Parental rights is one of the greatest political issues of our time, for the line between the duties of the state and the duties of parents in relation to children is increasingly blurred.
Hillary Clinton once wrote a book called “It Takes a Village.” This book epitomizes the government’s view of its role in raising children. This mindset has caused schools to push treatments, curriculum and programs on children in the name of education while keeping parents in the dark.
The government claims to be acting in loco parentis, or in the place of parents, because it has a duty to the children. It truly believes its duties to children are on the same plane as those of a parent to their own children. The government believes it is your village.
Most of us are uncomfortable with this parenting philosophy. We don’t parent with the government — and this is not a new idea, either, for the prevailing political philosophy before the birth of this country was the same.
Let’s explore the foundation of this thinking, for, as any legal writer will tell you, we must fashion a rule before we can explore applications.
When exploring the roots of a political or legal philosophy in America, the best place to start is with the common law, which birthed our national laws. The common law is simply law that is so well established it never had to be written down. (A modern-day example of this is how Southerners pull over when passing a funeral procession on the road. It’s not a written rule, we just do it.) The common law was eventually written down by William Blackstone in his "Commentaries on the Laws of England." He didn’t make the rules, he just wrote them down. The American founders all carried around copies of these commentaries and were very familiar with them.
Blackstone posited that there are three categories of duties parents have toward their children: their maintenance, their protection, and their education. These duties were the “most universal relation in nature,” Blackstone said, indicating his belief that the duty of education was the most important of the three.
John Locke was another writer influential in shaping our founding laws. In his "Second Treatise of Civil Government," Locke took this idea of parental duties, which he claimed came from a state of nature, and framed it as parental powers because power is derived from duty. He also established that there is a separation between parental power and political power. Parental power is temporary, for it only lasts until the child is an adult, and is not to be infringed upon by the government until then. Essentially, the powers of parents are not to be superseded by the government.
Both thinkers believed these rights and powers came from God. Blackstone said parents were given these duties by Providence; Locke believed they existed in a state of nature, noting that the only governing authority in a state of nature is God. In essence, these rights and duties are not given to us by the government, but by “nature and nature’s God.”
It is a law of philosophy and jurisprudence that every duty has a correlative right. This is evidenced in our Bill of Rights, which curiously does not contain the word "right," but rather confers duties upon the government. It presupposes that for every duty of the government to not infringe, the people have a right not to be infringed upon.
Thus, because parents have a duty to the children, the children have a right to that care. Because the parents have a right/duty/obligation/power to the education, protection and maintenance of their children, the government has a duty to allow them to control those areas without infringement.
So that’s the 1,000-foot overview of parental rights. Our rights and duties as parents boil down to these three categories.
In the coming weeks, I will break this down and apply it to various issues happening today. Nothing I will say will constitute legal advice and should not be taken as such. I do, however, wish to reestablish parental rights, pushing the government back into its rightful place. We must take back our children from the government, for the government is turning out to be the kind of parents we would expect of the village idiots.
Laura Clark is a wife, mother, and community activist. She currently serves as the interim president of Alabama Center for Law and Liberty, a conservative nonprofit law firm that fights for limited government, free markets, and strong families in the courts. Anything written by Laura for this publication does not constitute legal advice.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
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