process and I trust that process.



You can look at it positively or negatively, agree or disagree with the process.  No, the parents can't control their kids choices, but they can control what they do about it.  In the process they learn a better way to relate to each other, a better way to BE a family.



 :wink: "

Tell me about it! There haven't been more than two of the six of us kids living in the same state at the same time for nearly 20 years. Now, there are not even two.

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.


--Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

[Anonymous]

On 2003-12-30 18:50:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Please explain what you mean by "healing" and why you would equate controlling the attitude and behavior of a "captive teen" and their check-writing parents as good for "change"? Personally, I think anybody that forces children out of their home, school and community and into some behavior-changing-money-making-institution is guilty of abusing the rights of their own child.  Go on and admire yourself but know your self-adoration is looked upon by others as pathological, not miraculous.




 

Okay, so wasn't the kid abusing the parents, the values and the rules?  Yes, most, but not all..yada yada yada.  The parents abuse the kids rights?  Who's abusing whose rights?  I don't see it as abusing their rights. From the sound of this, you're saying parents aren't allowed rights! Are you saying the kid has every right to steal, lie, break things, threaten to hit them, run away, skip school, manipulate, on and on?  These are not bad kids, they are kids that are crying out for help.  They wish they didn't have parents, and could go on their merry way of destroying their life.  Hey, there's a lot of them out there that aren't getting the help they need.  The lucky ones are the ones that have parents that DO care.  

I don't base my love of a child on how much money I have to spend on helping them.  How many parents would rather spend it on buying them a new car, expensive toys, etc., in an attempt to buy their good behavior?  In my experience, it doesn't work, it only makes them want more and the parents go happily off to work everyday to support the addiction.  Hurray to the parents who see that there is something more important than "things."

[Antigen]

On 2003-12-30 18:50:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Please explain what you mean by "healing" and why you would equate controlling the attitude and behavior of a "captive teen" and their check-writing parents as good for "change"? Personally, I think anybody that forces children out of their home, school and community and into some behavior-changing-money-making-institution is guilty of abusing the rights of their own child.  Go on and admire yourself but know your self-adoration is looked upon by others as pathological, not miraculous.



 :roll:





"

The key to clarity is, indeed, brevity.

What is a committee?  A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.    
-- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

[Antigen]

On 2003-12-30 19:19:00, Anonymous wrote:


Okay, so wasn't the kid abusing the parents, the values and the rules?  

No tellin'. We have a process by which to determin guilt or innocense. Probably the best one ever devised and implimented by mortal humans. It owes all the way back to BOTH the traditions of John Locke and the Magna Carta AND those of the Iroquois Nations. Unfortunately, these programs generally don't avail themselves of this remarkable process. So no one knows for sure if the kid even has a problem. The only criteria for admission seems to be the parents' level of distress and their coorisponding ability to write big checks that don't bounce.

Has it ever occured to you that totally irrational people sometimes have kids? That maybe it would be prudent to use some more objective criteria for admisions than the emotional state of the parents?

From the sound of this, you're saying parents aren't allowed rights!  Are you saying the kid has every right to steal, lie, break things, threaten to hit them, run away, skip school, manipulate, on and on?  

Try and ignore that voice in your head. No one here said anything like that. Kids have the same right to due process, to objective, reasoned judgement, as anybody else. You can't throw a kid in juvenile detention without some sort of hearing before the courts. Why should a private business presume the right to suspend a person's civil liberties in a closed door financian leal?

I don't base my love of a child on how much money I have to spend on helping them.  How many parents would rather spend it on buying them a new car, expensive toys, etc., in an attempt to buy their good behavior?  In my experience, it doesn't work, it only makes them want more and the parents go happily off to work everyday to support the addiction.  Hurray to the parents who see that there is something more important than "things."   "

To me, this shows a totally fucked up attitude toward parenting in general. I like to buy my kids nice things because I love watching them enjoy them.

Look, I understand the impulse, sometimes overwhelming, to grasp at anything just to do something when you think your kid is in danger.

But there is absolutely no credible evidence that I know of to back up the notion that this type of therapy is either safe or effective. Go and look around and see for yourself. You might ask program vets for direction. A lot of us have a common interest in the topic and some are the studious type, inclined to research. There's lots written about the effects of this kind of treatment. Not much of it both credible and good.

When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years ago, he is a broad-minded person who has courage enough to change his mind with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a liar who has broken his promise.
-- FRANKLIN P.ADAMS (1861-1960).