[HN Gopher] Arizona Mom Fights Abusive Prosecution by Department...
___________________________________________________________________
Arizona Mom Fights Abusive Prosecution by Department of Child
Safety
Author : tomohawk
Score : 147 points
Date : 2022-07-24 15:22 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pacificlegal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (pacificlegal.org)
| wincy wrote:
| We live in an upper middle class neighborhood and the only people
| who drive through are other people who live here. Our daughter is
| seven now but we've let her go to her friends house of her own
| volition since she was five.
|
| This wasn't a problem until a woman with several foster children
| (I know this because she told me? I assume she was trying to
| virtue signal to me what a great person she was) moved into our
| neighborhood.
|
| One day she came to our house with our daughter in tow, telling
| us "it isn't safe" and other nonsense. Most of the people on the
| blocks are parents and we have each other's numbers! The next
| time our daughter was out, then came home, a short time later we
| got a knock on the door by a police officer. He was friendly and
| asked to see our daughter to make sure she was okay, but said
| he'd gotten a call and he had to report it to CPS. So the man
| from CPS came and inspected our house to make sure we weren't
| abusing our child.
|
| Luckily nothing came from it but it was really annoying and I
| really hate that neighbor now. We bought our daughter an Apple
| Watch so she can call us and we can GPS track her so she's not
| "being neglected".
|
| It's frustrating because I lived in a much less safe neighborhood
| than we do now and was allowed to range much further when I was
| her age. It just takes one busybody to ruin your life, though.
| listless wrote:
| That is infuriating. What right does the government have to
| come and inspect your house and invade your privacy over your
| child walking around outside?!? In her own neighborhood? Surely
| despite everyone's political leanings we can all agree that
| this is an egregious abuse of power.
| pessimizer wrote:
| We always love to blame the busybody snitch for this, and we
| somehow let the government off the hook, or even paint it as
| a victim.
|
| If somebody reports child neglect, but doesn't report any
| indications that would invite a reasonable suspicion of child
| neglect, the government shouldn't be spending any more time
| on it than on all the other people who don't have any
| evidence of neglect. They're fearful of doing this, because
| if there turns out to be abuse or neglect and they got a
| call, they'll be lynched for it.
|
| They should just triage with consistent rules that respect
| the individual freedom of parents and their children, accept
| that sometimes this will cause them to miss something, but
| not accept that they made a mistake as long as they have a
| record that they stuck to the rules. If the rules are not
| good enough, update the rules.
|
| Child protection agencies should do this regardless of the
| justice system's view of what has happened. Keep a fund for
| settlements, make guidelines good enough that you won't have
| to pay them out often, and immediately settle whenever
| something happens, without taking responsibility. It may not
| appeal to the sense of justice for an agency to pay when it's
| done nothing wrong, but child protection isn't a person, it's
| a function of government, and compensating people who have
| lost something important to them (like a child, sibling, or
| grandchild) is restorative.
|
| edit: Blaming the busybody is similar to being content to
| punish SWATters. We need a system that can receive an
| anonymous report about an innocent person, and not show up
| and kill them. There will always be borderline attention-
| seekers and people who will call in false reports; we need a
| system that expects them. The system failure is the problem
| that we can improve on. The scapegoat is an excuse not to
| improve.
| itronitron wrote:
| I've always considered child protection to be the parents'
| responsibility and not a function of government.
|
| If there was an actual government function focused on child
| protection then every child would receive a bottle of
| multi-vitamins every month, a new helmet every year,
| sunscreen, a winter coat with mittens, scheduled and
| subsidized annual checkups with their pediatricians, etc.
| manquer wrote:
| Depends, if a person is really abusing a child which
| unfortunately happens more frequently than we all want to
| believe, then you would rather have the government intervene
| without complicated red-tape as soon as possible.
|
| In this case above CPS and police just checked up as they
| should on a any complaint and then were fine with OP, the
| system is working as expected (neighbor is still being a
| dick)
|
| Yes it is annoying, but I rather live in a world where the
| police or CPS chase every frivolous compliant than them
| unable to do anything without a court order or not stopping
| abuse enough.
|
| we don't realize how many of our rights society grant to us
| and can take away easily . Raising a child is a one for that
| matter so is marriage, or even managing your own affairs
| (conservatorship), while we no longer just put people in
| mental institutions, government absolutely have the power to
| do so. Compromises of living in a civil society is to abide
| by rules even if it invades the privacy and rights of any one
| individual.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| >>but I rather live in a world where the police or CPS
| chase every frivolous compliant than them unable to do
| anything without a court order or not stopping abuse
| enough.<<
|
| This is a noble goal, but there's a very serious flaw in
| this logic. Money. Our government doesn't prioritize child
| services as much as the military and CPS works on less of a
| budget than you would think,so chasing down frivolous calls
| to action and malicious calls without repercussions and
| someone saying, "They weren't parenting the way I thought
| they should be parenting" (like letting a 7 year old walk
| alone in a safe neighborhood - which is fine). These take
| away much needed resources from very real abuse cases and
| placement services and treatment services for children who
| need them. CPS workers are often over worked and under
| paid, as is.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > I rather live in a world where the police or CPS chase
| every frivolous compliant than them unable to do anything
| without a court order or not stopping abuse enough.
|
| There is a middle ground between "unnecessarily destroying
| people's lives over frivolous complaints" and "not doing
| anything without a court order". The term "not stopping
| abuse enough" is too vague to speak to. There is no system
| where no family will be hurt unnecessarily, and no system
| where abuse is completely prevented. The goal is to
| minimize both.
| dionidium wrote:
| > _Depends, if a person is really abusing a child which
| unfortunately happens more frequently than we all want to
| believe, then you would rather have the government
| intervene without complicated red-tape as soon as
| possible._
|
| No, I _wouldn 't_. This is not a good tradeoff. The world
| sucks and evil exists, but that doesn't give anyone the
| right to come between me and my children, no matter how
| much good they think they're doing on balance. This notion
| must be categorically rejected.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I agree with you, but almost everyone else disagrees with
| us.
| D13Fd wrote:
| Benjamin Franklin said, paraphrasing William Blackstone,
| that "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than
| that one innocent Person should suffer." I feel like
| society chucks that principal out of the window as soon
| as children are involved.
| candiodari wrote:
| > Yes it is annoying, but I rather live in a world where
| the police or CPS chase every frivolous compliant than them
| unable to do anything without a court order or not stopping
| abuse enough.
|
| This is what everybody always says. There's a _serious_
| problem with that however. Unfortunately CPS makes the
| situation of children worse, when they interfere, rather
| than better.
|
| Everybody is always in favour of detecting abuse (never
| mind that there isn't any reliable method to do that, and
| most kids get placed effectively randomly, according to
| research). But when it comes to footing the bill of
| decently caring for the children ... nothing of that favour
| seems to be left. CPS is _terrible_ for kids, and of course
| this raises the question: are they better than abuse at
| home? Or ... worse?
|
| https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583
|
| Or, more dramatic:
|
| https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-
| reports/article23820...
|
| The biggest investigation ever into CPS had to come to the
| conclusion: a kid is better off abused at home than helped
| by CPS, even in the "average" case of actual serious
| physical abuse. Worse: most placements are effectively
| random, depending more on the CPS investigator than on the
| kid or their circumstances, so most kids in CPS _haven 't
| actually been abused_. There's all sorts of extra
| investigations equally bad, for example one concluding that
| the violence in the life of a child _increases_ when CPS
| intervenes to protect a child, rather than decreasing.
