Something that's been bothering me...

[Jaepheth]

Why would the Jedi Council want to bring balance to the force? Isn't it better to have the scales tipped toward the side of good?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Their version of balance was simply the destruction of the Sith. They aparently weren't aware that the actual package meant that they had to all die, too.

[Stofsk]

Why would the Jedi Council want to bring balance to the force? Isn't it better to have the scales tipped toward the side of good?

Huh? What makes you think that the Jedi Council 'created' the prophecy or even know what it entails?

Also: what makes you think the Jedi are on the side of 'good'? They kidnap people who are Force sensitive, and have a reputation as babystealers.

[Jaepheth]

I was under the impression that the parent's permission was required before the Jedi could take the child.

[PainRack]

The parents permission apparently isn't needed, the holonet website contains a news article on how there were protests against the Jedi taking a child over the objections of the parent.

Also, according to the novelisation of AOTC, Mace Windu says the prophecy is coming true, the "dark side is rising". Apparently, Windu and the rest of the Jedi council has always focused on the dark side and the Shroud of the Dark Side, rather than their own destructive arrogrance.

This, even when many of the Jedi begins to question the loss of their ideals, something the Clone Wars pushed them over.

[Kurgan]

Isn't HoloNet news a propaganda rag cooked up by the corrupt press (Palpatine has a hand in it? Naaaah...)?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Isn't HoloNet news a propaganda rag cooked up by the corrupt press (Palpatine has a hand in it? Naaaah...)?

Maybe, but we have no evidence of a lie, unless you already assumed the Jedi are good, so they won't do it.

[2000AD]

The parents permission apparently isn't needed, the holonet website contains a news article on how there were protests against the Jedi taking a child over the objections of the parent.

In that case they thought the parents were dead. They did rescue the kid from a ruined building.
According to the article they do require parental consent in normal cases. They didn't give the kid back in this case because they had already trained her for a bit and you don't want someone just wandering around with force powers.

Linkage

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

In that case they thought the parents were dead. They did rescue the kid from a ruined building.
According to the article they do require parental consent in normal cases. They didn't give the kid back in this case because they had already trained her for a bit and you don't want someone just wandering around with force powers.

Apparently, the baby was all of six months old. There was no way that any kind of significant Force power could have been taught. The Jedi training program takes about a decade to bring someone up to Padawan level.

[2000AD]

In that case they thought the parents were dead. They did rescue the kid from a ruined building.
According to the article they do require parental consent in normal cases. They didn't give the kid back in this case because they had already trained her for a bit and you don't want someone just wandering around with force powers.

Apparently, the baby was all of six months old. There was no way that any kind of significant Force power could have been taught. The Jedi training program takes about a decade to bring someone up to Padawan level.

Actually it's 14 months old {Linkage), and they'd spent at least 6 months with the baby.
Now i don't know if that's old enough for force powers to manifest , but if a Jedi Master who's spent all his life with the Force says, "It'll be too dangerous" i'd be inclined to believe him, and not just because he waved his hand when he said it.

In a real world situation would taking a baby away from it's mother at age 8 onths and raising it with someone else for 6 months cause it any mental harm? Would they be able to remember their origional parents in the first place?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Actually it's 14 months old {Linkage), and they'd spent at least 6 months with the baby.

Fine. It is a toddler (and we are talking the very earliest bit of toddler) instead of a total infant.

Now i don't know if that's old enough for force powers to manifest , but if a Jedi Master who's spent all his life with the Force says, "It'll be too dangerous" i'd be inclined to believe him, and not just because he waved his hand when he said it.

Actually, I won't. There's a clear conflict of interest here (it isn't like they have a massive surplus of Jedi), if nothing else, and it is a situation with no "second opinion" source. The guy's explanation was miserably inadequate and irresponsible. That maggot had better at least explain what exercises he did, and how they are supposed to have opened the Force-eye further.

It is hard to imagine a toddler being able to consciously do any suggested exercises to "expand his eye"

It is very difficult to imagine what little Force ability he could have developed to be significant as long as he doesn't continue.

In a real world situation would taking a baby away from it's mother at age 8 onths and raising it with someone else for 6 months cause it any mental harm? Would they be able to remember their origional parents in the first place?

I'd guess a six month old baby would have some memory of its parents. That's not the issue. They are making excuses so they can, understand this , enslave the kid for the rest of its life. Jedi service mixes some of the worst aspects of slavery (in that it is for the whole life), indoctrination (they brainwash you the whole life this is honorable, so hopefully you won't notice the nice things of life you are missing out on) and conscription (in that you are sent to dangerous places to die).

I see that they lost no time in moving the poor little baby far, far away:
http://www.holonetnews.com/52/jediwatch/13418_1.html

[2000AD]

If we accept what the link says then by age 14 months the Jedi have already started their education to the extent of moving a whole class of "toddlers" off planet, so i'd guess the 6 months they've had with her have produced some results.

We've seen people with no training in the force use their powers instinctively (Anakin pod racing, Corran Horn's mind trick), someone with training should be able to do a bit more.

As for the enslavement, well, i suppose in a way it is enslavement. But in normal cases they get parental consent, so it's not like they're just snatching kids away from people like stereotypical slavers to do.