The Third Stolen Generation

As we sleep,
Pain which we cannot forget
Comes drop by drop.
And through the night,
Comes wisdom
Through the awful grace
of God.

- Escalus, as quoted by Robert F Kennedy to help the crowd in Indiana deal with the news RFK had just announced: That Martin Luther King had been killed.

You are the Third Stolen Generation of Australia. You, and your children. And I.

The First Stolen Generation was the children of the Aborigines.
The Second Stolen Generation was forced adoptions from young mothers.
This is the Third Stolen Generation.
All these Stolen Generations share some painful similarities. In all these Generations, well-meaning people acted in what they thought were the best interests of the children. These were people who tried to understand things in their society they could not accept, and tried to understand.
As they thought they understood, they tried to help.

In all three Generations, they created abominations against the deep moral needs of human beings: crimes against human rights through the exercise of civil rights.
Well-mea ning people, usually good people, -- Not evil people usually.-- have created these tragedies.
Australians look in shame at the two previous Generations for many good reasons. As these same Australians, conflicted, will someday look at the Third Stolen Generation, then lower their heads in shame, glad the time is over.

Their help came in the form of misguided laws which attempted to dictate and enforce morality through the law. Those who wrote those laws did not understand the limitations of the word of law. Law cannot dictate morality.
At best, law can dictate what cannot be done.

To attempt to use the law to prevent an action, -- Perhaps unless there is a certainty that this action will be carried out,-- should be unconstitutional. When there is no history of violence; no threat other than that in a heated moment; and the parties are still rational, then.. -- But isn't that a contradition which requires further examination?
These three Stolen Generations share similar supporting reasoning.
They have all failed because of this shared reasoning being applied.

Many times, I have seen people seeking the right words to express what they endured and endure. I believe these words express that pain in a way that can be communicated to all Australians, regardless of their opinions about God.

These are, and were, law-abiding people. These were people who - other than those who abused the laws for personal greed - sought to make something good out of what was seen as horrible. And in some cases, perhaps they did.
In all of these Generations, it was the inequality before the law which was horrible in the end. That was all that could be rectified.

Another characteristic which is shared is that compensation has been made to any of the victims of Stolen Generations. There will be no compensation for the Third Stolen Generation either.
For that to happen, the immense shame of those who administrate(d) these laws would have to be exposed.

Human rights have been reiterated internationally.
When civil authority seeks to abuse human rights, it seeks civil law to accomplish that task. Only rarely does the civil authority become so brazen as to expose their brutality be making criminal law of the abuse.
This is also why the answer is not in the law, other than to disabuse the administrators of the law of their misconceptions. The answer, for all three Stolen Generations, is in the hands of those who love their children; and their country.

Please take a few moments to ponder these words.