|
| And that's ignoring the many CPS scandals where CPS
| employees get caught abusing kids themselves, even renting
| out children for sex, using them as drugrunners, ...
|
| > Depends, if a person is really abusing a child which
| unfortunately happens more frequently than we all want to
| believe, then you would rather have the government
| intervene without complicated red-tape as soon as possible.
|
| NO, I would not want the government to be enabled to do
| this. I would want the government to provide options for
| those children to escape such an environment IF AND ONLY IF
| they have the "durable" agreement of the child (meaning if
| the child wants to go back, they can immediately do so).
| purplerabbit wrote:
| This is an opinion that's risky to have because at a
| superficial level it's not oriented enough around "save
| the children". But there's some good evidence for it.
| There's some great analysis in "The Future of Capitalism"
| by Paul Collier if anyone is interested in a deeper look
| aeneasmackenzie wrote:
| Wow, this is terrible. Obviously we need increased CPS
| funding to resolve this :^)
| brandonmenc wrote:
| Sounds great, until the opposition is handed the keys to
| that sprawling legal and administrative apparatus.
| spoils19 wrote:
| If the government steps in and tries to help kids grow up to
| be modern citizens (read: pious, hard-working, conservative),
| then I don't see a problem with inspecting houses.
| __derek__ wrote:
| Have you considered legal avenues to stop her from harassing
| your family?
| wincy wrote:
| It seems to have stopped. I'm not sure if they moved or she
| just gave up or what. This was two years ago and we were
| cautious about sending her to friends houses but she's
| largely autonomous again. I think having a cell phone watch
| helps immensely (she can say "call mom" and "call dad" to
| Siri).
|
| Technically it was anonymous, so I'm not sure how I'd even
| make a complaint. We did call an attorney and strangely he
| just said "cooperate fully with CPS it'll be fine". Which I
| mean, it was in the end.
| RavingGoat wrote:
| This is common these days. People use CPS to try to bully
| people.
|
| I'm the white parent of a black son we adopted at birth. We
| live in a white middle class neighborhood but one neighbor
| doesn't like having a black kid living there. They've called
| CPS multiple times. It's always nerve racking because you don't
| know what can happen even if though the claims are bogus. They
| come to the door assuming you are guilty.
| jtbayly wrote:
| > This wasn't a problem until a woman with several foster
| children (I know this because she told me? I assume she was
| trying to virtue signal to me what a great person she was)
| moved into our neighborhood. One day she came to our house with
| our daughter in tow, telling us "it isn't safe" and other
| nonsense.
|
| I don't think anybody here has commented that the fact this
| woman fosters is actually directly connected to the fact that
| she reported you.
|
| It's indicative of how broken the whole system is that the
| _training_ to be a foster parent declares things like letting a
| 7-yo walk alone to be unsafe.
|
| Note that these are some of the same social workers that could
| be checking up on you when CPS is called. Thus, it is only a
| happy accident that there weren't charges filed against you.
| 9991 wrote:
| > So the man from CPS came and inspected our house to make sure
| we weren't abusing our child.
|
| Were you legally obligated to let him into your house?
| zargon wrote:
| As the story demonstrates, there could be extra-legal
| consequences whether one allows them in or not. For average
| people without very deep pockets, it's damned if you do,
| damned if you don't.
| wincy wrote:
| I denied the police officer entry. He made me produce my
| child (to show she was there and safe) but that was it. A CPS
| representative came a few days later and we were advised by a
| lawyer to let him in and take a look. He made some minor
| suggestions about cleaning up around our younger daughter's
| high chair (she'd thrown some food around her chair) but
| nothing came of it.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Typically the first visit is a request to be voluntarily let
| in. If denied they will return with a police officer and a
| warrant to enter, and will be more likely to try to hurt your
| family rather than do a cursory walkthrough. It's a bit of
| game theory but it's best to let them in the first time.
| game-of-throws wrote:
| > One day she came to our house with our daughter in tow
|
| So she's grabbing other people's kids off the street? She
| sounds unhinged. I'd do everything I could to get a restraining
| order.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| Sounds like kidnapping to me (I am not a lawyer).
| candiodari wrote:
| If you do that, that will turn one CPS report against you
| into 5. And if it leads to fights with that neighbour,
| worse ...
| inetknght wrote:
| I grew up with CPS being reported against my family on
| multiple occasions. At one point we had 7 CPS reports
| against us. At the end, CPS sent two people -- one being
| a supervisor to make sure nothing was missed -- and two
| sherrifs with a wagon to take away the kids if anything
| untoward was found. The supervisor determined nothing was
| wrong and that the CPS reports were malicious and put a
| note on our file and address stating that further reports
| need to go that specific supervisor.
|
| We didn't have any trouble after that. But it was very
| _very_ stressful.
| itronitron wrote:
| Yeah, I think a restraining order is a reasonable course of
| action. The 'strange neighbor' does not seem to have the best
| intentions and she could have easily spoken to the parent
| without involving the child.
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| happyopossum wrote:
| > but it also isn't amazingly beneficial.
|
| The hell it isn't! Kids learn a ton by being on their own,
| and not relying on a grownup 100% of the time.
| t-3 wrote:
| I walked and biked miles from my house, alone, at that age.
| What's the harm? Kidnappers and childrapists aren't exactly
| common, and independence is a good thing.
| hosh wrote:
| I'd argue that the incrrasing neuroticism and mental health
| issues of each succeeding generation after the Millennials is
| precisely because the lack of this kind of autonomy combined
| with usage of social medial.
|
| Life is risky. Our job as parents are not to keep a child
| from any and all risk, but to curate environments where risks
| are not catastrophic. It's this ability to freely explore
| that a child would exercise initiative and independent
| thinking.
|
| It is this ability that allows a generation to know what they
| can do for leading society when you and I and every preceding
| generation are gone, and they have their own kids to raise.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| >incrrasing neuroticism and mental health issues
|
| I would argue that previous generations had such issues as
| well but they just didn't get talked about as much. It
| would help explain some of the damn the long term all that
| matters is the next year / six months type of thinking.
| hosh wrote:
| They did have those issues, but I don't think it was as
| bad. It also depends on circumstances unique to that
| generation.
|
| MacLuhan of the "the medium is the message" watched with
| concern an entire generation of electrification and
| broadcast radio and TV. He watched as people become
| passive consumers of content, content which shaped and
| homoginized culture.
|
| Another example is there if you read the history and the
| fictional literature of the Gilded Age (around 1890s).
| Automation of household tasks combined with a shift to
| industrial jobs outside of home lead to the rise of the
| movement for the right for women to vote ... and also,
| the discontent and malaise from no longer being able to
| contribute meaningfully for the household outside of
| raising of children. That went on well in the 50s.
|
| The ability for someone to be able to meaningfully
| contribute unique to them to something greater than
| themselves is a key to well-being for both the person and
| the community they belong to. The erosion of that ability
| has been going on for multiple generations.
|
| When kids today are restricted from being able to
| meaningfully contribute (because it is not risk-free),
| they turn to other places. Social media are that place,
| but the social media companies are out to make a profit,
| not to enable meaningful engagement. Internet use is
| largely uncurated by parents. So we end up with a society
| where we have this veneer of keeping kids "safe" by
| keeping them off the streets, but letting them run wild
| on the internet. (Example: Roblox)
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There is that, but TikTok has basically allowed the
| explosion of the "psych 101" effect where you learn a
| very surface level about psychology and start self-
| diagnosing.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I would argue to disagree with ascribing mental health
| issues after the Millennials due to whatever is also
| relatively new at the time like kids having more
| supervision. This essentially boxes your theory to apply to
| only one generation (gen Z), so what you're describing is
| only that Gen Z are more mentally ill than Millennials,
| which... are you sure you can neatly form causal
| relationships between one generation to one specific
| change? How are you doing that?
