Soccer Mom: Unplugged

A Canadian mom has lost her children because she sent her daughter to school with a swastika drawn on her arm.  The mom, it appears from the news reports, is a "white nationalist". Yes, yes, I know... neo-naziism is not an acceptable ideology to most people, myself included, but the question remains, do you remove children from their home because their parents are racists?  Local news reports describe the mother as distraught at the loss of her two children and summarizes the two sides of this debate with the following quotes:

The case has sparked questions about whether the state has the right to protect children from their parents' beliefs.

University of Winnipeg professor Helmut-Harry Loewen, an expert on hate groups, said while he disagrees with the ideology, he fears taking custody based on beliefs is draconian.

"If children are apprehended based on parents' political or religious beliefs, then one is opening a kind of slippery slope," he said.

But University of Manitoba professor Harvy Frankel, dean of the faculty of social work, said officials did the right thing.

"We should be reassured that this is child welfare practice as it should be."

Does the government have the right to take away children whose parents teach them unpopular, incorrect, or even hateful traditions?  Who decides what's unpopular, incorrect, or hateful?  Canada isn't the US but as the FLDS case shows, the trend is the same all over... the government, the Nancy Grace media, or whoever has the most money sets the social agenda ,decides morality, and increasingly, defines parental rights.  Holding one's family for ransom until one conforms is social engineering at it's best and Western governments are increasingly using this vicious form of sociological terrorism.

 Note to John Leo, we are no longer one step ahead.  The thought police have overtaken us.

Have political correctness and hyper-tolerance gone too far? It's amazing how many people don't think so.  Take these folks in England, for example.  In a recently published book, the NCB denounced the dangers of "Yuck".  Presumably, they also abhor "ick!", "bleech", and "eww!"

That's right, mom and dad, if little Tommy holds his nose and turns his face away from an offering of Thai food or a sippy cup of rice milk, he's a budding KKK member.  Apparently, tolerance of diversity means that individual tastes and cultural preferences are a "no-no" and the rejection of an unappealing side dish by a toddler is an act of racism that must be nipped in the diaper donned bud.

FYI:  The word "racism" loses its sting when you spell it N-O-N-S-E-N-S-E.

Exceptional lecture on family in a free society!  Check it out.

...people just keep making the same mistakes."

My sister and I have been having an interesting discussion about the whole FLDS child-sex scandal that seems to have disappeared from the front pages since Jeremiah Wright stepped up to claim his 15 minutes.  I'm tossing out some of my thoughts and asking you all to chime in with what you think.  This blog has been a great sounding board in the past and I always come away with a new perspective.

My sister thinks that the state of Texas acted as it should have in removing the all of the children from their homes.  I kind of disagree.  I am of the mind that evidence should preceed such a traumatic course of action.  When the state CPS entered the community and found underage pregnant girls, they should have conducted an investigation.  Since the FLDS people were uncooperative in the Q&A they had no alternative but to remove the pregnant girls to verify that they were victims of statutory rape.  Unless there were allegations or visible evidence of abuse against the prepubescent children, I don't know why they should have been removed from their mothers and relocated.  Yes, yes, I know that more than half of the girls between 14 and 17 have either had or are expecting children.  I'm not suggesting that this is acceptable.  What I am saying is that you don't traumatize the younger children based on what might happen or what happened to another.  You don't remove children from a community because the community at large is rampant with illicit activity.  There wouldn't be a child left in the inner city if we held to that standard. 

I actually heard one Div. of Family Services representative on CNN say that the absence of toys in the compound was a form of emotional abuse. He announced, as if we'd all find this completely appropriate, that the toylessness constituted a lack of stimulation.  I don't know about ya'll but if CPS busts down my door to see if I have enough playstation games or the right kind of books, some poor social worker is going to come to a full understanding of the 2nd amendment. 

I've also heard the idea tossed about on Nancy Grace that since this closed FLDS society may be complicit in the whole child-bride/statutory rape business, all of the parents should lose their children and be charged as accomplices to this gross and heinous crime.  I'm wondering where this kind of logic will end?  I don't want to be responsible or punished for the crimes of my neighbors, do you?  My best friend in high school got pregnant our junior year and her boyfriend was 21.  No one filed charges.  Her doctor didn't ask questions.  Since a large percentage of the girls in the school were mothers or were pregnant, I doubt if the counselors or teachers even noticed.  Division of Family Services never knocked on her door.  No one asked if her mom knew Darnell - of course, she did.  She knew they were dating and yet no one removed my friend's younger sister from the home or filed charges against my friend's mom. 

