Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Nordic Madness and Lingering Nazism


It may be the Nordic air, but certain Swedish officials have inhaled something strange. This government has declared homeschooling a crime. For attempting to homeschool their son, a couple were arrested as they sat in a plane returning to India. The government placed their son in foster care where he has remained for three years. His parents can visit him for one hour every two weeks, later every five weeks. A court later dissolved their parental rights completely. They are no longer permitted to have any contact whatsoever with their son.

Another Indian couple lost custody of their two children because they fed them by hand, and had them sleep with them.One Swedish family fled to the United States where they were granted refugee status, thus deeming the homeschooling laws as persecution.

Yet another Indian couple became victims of Norway's "state-sponsored kidnapping", as it has become known. They scolded their son for urinating on himself and stealing toys from his classmates. The government placed the boy in custody for one month where he was cross-examined to obtain more evidence against his parents. (A technique developed by the Nazis.)  The mother was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, the father 18 months, under the Nordic infamous child protection system.

Such "kidnappings" have become so common that foreigners victimized by the system have resorted to the services of a private investigator to rescue their children from foster care and smuggle them out of the country.

The case followed numerous other cases of children taken from foreigners on questionable grounds by the governments of Norway and Sweden. Indian parents appeared to be a major target.

Opponents of government child protective services claim an economic motive to the system. Foster parents receive tens of thousands of dollars from the government for caring for the children.

This Nordic madness continued.

The New York Times reported that in a Stockholm pre-school, teachers must avoid saying boys and girls, referring to all as friends. Also banned are masculine and feminine references such as him and her. These are replaced by the pronoun hen, an artificial and genderless word "popular in some gay and feminist circles."

The school library allows a few classic fairy tales such as Snow White and Cinderella. On the other hand, "there are many stories that deal with single parents, adopted children or same-sex couples."  Under the rubric of equal opportunity, girls are urged not to play with toy kitchens; blocks are not considered toys for boys; everyone plays with dolls.

The Times report continued: "... this taxpayer-financed school ... is perhaps one of the more compelling examples of the country's efforts to blur the gender lines."  A local university professor calls this "gender madness".

A toy retailer joined in the madness. In 2008, the merchant was reprimanded by the Swedish advertising ombudsman for gender stereotyping in its sales catalogue. The current version of the catalogue neuters the sexes.

Perhaps, it's more than Nordic air, but continental air that is at fault. Germany still enforces a law enacted by the Nazis criminalizing homeschooling. A Dutch member of the European Parliament has proposed banning school curriculum materials which depict the traditional family. He would censor such classics as Paddington Bear, Peter Pan, and Enid Blyton's Famous Five Stories.

Note. The United States Supreme Court has written that terminating parental visits is the Family Court equivalent of the death penalty. Every party to such an action, the court wrote in Stanley vs. Illinois, must be afforded every procedural and substantive due process protection. In American courts this means that clear and convincing evidence, the civil equivalent of beyond reasonable doubt, is necessary before parental rights are terminated.