| chiph wrote:
| At that age I was walking two blocks to school, and was going
| to friend's houses to see if they wanted to play. By age 12 I
| was riding my bike two miles to go buy ice cream & candy. In
| my early 20's I drove across the US (South Carolina to
| California) by myself over several days. No cell phone or
| other safety net.
|
| Being overprotective means your kids don't develop a spirit
| of adventure and self-reliance. Is there a risk of their
| coming to harm? The statistics say chances are lower than
| ever. Violent crime peaked in 1991 and has trended downward
| (+/-) ever since (this site is run by the FBI):
|
| https://crime-data-
| explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/cri...
| GordonS wrote:
| By 12 I would sometimes (through choice, or because I'd
| missed the daily bus) walk 4 miles to school along country
| roads, before cellphones were a thing.
|
| I'd also go camping, alone or with friends, in the middle
| of nowhere, with my parents only knowing very roughly where
| I was (e.g. "we're camping on such-and-such estate, near
| the area with the wild boars" :)
|
| Now, as a parent, I keep catching myself being a helicopter
| parent, and hate myself for it! Nothing catastrophic
| happened to me or my siblings, or anyone else I knew of. So
| I don't even know why I act this way now.
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| @dang
| klyrs wrote:
| That doesn't work here, the way to contact mods is to email
| hn@ycombinator.com
| jacquesm wrote:
| done
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| By what metric? This is a normal everyday thing in some
| countries. I was running to the corner store and grabbing
| milk, cheese or beer, among other groceries, when I was under
| 10. This was Spain in the 80s/90s and afaik is still a thing.
| Or walking clear across town to hang out with friends or go
| to school. In what way is teaching kids independence and
| giving them your trust not beneficial?
| kodah wrote:
| I was leaving the house alone by 5 and 6. I'd go hours in
| the local forest, down by the lake, through the
| neighborhood, and to the city. My mom made sure I
| understood landmarks and what places that could help me
| looked like. Of all the trauma I experienced in my early
| life, none of it was from those activities. If anything
| they taught me a lot about getting along on my own.
| itronitron wrote:
| It seems to have stopped being a thing in the US in the
| `90's, for whatever reason. I recall walking to and from
| school as a 1st grader, although everyone was doing it
| which made everyone inherently more likely to reach their
| destination.
|
| If I was in charge, I would set the residential speed
| limits to 20mph and have the Police enforce those speed
| limits 24/7.
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| pjbeam wrote:
| Are you a parent? Part of a child growing up is
| developing independence in sometimes controlled,
| sometimes impromptu scenarios. Most 7 year olds are
| entirely capable of cruising around a couple houses where
| the adults all know each other.
|
| If you put your child in a bubble you not only stunt
| their development you also rob them of so much joy.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| The vast majority of bad things that happen to children
| are because of adults close to the child abusing the
| child.
| lbrito wrote:
| Japan does fine with 3 year olds.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMZp8KsZ5k
|
| Is Japan safer than the US on average? Yes. Is the US so
| unsafe that sending a 7-year old to the neighbouring
| kids' homes should be frown upon?
| hosh wrote:
| There was an article about a parent who tried to do
| exactly that, in America. But the parent did not throw
| the kid into the deep end. For at least a year, the child
| was taken on those errands, being familiarized with the
| rule of the road, introduced to store clerks.
|
| Ideas this author generated include -- sending an older
| child along; secretly following to observe without
| intervening on anything less than catastrophic risks;
| sending the kid to neighbors to borrow a cup of sugar
| (and acquaint them to the neighborhood), and so forth.
| tertius wrote:
| What ifs could happen to anyone at any time.
|
| What if I get HIV from a needle at a park bench? Do I
| need to inspect every park bench I sit on with UV light
| at night and leather gloves to be sure?
|
| Where do you draw your line. Clearly your lines are
| different than others.
|
| You should consider that their lines are based on
| rational investigation of the risk. Is yours?
| brandur wrote:
| Let Grow keeps a good mythbusting page on crime stats:
|
| https://letgrow.org/crime-statistics/
|
| The tl;dr is that helicopter parenting is relatively new
| -- only something that's come into play in the last few
| decades -- and in all the time before that kids had far
| more freedom to roam compared to today. Even factoring in
| an uptick in the murder rate in the last couple years
| that came about during Covid policy, it's still half of
| what is was in the early 90s or prior to that.
|
| It seems like the world is more dangerous now because of
| the outsized attention crime gets in media, but
| objectively speaking, it's not.
|
| And keeping kids at home on their screens is having
| definite negative consequences on their maturation and
| later ability to succeed in the world. Here's a good
| article on the subject:
|
| https://reason.com/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generation/
| nanidin wrote:
| I agree - Mean World Syndrome [0] is taking its toll on
| society.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_world_syndrome
| hosh wrote:
| Life has many risks. Some risks can be recovered from,
| and others are life long damage. It's the latter,
| catastrophic risks that parents should be curating the
| environment from.
|
| Kids learn from failure. It's letting them fail and learn
| that grows strong adults.
|
| Some risks can be mitigated. Learning to tumble and take
| a fall, for example, mitigates risks of falling well into
| the elderly years.
|
| And as for 5 or 7 year old, yes. Or flip to the other
| side-- traditional society, including indigenous
| societies, start training their toddlers on chores.
| Toddlers already want to help, and these are often
| behaviors they are already doing, like pulling clothes
| from laundry baskets.
|
| Five year old and seven year olds are capable. In Japan,
| two year olds are sent on errands.
|
| And, I have heard at least one story of an American
| family where the mother had her 7 and 8 year old kid take
| over meal planning and prep for dinner, and paying the
| bills. (She didn't just throw them into the deep end
| either).
| [deleted]
| noasaservice wrote:
| We live in safer times then pretty much all of recorded
| history.
|
| And frankly, the 7yr old has more to fear at school with
| 'assault drills' and the mass shootings of some foreig....
| 'mentally instable white guy'.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > And frankly, the 7yr old has more to fear at school with
| 'assault drills' and the mass shootings of some foreig....
| 'mentally instable white guy'.
|
| This is an extreme exaggeration of the threat of mass
| shootings at public schools. Children have far more to fear
| at home or on the street than at school, which is the
| safest place they'll be all day.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| A joke from the comedian Trevor Moore (rip):
|
| > _" What if governments learned from the MKUltra
| experiments in the 50's that trauma allows you to control
| people, so they purposely orchestrate disastrous events
| to keep their citizens afraid + dependent on them, and
| that's one of the reasons that mental illness has been
| rising? lol"_
|
| https://twitter.com/itrevormoore/status/14001589637489172
| 49
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| When did I say the schools were safe?
|
| If something bad happens to your kid while they walk down
| the road alone, what will the cops and CPS do to you then?
| noasaservice wrote:
| You didn't. But you were making blanket statements about
| unsafe neighborhoods, which are blatantly false... Except
| for schools.
|
| It's funny how having a 7yr old in a small group
| wandering around together is some horrible thing (as you
| point out to mostly mythical violence), but sending kid
| to public school where bullying is routine and other
| terrible things are never considered child abuse.
|
| If I sent my child to a building for 40h a week, and they
| suffered 8h abuse across the week, they'd be taken from
| me. But since it's called "School" it's acceptable.
| the_only_law wrote:
| This person's go-to responses to tell people to kill
| themselves. I think this is a violent potentially abusive
| person. Maybe someone should call the cops/CPS if they
| have kids.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Nothing happens to children when they walk down roads
| alone. Almost all kidnappings are a result of people the
| child knows, trusts, and is otherwise close to.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| retrac wrote:
| How are kids gonna get to school otherwise? It's a good idea
| to travel in a group at that age, but not always practical.
