Jim hits the mark on helicopter parenting, but his "we need to find the middle ground" simply comes out of left field. "Who" is to find this middle ground? his implication is government does, when in fact the government involvement should and does begin and end with environments that cause harm. anything else creates an impetus for more and more government involvement in a families' choices, since all the science shows any bureaucracy seeks to grow and enlarge itself. this means an interest in a bureaucracy in interposing itself and defining "harmful" or "potentially dangerous" more and more broadly.
Moreover we already have the data on what causes harm to children. In the case of non criminal harm it is automobiles by far. In the case of risk criminal of severe harm, sexual violence and homicide of children -- from multiple peer reviewed longitudinal studies: being domiciled in a home with a person with a criminal record or a parent in a relationship with a person with a criminal record. Studies in Maryland, NJ and California show prior criminals in the home are associated with between 91% and 97% of criminal violence against children. (similar studies have shown under 2% of US gun owner are illegal owners with a criminal record, yet are the risk factor in more than 90% of shootings involving children, which is why as US incarceration rates increased homicide rates of US children fell 60% in the past generation. We also know that 69% of US children live in homes with two parents, yet violence against children doubles in single parent homes -- and kids raised in single parent homes are themselves nearly three times more likely to engage in violent crime.
On enhanced interrogation, it is more complex than Jims snarky sound bite and rant. Exactly 39 detainees were subject to any enhanced interrogation and long time Democrat partisan, leon Panetta, who was bill Clintons chief of staff, and who was Obama's CIA director during the operation to find and kill bin laden, specifically said that the enhanced interrogation was a key element getting bin laden; Just google "Osama bin Laden killed: CIA admits waterboarding yielded vital information"
Sure after saying it no les than six times, including in his book, he walked it back a bit since it went against a partisan party line, but his walk back was that 'perhaps info could have been gotten later by other means. That is like saying breaking Enigma was unimportant since that info could have been gotten by other means. Sure, maybe, likely not.
More importantly than getting bin laden, Obama appointed intelligence officers in CIA, FBI, DIA, specifically said Bush era enhanced interrogation were responsible for stopping several attacks in Europe and other allied coutnries (read Australia and Canada).Attacks in those places increased after enhanced interrogation ceased.
This is important because everything slides along a line. there is in fact no bright line with interrogating anyone about anything. Physically and psychologically stressing people interrogated whether they be terrorist or even criminal suspects is acceptable to some degree in every developed democracy. Constantly lit cells which break sleep patterns are common practice. So is noise and cooler temperatures. The pictures we saw of illegal combatant detainees in orange jumpsuits, earmuffs and blindfolded are legal for war detainees being transferred in virtually all countries. Psychological stress includes allowing interrogators to lie, to tell them their allege accomplices have implicated them when they have not.
The July 7 bombers in the UK, who were UK residents not taken in a war zone were able to be held incommunicado, no attorney no consultation or constant with anyone, for seven days under UK law (and would be under Australian law), but Tsarneav in the US could only be held with no lawyer for 48 hours.
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