On 2004-05-25 11:47:00, Anonymous wrote:
[snip]
The rooms are all very clean, students are very well fed and appear healthy and clean. The classrooms are moders with a computer lab. Yes they work hard on the site, and earn each level raises based on behavior, academic achievement, leadership and treatment of others. Yes they are taught about Christ, and many leave non-believers, and many do choose to follow Christ. A person sometimes needs to be broken, before they can commit to real and lasting change.
[snip]
No, a person *never* "needs to be broken."
Not ever.
Breaking a person is the difference between conversion (to any religion) by voluntary persuasion and conversion by the sword.
The programs are the 12-step cult's radical fanatic fringe of conversion by the sword.
Any religion in the process of practicing conversion by the sword is an unlovely system.
Nobody "needs" to be broken. Conversion by the sword is, always and everywhere, no matter what religion practices it, WRONG.
A religion is any deeply emotionally held belief system about the nature of existence and what each person should do about it.
Some religions have as one of their tenets of faith that they are not a religion.
I want every 14 year old to know that he *right now* has the legal right to refuse to leave the United States regardless of his parents wishes or who his parents have hired to "escort" them.
I want every airline flight attendant or cabin personnel, and every skipper and crew member of every ocean-worthy boat, and every border patrol employee, to know that any 14 year old US citizen has the right to refuse to leave the country, regardless of his parents wishes or who his parents have hired to escort him.
I want every airline flight attendant or cabin person, every skipper and border patrol person, every escort employee, to know that if they assist in moving a person over 14 across international boundaries against that person's consent that they *will* be prosecuted in federal court for violating that teen's fundamental civil rights (in the case of government employees) or kidnapping (in the case of skippers, pilots, flight attendants, and escorts).
And yes, since the law says the 14 year old has the right to refuse, *if* the 14 year old refuses to leave the country, the escort forcibly taking him across the border is at that moment committing kidnapping.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd bet money the justice dept. could make those cases stick---and certainly the teen has a cause of civil action, and has two years after his 18th birthday before the statute of limitations runs out for bringing that suit.
(I'm not a lawyer, this is not specific legal advice.)