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| r87 wrote:
| Not all towns have bus service.
| retrac wrote:
| Where I live (Canada) those are only for disabled
| children or those attending a school more than 1.5 km
| away from where they live. And after the age of 10, they
| take public transit.
|
| This thread is making me realize how variable different
| locales are on this.
| johnnyo wrote:
| In my town, if you live within a mile of the school, you
| don't get bus service. It's assumed you will walk
| Tao3300 wrote:
| > it also isn't amazingly beneficial
|
| You got a source for that?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| _Even if_ it isn 't "amazingly beneficial", who the fuck
| cares? Chewing bubblegum or playing a gameboy isn't
| "amazingly beneficial" but we still let kids do that. What
| he hell kind of standard is that?
|
| Edit: Wew this thread went from bizarre to disturbing in
| record time. No parting rage-quit response for me? I feel
| left out...
| [deleted]
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| kyralis wrote:
| Anecdote, much? I ran around with other kids in the
| neighborhood without direct adult supervision all the
| time as a child. I now make well north of your 250k USD
| with a loving wife and a house.
|
| Neither story means anything in the general case.
| klyrs wrote:
| A single self-reported datapoint is not a "source."
| Sounds like you don't know what you might have been
| missing and don't care to find out. Good for you, I
| guess?
|
| Edit: parent's dead reply is an _incredibly_ clear
| illustration of how such an isolated, unenriched
| childhood can impact social development. My kid 's out
| playing in our neighborhood, thanks.
| game-of-throws wrote:
| If you had gotten out of the house more, you might have
| learned that we live in an incredibly diverse world, and
| not everyone needs to grow up exactly like you did.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pessimizer wrote:
| Are you also evidence that everything else you haven't
| done isn't beneficial?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Folks that live in UMC* neighborhoods seldom see much of the
| "dark side" of CPS.
|
| I know about it from both sides.
|
| First, CPS exists for a reason. I have family that used to run
| a group home for kids that were made wards of the state. The
| things that people will do _to their own children_ is
| infuriating and heartbreaking. I have also been involved in an
| organization that deals with a lot of this stuff, for years,
| and have seen it, firsthand.
|
| Child abuse also happens in UMC neighborhoods, but those folks
| are usually better at chasing away CPS cases, so you generally
| hear about them in less affluent areas, where the people don't
| have the means to fight (and also, the stress of living poor
| will often exacerbate child abuse/endangerment).
|
| Second, CPS is notoriously "un-constitutional." Parents are
| guilty until proved innocent, and the caseworkers have great
| authority to be absolute tyrants. Anonymous tips from
| skeezballs, are given the weight of a policeman's sworn
| affidavit.
|
| As a result, ratting out single moms to CPS is a favorite
| pastime of jerk ex-boyfriends. They make the poor girl (and, I
| guess, nowadays, boy)'s life a living hell, which they often
| can't bear, as they are already on the balls of their ass; not
| to mention tying up resources that could be better focused on
| real child abuse.
|
| People can really suck.
|
| * _Upper Middle Class_
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _I know about it from both sides._
|
| ...
|
| _Anonymous tips from skeezballs, are given the weight of a
| policeman 's sworn affidavit..._
|
| This is one of those weird supposedly-balanced posts. The
| balance is, "on the one hand" CPS persecutes a lot of
| innocent people. "On the other hand", CPS fails to find
| determined and intelligent pedophiles working to evade it.
| You ever think that this isn't sane balance at all? Like
| maybe CPS is failing to find people doing calculated horrible
| things _because_ it 's approach is this abusive scattershot?
| Especially, any enforcement agency has a incentive laziness
| (heck everyone has one). If a worker can effortlessly produce
| cases against random schmucks, they have less incentive to
| work hard to find the people systematically evading them.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| CPS is failing because it's severely understaffed and
| underfunded. It's hard to find dedicated abusers or even
| just neglectful parents when you have thousands of cases,
| few social workers, and computer systems from the 1980s. It
| also allows apathetic and downright sadistic people to keep
| their jobs, because you don't have the resources for proper
| oversight or the competitive job offers to replace them
| anyways.
|
| Most CPS workers have good intentions, and would be
| competent. Except that they have to take on way too many
| cases with limited resources.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> I know about it from both sides. ... Anonymous tips from
| skeezballs, are given the weight of a policeman 's sworn
| affidavit... This is one of those weird supposedly-balanced
| posts. The balance is, "on the one hand" CPS persecutes a
| lot of innocent people. "On the other hand", CPS fails to
| find determined and intelligent pedophiles working to evade
| it. You ever think that this isn't sane balance at all?
| Like maybe CPS is failing to find people doing calculated
| horrible things because it's approach is this abusive
| scattershot? Especially, any enforcement agency has a
| incentive laziness (heck everyone has one). If a worker can
| effortlessly produce cases against random schmucks, they
| have less incentive to work hard to find the people
| systematically evading them._
|
| Hey, here's a suggestion:
|
| Instead of sending out thinly-veiled insults, why not try
| just addressing the point you want to make (which is quite
| valid)? Wrapping it in ineffective _ad hominem_ actually
| destroys it. I suspect that you may have some real
| experience, and could bring an important viewpoint to this
| thread.
|
| As someone who has had close, intimate relationships with
| folks on both sides of this really heartbreaking and awful
| issue, I feel that I _actually have_ the ability to see
| "both sides," so your insult looks a little flaccid, to me.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I don't think this was a thinly veiled insult either. It
| was what we call "robust debate."
|
| Bruce Schneier popularized the term "security theater." I
| would broaden that to "policing theater."
|
| I've noticed that a lot of public protection agencies
| like to demonstrate to the normies that they're on the
| job by _prosecuting_ the normies. After all, normies are
| much less likely to fight back than real pedophiles. And
| they still count as "enforcement actions."
| itronitron wrote:
| Absolutely, they would rather accumulate the easy stats
| than handle hard cases.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _Instead of sending out thinly-veiled insults_
|
| There's no _personal insult_ involved in my above. It 's
| true I think the opinion of the above poster is both
| problematic and an approach that actually does real
| damage.
|
| I mean, certainly "you ever think about that?" is a
| rhetorical turn of phrase but so is "I've seen both
| sides?" The discussion is informal here and emotional
| appeals happen on both sides. I don't really see the
| problem.
|
| Edit: The problem with "balance both sides" is that it
| really is the position of one side. It's "sum of a
| (negative) utility function" outcome argument but
| generally put very emotionally. William Blackstone
| articulated the basic principle "It is better that ten
| guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" but
| today's justice asks instead "What is the cost of
| persecuting ten innocent persons if it allows one guilty
| person to be caught" and then tells you of the (indeed
| true) horrors some guilty person has done. And one can't
| argue "small chunk" with that kind of bullshit. One has
| to attack this very conceptual framework for what it is,
| a pernicious approach. I feel no reason to be nice about
| it. This is not ad hominem, I'm not arguing from
| someone's personal failing to a claim of their argument
| being wrong. But there's requirement to be "touchy feely"
| and talk how much I respect everyone. We're beyond that
| at HN I think.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> We 're beyond that at HN I think._
|
| That's a fascinating thing to say, when discussing being
| polite and empathetic.
