ok here's a tough one to ponder ..

[frenchy]

i just saw somethin on pbs the other day .. it seems that the kids of mafia families are pretty much doomed to go into the family business weather they want to or not , so a judge in southern italy decided he had to break the cycle .. so his solution was to remove the kids and move them to another part of the country and put them in foster homes .. so far this is still new so no stats on how successful it will be or not but if it is would you support somethin like this in this country ?? say a kid is bein raised in a gang atmosphere and you know his chances of gettin out are slim would you support leislation that would remove the kids from that kinda toxic atmosphere ?? and move him so far away he can't keep in contact with all the criminal element that can only doom him to a life of sorrow and regret ?? 

awhile back bill oriley said somethin in the midst of the zimmerman trial when black people wanted to have some kinda dialogue on racial justice and it pissed a few people off .. and what he basicly said was the fatherless homes contributed to this problem .. or the fractured lifestyles .. i thought he had a point to a degree which was a sort of shock to me cause i don't usually agree with him .. but a point i made was if you look at homes where the dads were positive influences the kids were so much more likely to become successful adults .. in homes where the dad is a doctor or a lawyer there's a good chance the son might also be a doctor or a lawyer .. not 100% but a lot higher than a dad who's a plumber .. but even there if the dad is a plumber there's still a higher chance the son might be too .you gravitate towards what you're taught and know ..my point was some kids need mentors .. if they don't have good role models they need mentors .. and while i think moms are important too one of the things the italian judge said was even the mothers of the mafia sons fought to keep their kids even tho they knew they would end up in the family business someday .. so how many mothers here would do the king solomon thing and give up their child to see it get a better chance ?? 

there's no right or wrong answer here .. me personally i'd rather see my child go to a foster home where they would give him a better shot in life then keep him in a toxic enviroment .. but i'm not sure if thats the right thing to do .. we all think nobody can love our kids like we can ..but love is not what i'm talkin about here .. i'm talkin about survival .. in chicago they are shootin each other daily .. kids shootin kids cause they looked at each other wrong .. how do you break that cycle ?? not by keepin them in that enviroment thats for sure ..

whew ... this was a long one huh .. so what do you guys think ??? 

[frenchy]

yup .. all good points .. i can see how you all feel about this and not to piss anyone here off but that news thingy i saw on pbs also stated that the mafia moms also gave nothin but resistance too even tho they knew their sons were doomed to a life of violence and crime and some of em sleepin with the fishes.. now i'm not sure how this took such a left turn but i never implied to take someones kids because someone else could give em a better education ( even tho it could be true thats not where i was pointin ) actually what i was askin was what about the kids of parents who are in violent businesses , such as murder inc ( which was the first example ) or how about some bikers that run crystal meth for a livin ?? ya think they should have their kids around to run the family business if they get caught and go to jail ?? or get killed in a shootout with rival gangs or a shootout with the feds ?? or should we just wait till they do ?? or how about gang members in .. chicago as i said .. who are shootin each other daily .. think at the tender age of 26 none of these gang members have any kids yet ?? what are the odds ?? i saw a video a couple of weeks or so ago where the dad was teachin his 3 year old how to tell someone to fuckoff .. and he thought it was cool .. what a great dad huh .. lets nominate him for father of the year .. what are the chances that kid won't be runnin crack at the age of 10 or 11 ??  ehh .. again i'm not sayin i have the answer here .. cause i'm lost too .. but yesterday they found a lady sleepin in a storage shed . yeah you know one of them storage rental places with her little kid , i'm not sure of his age but he was still in diapers , maybe 1 and half and they're in there and she's drunk .. passed out drunk ..an empty bottle of booze ..  and there's no food or water for this little guy and he needs to be changed .. and its hot down here now .. been in the 80's for the last 4 or 5 days so its hot in them storage places .. no windows , a metal roof .. its like a tin can out in a field on a hot day .. so if it was 85 outside it had to be 90 in there easy ..if somebody didn't hear the little guy cryin who knows what woulda happened cause momma didn't hear him .. so whaddya think , should they just sober her up and give her back her kid ?? cause once she's sober she won't ever do anything like that again right ?? no need to worry about that kid anymore once she's sobered up .. right ??     

[ProblemAgain]

in this country, the courts already remove children from homes on the grounds of child endangerment. nothing new there. and they pull those kids from the care of meth dealers and drunks and other members of society who seem unable to care for their children or flatout don't give a shit. there are court-ordered terminations of parental rights based upon the welfare of the child so you don't have meth dealers hiding their stash in their kid's diapers or drunks having little kids drive them home or be strapped to the roof of the car cause the whining about being hungry bothered mom. and remember it has to be a demonstrated lack of regard for the welfare and safety of the child. it can't just be cause someone feels it would be better

 in italy, a relatively recent phenomenon is that the mafia families are being run by the wives and mothers when the capo goes to prison. and that's why they want to break the cycle. it isn't the same as it was when the women were 'just wives and daughters', now many are actually active in the business and in all aspects, ordering hits and directing operations. that can effectively mean a doubling of the numbers of the members of families in italy and the courts and the police have way more than enough troubles already dealing with the mafia. we are talking about prosecutors and judges being assassinated and some areas of italy being virtual fiefdoms of a don where the police only enter in force.

by the way, o'reilly got it part right in saying fatherless homes contribute to the problem. but he always looks for a simple answer that fits his agenda. he forgets to add in things like lack of opportunities, dismal levels of education in some schools, single mothers working 2 jobs to feed their kids so kids are latchkey kids only seeing their mom in passing. i always want to grab these blathering pontificators and drive the point home that "life ain't simple less'n you're stupid"

[Lifesighs]

If o'reilly is saying that missing fathers contribute to the problem I wonder what contributed to o'reilly being such an ass. He must be an alien. 

The mafia must have changed a lot since I was a teen, I dated a really nice young man named Natalie for a few months, he took me to the nicest restaurants and plays and bought me flowers and a few pretty trinkets. I thought he was so nice but my friends told me his dad was a mafia big wig and I shouldn't go out with him, he went back to college so it wasn't an issue. I don't think he would have gone into the crime life.