|
| I could tell you stories (again from personal
| relationships with the folks being persecuted, and from
| friends that are social workers that are the
| "persecutors"), that would bolster my statement (which,
| for some strange reason, you can't seem to accept as
| valid).
|
| But I won't, because they are not my stories to tell.
|
| It's entirely possible to see multiple sides of difficult
| issues. We may not have the answer, but we can recognize
| the validity of everyone's position. I've been doing that
| for decades. It's not a "superpower." We're all quite
| capable of it. It's just that we seem to live in a
| culture that demands we "choose a side."
|
| I don't really care whether or not you believe me. I said
| my piece, and I'll leave it at that.
|
| Have a great day.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _I could tell you stories (again from personal
| relationships with the folks being persecuted, and from
| friends that are social workers that are the
| "persecutors"), that would bolster my statement (which,
| for some strange reason, you can't seem to accept as
| valid)._
|
| My argument above is not some claim either that horrible
| things don't happen or that you don't have experience
| with these horrible things - or even that you don't have
| experience with CPS getting out of hand. So it's false
| imo to say that there is something I "can't seem to
| accept as valid" _in itself_.
|
| Which is to say, you're being very respectable while
| flagrantly misstating my position. This is a bad kind of
| "meeting in the middle" view.
|
| I'm talking systems. I think we should talk systems -
| millions of people and millions of children are affected.
| There isn't an experience you could personally offer
| that's going fundamental change our concept of what CPS
| has become as a system.
|
| Edit: A big thing is that in many US social services, we
| have a giant machine which does horrible, horrible things
| but where each person who's a part of it can honestly say
| they're doing their best and can point to other horrible
| things that might happen if they stopped doing the
| problematic thing they do now. It's a "tensile structure"
| ... of evil. It can't be fixed by balancing, it maintains
| itself with arguments of apparent balance. Which is why I
| feel justified making a call to cut through the broad
| "balance" perspective.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Child abuse also happens in foster care homes, in fact the
| chances of that are a lot higher than in the normal
| population.
|
| Between four(!) and twenty eight(!!!) more times:
|
| https://www.focusforhealth.org/sex-abuse-and-the-foster-
| care...
| peteradio wrote:
| > already on the balls of their ass
|
| Off topic, but thanks for this idiom.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| This is absolutely true. In the US there are so many
| situations that have gone south, that CPS and the courts have
| an almost learned reflex to never give breaks. These cases
| could be physical child abuse, or sex abuse, and could even
| go all the way up to death. As a kind of 'prototypical'
| example of what I'm talking about, Google Kamari Gholston
| [0].
|
| And when these sorts of things happen, it never fails, all
| the 'parental rights advocates' out there that were
| previously pushing to be more lenient with parents scatter.
| And the judge and CPS are left holding the bag. (Some of the
| 'parental rights advocates' even flip flop, and now call for
| heads to roll, because now all of a sudden they are child
| welfare advocates. :eye roll:)
|
| So now the judge, the police and CPS have not only the
| political leaders and the general population asking
| uncomfortable questions, but CNN and Fox News trucks outside
| their homes asking questions as well. For the judge and the
| CPS workers, their careers are ruined not only locally, but
| nationally. There's no coming back from that.
|
| Well the other judges and CPS workers see what happens, and
| are that much less likely to give a single mother a break in
| the future for example. And it just iterates and escalates
| with each tortured, raped, or murdered (or all three) child.
|
| [0] - https://www.invisiblechildren.org/2022/06/23/kamari-
| gholston...
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _CPS and the courts have an almost learned reflex to never
| give breaks..._
|
| This "learning" does not seem to me to be a sane evolution
| but rather a degeneration. A friend of mine describes how
| his father being a policeman let him see the worst in
| people. And there's a logical progression from seeing the
| worst to thinking the worst to not caring if you ruin
| someone's life through abusive prosecution. As I mentioned,
| catching a determined pedophile is hard but the "just put
| people in jail for nuisance and hope some of them are
| pedophiles" isn't protecting or helping anyone ... except
| an abusive and metastasized (in)justice system.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Exactly. Call it "policing theater." Demonstrate that
| you're doing your job, by doing it _a lot_.
| pjbeam wrote:
| This is a real shame, it's bad for your daughter and life in
| general. I have three kids and as much as I'd love to let them
| roam a bit like my wife and I did as kids, stories like yours
| scare the hell out of me.
|
| I don't know how we arrived at kids walking around in their own
| neighborhoods is neglect but life sure is poorer for it.
| wincy wrote:
| Now that she's seven and has the watch everything seems fine.
| She goes further than ever and we haven't gotten complaints.
| Maybe the lady gave up or decided my daughter's magically old
| enough now.
|
| We also have run ins with CPS more often than normal because
| we have a disabled child. We were reported to CPS because our
| daughter has issues with holding her breath (her brain stem
| isn't quite right, she essentially has a condition where if
| she gets upset she forgets to breathe and has to be
| "rebooted" by giving her breaths) the EMTs came into the
| house and found her crib with poop in it when they took her
| to the hospital.
|
| The thing is, when she holds her breath she proceeds to have
| a massive bowel movement that no diaper can contain. Hence
| the poop in the crib. The crazy thing is that to "protect"
| her, the state withdrew her nursing care (as they were being
| investigated by CPS), and forced the burden of taking care of
| her fully onto me and my wife.
|
| This was during the crazy nursing shortage in 2021 so of
| course our nurses found better jobs that pay far better Which
| I'm glad for them, but it left us in a tight spot. We're
| lucky enough that we make enough money that my wife can stay
| at home but this would have been absolutely ruinous for other
| families. The nursing shortage is so bad that the state had
| enacted a program where my wife gets paid to be her caregiver
| (which is funny, being your child's employee, her name is on
| the checks).
|
| It's all very frustrating and makes us cautious with what we
| say to doctors and other mandatory reporters, even if we
| think we're being good parents. One time I gave my daughter a
| sip of Mountain Dew and mentioned it to the doctor and now
| it's in the "permanent record" that I give her Mountain Dew.
| dominotw wrote:
| I have family that choose to live in 100% Indian community in
| dallas for this exact reason. Kids can go in and out of the
| house at will. They walk around outside and find other kids to
| play and hangout. No playdates, no schedules, no dropoffs.
|
| I used to think living in 100% indian community is a bit weird;
| after all america is about diversity, learning and
| understanding other cultures. But now i see the light and
| recommend this lifestyle for anyone with kids.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Ask your family why they only feel comfortable doing this in
| a 100% Indian community.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > But now i see the light and recommend this lifestyle for
| anyone with kids.
|
| How many other residents in the US can live in a 100% indian
| community. Is that one still 100%, the family is indian?
|
| the key takeaway being that it avoids this snitching system?
| dominotw wrote:
| yes homogeneity brings higher levels of trust. people just
| talk to each other, going to law enforcement isn't the
| first instict.
| deepdriver wrote:
| Depending on your ingroup, espousing this opinion can
| ruin your life and career in the US. It is true
| regardless, as measured by numerous and repeated studies.
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-
| political-s...
| lupire wrote:
| manquer wrote:
| I don't know if I would recommend it necessarily and saying
| this is an Indian living in America.
|
| Indian Americans are no means more forward thinking than
| other communities, they just have different things they
| would be nosy about, for example many parents would
| disapprove of American boyfriends and even some Indian ones
| from different caste or communities.
| samarthr1 wrote:
| While i agree in part with your generalization about
| Indian parents, issues of caste have come down a lot over
| the past 75 odd years...
|
| I cannot speak of (or for) the indo-american community
| though, given that most of my life experiences have been
| in large cities, but amongst fairly diverse strata of
| society.
| astura wrote:
| The best part of growing up in an urban area is there was
| always neighborhood kids to play with. Just walk outside and
| see who else is out.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Are you sure about the area? Texas does have a few recognized
| tribes, but they are nowhere near Dallas.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > they are nowhere near Dallas
|
| https://www.texasalmanac.com/articles/the-asian-indian-in-
| te...
|
| "The Dallas-Fort Worth area is home to one of the oldest
| Indian American communities in Texas."
| itcrowd wrote:
| Probably referring to Indian as in India, not Native
| American (but I'm not sure)
| cryptonector wrote:
| Now add maskin' n' vaxxin' to the mix.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| There's a SCOTUS decision, nickname _Chevron deference_ which is
| due to be overturned, and I think most of the posters here should
| be in favor of overturning it. In AZ, I 'm pretty sure the
| Legislature and Governor never intended that parents like this
| should be prosecuted, but DCS is interpreting their broad
| statutory authority that way.
|
| IANAL, but I believe it says that an administrative agency's
| interpretation of the law, if it considers the law ambiguous,
| should govern. Overturning it will mean that the Legislature and
| Governor make the laws, not the agencies.
|
| Yeah, that probably _will_ mean that either nothing or the wrong
| thing (from your perspective) happens, but that 's another
| problem.
| manquer wrote:
| Hardly, overturning chevron especially in the polarized grid
| locked congress of today would be chaos.
|
| Also practically the legislative branch cannot reasonably
| dictate laws about every single thing . Neither are they
| experts nor are is there remotely enough staff in all of
| Capitol Hill to do that.
|
| Overturning chevron would take away force of law from
| regulation and make governing more legislative and judicial
| rather than executive.
|
| Government cannot function with regulators unable to do
| anything unless congress or court saying so explicitly.
|
| That doesn't mean we don't have a ton of over regulation or bad
| ones, removing Chevron is not a solution for that though.
|
| PS : Arizona where this story is from already overturned
| chevron at the state level
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > the legislative branch cannot reasonably dictate laws about
| every single thing
|
| That's a feature, because there should not be laws about
| every single thing.
|
| If a law is ambiguous, a judge should decide how it applies.
| Not an bureaucrat in a governemnt agency.
| manquer wrote:
| Everything cannot be litigated. Litigation is expensive and
| time consuming.
|
| Also there are not enough judges to take that kind of work
| load.
|
| Judgements by lower courts don't set precedents, so the
| same issue would be litigated 1000s of times each judge of
| jury giving different results.
|
| Higher courts have even less judges.
|
| Laws are guidelines, the real details of any law is in the
| code or regulations built around it. Chevron is about
| whether regulations have force of law or not .
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| You might want to study up on legal drafting &
| construction.
|
| It IS possible to write laws that are reasonably broad
| without just saying "the agency will do whatever it wants
| here." Maybe it's not easy, but that's what the lawyers
| learn in law school.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| The roles that the federal legislative branch has assumed
| over the past 100 years are misguided and mostly based under
| an interpretation of the interstate commerce clause and how
| much power can be delegated away from the legislature.
|
| I can hold that observation and also realize that it will be
| wildly disruptive to make an adverse ruling on that power. I
| can also see there are other ways to reach the same result,
| its really not rogue or illegitimate for a court to simply
| say "leave that to your _elected_ representatives ", and
| thats what the court is going to do. Its extremely
| predictable and does not require any circular logic to do so.
|
| I don't think the disruptive nature is a reason to avoid
| doing it, as a consensus bridging solution would be resilient
| as well, antifragile.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _mostly based under an interpretation of the interstate
| commerce clause_
|
| The case that established the federal government's wide
| Commerce Clause powers is truly bizarre:
|
| "An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed
| animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had
| established limits on wheat production, based on the
| acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and
| supplies. Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was
| ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that because
| his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated as
| commerce, let alone 'interstate' commerce (described in the
| Constitution as 'Commerce... among the several states').
| The Supreme Court disagreed: 'Whether the subject of the
| regulation in question was 'production', 'consumption', or
| 'marketing' is, therefore, not material for purposes of
| deciding the question of federal power before us.... But
| even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not
| be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature,
| be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic
| effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of
| whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have
| been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect.''"
|
| In essence, not buying or selling wheat that is grown and
| consumed locally was somehow interstate commerce.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Buying less grain obviously effects grain prices, and
| since the grain market is interstate it effects
| interstate commerce.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| So "commerce" takes place even when you don't buy or sell
| anything? Is that what you're saying?
| [deleted]
| tzs wrote:
| DCS is a state agency, not a federal agency. Chevron only
| concerned federal agencies.
| grapeskin wrote:
| > Overturning it will mean that the Legislature and Governor
| make the laws, not the agencies.
|
| In a country where Congress has been deadlocked for decades and
| a large number of states are racing to push the absolute limits
| of what they can take in corporate bribes and push moral
| crusades that'll be forgotten 5 years from now but have
| lifelong consequences, that's going to be an absolute disaster
| and it's mindblowing that it's being cheered on.
|
| Some states might be better off. A few are trying to shoot
| their heads off and force others to do it with them.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| > In a country where Congress has been deadlocked for decades
|
| So your answer to the problem of a government you don't like
| is: invent another one?
|
| A better answer is just to write laws more carefully, broad
| enough to cover unforeseen circumstances, yet not so broad
| that they can be stretched to mean absolutely anything.
|
| That IS challenging. On the other hand, there are a lot of
| lawyers working for our Congresspeople, so they should be up
| to the challenge.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Your better answer isn't possible. Not only is passing laws
| basically impossible at this point, but giving bureaucratic
| institutions authority to solve unforeseen problems is a
| good thing. It just isn't possible for lawmakers to
| conceive of every loophole and edge case. It's too slow to
| pass a new law every time one comes up, if it's even
| possible at all.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| You are throwing up a false and dishonest choice: it's
| not "conceive of every loophole and edge case" vs. "let
| bureaucrats do whatever they want."
| colinmhayes wrote:
| West Virginia v EPA is the case that overturned the chevron
| case you're complaining about. I'm not sure that it applies to
| state agencies though, might only be federal.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| you & the other poster are right, of course -- SCOTUS only
| deals with Federal controversies.
|
| They do set a (non-binding) direction for state Supreme
| Courts, though.
| noasaservice wrote:
| This kind of bureaucratic law/not-law is because it's a
| bureaucratic determination and not a "law" proper.
|
| It's the same kind of "its not really criminal until it is"
| regarding speeding and not wearing a seatbelt. Traffic court is a
| farce, and has been long used as a bypass of proper defense by
| saying "driving is a privileged and not a right".. when the very
| body punishing you is the state. That conveniently is thrown out
| the window as things move up the chain. Sure looks criminal at
| all phases, even if it is "minor crimes".
|
| Naturally, other quazi-"not really criminal until it is"
| bureaucracies need destroyed. Like utterly, completely; until
| they start complying with proper courts for finding of fact and
| acting only upon punishment phase if found guilty.
| [deleted]
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| I used to work for the govt...govt bureaucrats are always looking
| for new things to do...software is cutting down on their work...
|
| and those new things entail controlling our lives...and I don't
| see any solution for this problem
| plasticchris wrote:
| Why not let the govt people find other work? It isn't a law of
| nature that the public sector must never shrink, though it does
| feel that way sometimes.
| happyopossum wrote:
| Look at California - the biggest lobbyists in the state are
| govt employee unions. Care to guess how'd theyd respond to
| cutting government jobs?
| lbrito wrote:
| Some time ago I watched a Not Just Bikes (bear with me) video
| where Jason mentioned how ridiculous the oversight expectations
| were in US/Canada. He mentioned a Vancouver parent that was
| "fighting police for the right to send his kids to school alone
| on public transit" or something. I thought that was ridiculous,
| it can't possibly be true. I guess its not ridiculous after all.
| jbay808 wrote:
| > a Vancouver parent that was "fighting police for the right to
| send his kids to school alone on public transit" or something.
|
| It's true (although it wasn't the police but rather the
| Ministry of Children & Family Development). It was a big local
| story. Fortunately he won.
|
| http://5kids1condo.com/we-won-common-sense-prevails-in-bus-d...
| exotree wrote:
| CPS is very often put in a "damned if you do; damned if you
| don't." Miss _one_ case, and the state is on the hook for
| millions, a case manager who makes $47k a year at 60 hrs a week
| with an oversized case load takes on an incredible amount of
| liability.
|
| My wife worked as a case manager and I worked in a group home
| from 19-21. It was appalling how cruel and terrible parents (or
| other relatives) could be. No matter what socioeconomic class
| you're in, child abuse is not as uncommon as one would think.
|
| And we haven't even touched on vulnerable adults....
|
| This particular experience is not an ideal situation. But also, I
| am concerned by how many commenters believe CPS and their related
| agencies are completely incompetent or unnecessary.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _Miss _one_ case, and the state is on the hook for millions, a
| case manager who makes $47k a year at 60 hrs a week with an
| oversized case load takes on an incredible amount of
| liability._
|
| Yes that's insane but such insanity is hardly an argument for
| CPS making sane, reasonable decisions. It seems to point in the
| opposite direction.
|
| _But also, I am concerned by how many commenters believe CPS
| and their related agencies are completely incompetent or
| unnecessary._
|
| Something like CPS seems necessary but that need doesn't imply
| that current CPS is competent. It seems like you have a grossly
| incompetent and abusive system that continuously defends itself
| by pointing to how necessary it is.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Miss _one_ case, and the state is on the hook for millions,
|
| Doesn't the state and its agents have qualified immunity?
| exotree wrote:
| It gets a lot murkier for CPS and its varying contractors
| unlike law enforcement.
|
| https://www.kare11.com/amp/article/news/investigations/mn-
| su...
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| anigbrowl wrote:
| There's a lot of context missing, starting with the age of the
| kids.
| phyzome wrote:
| Right? How could you possibly write a story like this without
| mentioning whether the kids were 2, 7, or 14? Those would be
| _very_ different stories from each other...
| happyopossum wrote:
| 7.
|
| (1) https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/arizona-
| mo...
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| egberts1 wrote:
| I am so old that I used to ride a bike across town past the
| social worker's house to a park to play all day (and swim the
| raging American River) at the age of 10.
|
| Yeah, it is all about proper conditioning of your kids to these
| wild, wild nest of anti-social works.
|
| If I were a city kid, I'd probably should not be doing that given
| the danger of kid-related crimes which are commonly prevalent in
| urban settings (not only by frequency, but by density).
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| SeanLuke wrote:
| CPS could well be the spawn of Satan. But with the exception of a
| minor (Breitbart-like rag) Tennessee Star article, 100% of the
| references I can find on the Google appear to be postings and
| promotions from Pacific Legal and its partner, the Goldwater
| Institute. There does not appear to be a single non-ultra-biased
| source reporting this story. Which means, as far as we know, it
| could be entirely nonsense.
| astura wrote:
| In this case a primary source is available. Here's a copy of
| the suit filed with the court -
| https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
|
| I didn't read it so idk what it says
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| You have a closed loop there: no media outlet I like is
| reporting on it, so it must not be true.
|
| So if Big Media ignores the story, by definition it never
| happened?
| User23 wrote:
| This is observably the prevailing folk epistemology in the
| USA.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Hmmm, did i use the words "must" or "never"?
|
| Essentially no media outlet is reporting on it. At all. Heck,
| the link provided to HN is directly from the PR of the legal
| firm itself: that would be the _definition_ of an ultra
| biased source. They haven 't even gone to court yet. In
| short: we have zero evidence that these events occurred the
| way being claimed.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| > Essentially no media outlet is reporting on it
|
| Shall I compile a list of stories that major media outlets
| have buried? Maybe reported once, and then forgotten about?
|
| Supposing they do go to court, but major media outlets
| still don't cover it?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| > Shall I compile a list of stories that major media
| outlets have buried?
|
| This is relevant how? You do understand the logical error
| you just made, right?
|
| > Supposing they do go to court, but major media outlets
| still don't cover it?
|
| Then we will have some evidence of the truthfulness (or
| falsehood) of the plaintiff's case.
| happyopossum wrote:
| The Pacific Legal Foundation is an amazing organization, and has
| fought this kind of battle over and over again for people that
| would never be able to afford attorneys of that caliber.
| diydsp wrote:
| purplerabbit wrote:
| Why would you assume that conservatives are the ones spooked
| about unattended children?
| gnicholas wrote:
| They're libertarian, not left-leaning. John Yoo should be a
| giveaway that it's not left-leaning...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation
| ciguy wrote:
| Totally insane that you can be prosecuted now for letting your
| kids play in a park. If this is truly the whole story, I hope she
| gets a nice fat settlement and the agency that did this gets
| gutted.
|
| Unfortunately that's almost never how it works out in real life.
| The beaurocratic idiots that decided to ruin her life to boost
| their stats will get promoted and replaced by more idiots.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| IME the people working at CPS tend to lack judgment and have
| have a controlling and abusive mindset.
|
| I would never let a child near a CPS worker.
| marcinzm wrote:
| I assume very few people who deal with actually abusive
| parents and their kids (as CPS often does) would come out the
| other end without severe mental trauma.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Yeah, there should be some measurement tool to evaluate how
| awful people are in different branches of the government.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| More details if you click through a bit:
|
| > she dropped off her seven-year-old son and his five-year-old
| friend at a park about five blocks from the store... a friend was
| teaching a Tai Chi class at the park and was watching the kids
| while Sarra went to buy groceries.
|
| The friend called her when she saw the kids talking to the
| police, so it would indeed seem that said friend was indeed
| keeping an eye on them.
| endisneigh wrote:
| This is terrible. And to think there are people out there who
| want to get the government involved in more things, hah.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Yeah, I want to get the government involved in changing this
| situation. Through a democratic process. And nuanced, non-
| black/white thinking.
| darkerside wrote:
| Just pointing out that in today's world, representative
| democracy and nuanced thinking are almost mutually exclusive.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| which countries are in today's world?
|
| what with the past not even being past and the future here
| but not evenly distributed, I'm thinking there might be
| some representative democracies somewhere that do manage
| nuanced thinking.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| The Netherlands! Amazing governance. Very nuanced
| thinking. It is the most futuristic place I've ever
| lived.
| happyopossum wrote:
| Governance in a monoculture of 17m people is a lot
| simpler than governing a country like the US. Not saying
| we can't do better, but if you dropped the govt of the
| Netherlands here, it would fail rather quickly.
|
| It's a lot easier to have nuance and public support for
| government programs when everyone shares the same
| upbringing, culture, and beliefs.
| candiodari wrote:
| The Dutch equivalent of DCS/CPS was caught placing at
| least 1670 children as a way to pressure their parents to
| pay a wrong tax charge. The number is provisional and it
| might be 16000 children.
|
| NONE of them have been allowed to go home, despite the
| government, the judicial system and the tax office being
| convicted, plus the government falling.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_sc
| and...
|
| Before that, there were 3 investigations by parliament
| into Youth Services in the Netherlands. ALL 3 found the
| large majority of kids taken into care by the government
| were physically abused by Youth Services personnel
| (mostly beatings, sex, some being forced to commit
| criminal acts, some were denied medical care, ...)
| HideousKojima wrote:
| And in neighboring Germany their child services program
| intentionally placed foster children with pedophiles:
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-german-
| exp...
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Wow, that's a totally wild article. Thanks for sharing. I
| don't think it is the same mindset as in the states, but
| it shows the challenges of dealing with vulnerable
| populations, that's for sure.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Do you have a better source? Nothing in the Wikipedia
| article mentions children being taken away, only child
| benefits being taken away. Maybe I missed it.
| candiodari wrote:
| Sure. Unfortunately in Dutch:
|
| https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toeslagenaffaire
|
| Specifically this section:
|
| "Naast de gedupeerde ouders zijn er naar schatting 70.000
| kinderen van deze ouders getroffen.[113] Ruim 1.675
| kinderen van gedupeerde ouders zijn tussen 2015 en 2021
| uit huis geplaatst volgens Centraal Bureau voor de
| Statistiek (CBS). Het CBS benadrukte dat dit geen causaal
| verband hoeft te betekenen en doet nog onderzoek naar
| onder- of oververtegenwoordiging.[114] Volgens emeritus
| hoogleraar jeugdbescherming Ido Weijers zijn deze
| kinderen sterk overgepresenteerd in het aantal uit huis
| geplaatste jongeren.[115]"
|
| Plenty of links to articles on the subject.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| You obviously have no idea how diverse the Netherlands
| is. A monoculture it is not.
|
| If the government of the Netherlands was dropped in the
| states they would go back to the Netherlands because it
| is nicer there. But the principles of government might
| have a lot to offer.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| but then they can't be in today's world, remember the
| first comment asserted that representative democracies in
| today's world were not nuanced.
| framapotari wrote:
| Are you including countries other than the US in today's
| world?
| [deleted]
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Are you saying that there are places without representative
| democracy that do have nuanced thought?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Yes. What place lacks nuanced thought? How does democracy
| promote it?
| darkerside wrote:
| No
| jrm4 wrote:
| This itself is _dangerous_ thinking; what people miss way too
| much is the variance across localities. Some are great and some
| are terrible -- but the whole "All government is terrible"
| mindset frequently enables even worse private intervention.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Unless you've encountered anarchists, few truly think all
| government is terrible. Rather it's that government must
| always be scrutinized. Who will will intervene on you're
| behalf against a government that can have you castrated under
| an assumption that you're mentally deficient enough to
| deserve it (Buck vs Bell)? At least one can have his day in
| court against against another individual. However, thanks to
| broad interpretations of the 11th amendment, qualified
| immunity, and national security laws, the means to achieve
| vindication against government abuses have grown narrower.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Wrong way to think about it. A lot of people, if
| interviewed, will never say out loud "All government is
| terrible," and yet will still knee-jerk react as if it is.
|
| I assure you that I can find a TON of people who will
| reactively cheer any reduction in "government" regardless
| of harm, who would never say they are anarchists. This is
| many, if not most, so-called "Libertarians."
| wawjgreen wrote:
| bloody 1984
| proxyon wrote:
| The bureaucratic machine always comes up with more laws in order
| to justify its own existence.
| noasaservice wrote:
| That's the thing. If they were laws proper, then we'd get a
| proper defense.
|
| Its the worst of all possible worlds: its a "bureaucratic
| policy" that was made without oversight, lawmakers, or
| anything. And it was powered because of some line "bureau will
| conduct appropriately the $thing"
|
| And then, you start getting law/notlaws, lilliputian 'courts'
| that follow their own rules, fines and punishments that are
| expressly criminal but for some strained definition aren't
| defined as criminal.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| And it all seems fine until people you don't like from the
| other side get elected.
|
| I'm not some ultra-crunchy libertarian, but I sure wish
| people would stop to imagine "what if an asshole has the
| keys?" when they think about what they want their government
| to be able to do.
| lbrito wrote:
| Being from one of the unsafest countries in America, and having
| also lived in the US, specifically in Phoenix area, this story
| has a really surrealist tone.
|
| Phoenix metro is pretty safe. It seems safety is just varnish
| over the real issue here, which is some kind of bizarre
| neuroticism I can't fathom. It seems like a story that a big
| American newspaper would smugly write about some backwater,
| unsophisticated Eastern European police state.
| greenonions wrote:
| Americans? Varnishing neuroticism? Couldn't be.
| Ekaros wrote:
| So just how many kidnappings of children by total strangers there
| are on average? Must be quite a lot if it is so feared? How many
| vans are driving around blocks and looking to abduct kids with or
| without candy each day?
| pliftkl wrote:
| There are many bad outcomes to unattended children that don't
| involve kidnapping (think uncommon but normal childhood
| injuries of kids on playgrounds).
|
| That being said, none of the facts presented here indicate that
| CPS action would have been warranted.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > think uncommon but normal childhood injuries of kids on
| playgrounds
|
| Which is how (and why) I learned first aid, when I was - I
| can't even remember how old, single digits anyway.
|
| Right-wingers in the US would give their children guns before
| they gave them basic life skills.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Is self-defense not a basic life skill? A blade might be a
| better choice than a firearm for a young child though.
| Either a karambit or maybe a Fairbarn-Sykes Fighting Knife.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Maybe if you live in a shithole third-world country where
| they might reasonably expect to be shot at school or
| something.
| revscat wrote:
| The cynic in me reads this and thinks: "Well of course. America
| is not safe for children. It's only truly safe for capitalists
| and cops." Then I wonder how much of that is cynicism, and how
| much of it is the infuriating reality. That the Arizona
| Department of Child Safety chose to prosecute this woman is an
| unstated recognition of this.
| googlryas wrote:
| What federal or state law could the child be breaking for her to
| get charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
|
| Is there a law that kids a certain age can't be alone in public?
| IncRnd wrote:
| This is the overreach of a foster parent who had good
| intentions. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, "The road to
| hell is paved with good intentions." This foster parent, who
| may have had first-hand experience of what can happen to
| unsupervised children, caused an issue where none had
| previously existed.
|
| Regarding the other aspect to your comment, in all US states
| there is a division or department for the welfare of children.
| Those are all staffed with people who can make immediate
| administrative decisions for what they believe to be the
| welfare of a child. They can immediately take a child away from
| parents, who they believe to be abusive.
|
| When the person makes the right decision, they and this system
| are hailed are wonderful. Unfortunately, things like this often
| happen far too often - administrators turn the life of a family
| upside down, due to their own beliefs, biases, and power over
| others.
| jokoon wrote:
| unrelated to technology, and as the comments show, this buys into
| the libertarian agenda of this website
| lbrito wrote:
| HN sure has a strong libertarian presence, but I guarantee you
| its not here. This is more the urbanism, liveability and anti-
| NIMBY crowd. I don't have data but I very strongly sense
| intersection between both is nil.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| I have had multiple experiences with CPS over the years through
| friends and family. Over time I have developed a pretty dramatic
| hatred of them. We took in our niece for a few months years ago
| and the way they ran their 'system' was mind blowing. The rules
| that make their life hard were freely broken whenever they wanted
| and the rules that made our lives hard were written on stone
| tablets.
|
| I'm involved in a case now where they took a 5 year old boy from
| the family and refused all contact for over 3 months. All with
| never filing a charge against the family or even telling anyone
| WHY they took him. It wasn't until we started writing large
| checks to good lawyers that we got their attention.
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