Of course, I understand that the presumption in this Texas case is that there is systematic and institutional abuse - but I also remember that others have claimed people like you and I are systematically abusing our children every Sunday morning and most Wednesday nights.  And I'm just not sure I trust the government to establish appropriate parameters of parenting.  If a lack of toys is considered abuse, it's absolutely foreseeable that a parent smoking in a car with children present could be charged with child endangerment.  How about those awful parents who feed their children fast food - first we tax them, then we outlaw the marketing on t.v., and the next thing you know... your kid's in foster care.  It's an oversimplification but it's what has happened and continues to happen with cigarettes, isn't it? 

Seems like I've strayed from statutory rape, huh?  In the FLDS case, all the overaged fathers should face charges.  And mothers and children should have routine home inspections until it is clear that this child-bride business is a thing of the past.  As far as the polygamy goes, well, unless there are actual bigamists among them, the FLDS can call their version of swinging or shacking up whatever they want to and it's not going to bother me.  So long as we don't stoop to legitimizing the behavior, they can do whatever in their own homes. If you are going to hold everyone to the standard of no extramarital sex, there are going to be a lot more people in jail that the couple of hundred at ElDorado.  And if, as seems to be a major concern with some of the on air analysts, the issue of abusing the welfare system bothers you - think about how many Jerry Springer guests have several "babies' daddies" and are swiping their EBT cards all over town. 

Again, I'm not defending these people, I'm just wondering how the law is going to be applied equally when others are committing the same acts but don't live in communes.

I heard of another case very close to me that illustrates an even graver concern.  The 3rd grade daughter in from a loving family with no history, or even allegation, of abuse was found dead in the home.  No immediate cause of death was determined. DFS removed all the siblings from the home and placed them in foster care.  Eventually, with the help of determined lawyers and some wiser-than-the-coroner M.D.s, the couple regained custody of their children after it was shown that the child had a seizure and the death was caused naturally.  Apparently, grieving the loss of their child wasn't enough, the state decided that since they had no explanation for her death - it must be the parent's fault.  Sound crazy?  Consider the case of a West Virginia woman who was forced to share custody with her daughter's babysitter.  Or the case of a new mother struggling with a sick baby who was falsely accused of Munchausen by proxy and lost her baby to DSS.  How about the parents (guessing they are Jehovah's Witnesses?) who refused a blood draw on their 6 week old and then the sheriff showed up on the door step and took baby Joel away.  

When I think about what is happening in Texas, I wonder where the line is for government intervention.  Were two year olds really in danger in the compound?  Nursing babies?  There weren't allegation of abuse for those children, were there?  Were they removed for lack of toys or the probabilty of being raised in a kooky environment?  Were they removed to prevent future abuse by men who ought to be in jail before they even come of "spiritual marriage" age?  Isn't that kind of Minority Report?  What do you guys think?

The NC GOP has produced an ad highlighting the extremism of Jeremiah Wright, pastor and friend of presidential hopeful Barack Obama.  This ad references the endorsements of Obama by some of the state's gubernatorial candidates and the implication is that the candidates, local and national, have questionable judgement and perhaps less than stalwart patriotism.  Fair enough. 

We all recognize that a candidate's personal life gives just as much insight, if not more, into his character as his official actions and statements.  Remember the frenzy over Hillary Clinton's channeling the spirits of past first ladies or the front page fear-mongering when newsmen found out that President Buch read Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series?  The fascination with stories like these reveal a truth most of us unconsciously know but that democratic operatives spent most of the 90s trying to deny:  a man's private character and morality are inseparably connected to the execution of his professional duties.  Patriotism, integrity, and decency aren't like a suit coat you can put on when you walk out the door in the morning.

Nevertheless, John McCain has called for the NC GOP to abandon the as-yet unreleased ad and has denounced the state party as 'out of touch'.  Judging from other recent statements, McCain believes he is trying to take the "high road" by avoiding personal attacks on his opponents.  Unfortunately, McCain's denunciation reveals as much about himself as the ad does about the democrats vying for the NC governorship.

It is completely reasonable to find the judgement of a candidate suspect based on his associations.  it is also perfectly reasonable to find the judgement of a candidate suspect if he or she endorses a presidential hopeful whose associates are unpatriotic, conspiracy theory spewing pastors and unrepentant domestic terrorists.

Further, it is completely reasonable to find the judgement of a candidate suspect if he denouces state party leaders for political correctness and expediency.  John McCain cares about winning the Presidency - the NC GOP wants to win the governor's seat.  It would seem that Linda Daves knows what I know.  No matter whose inaugaration we see in January, we've already lost the White House.

According to presidential hopeful, Barack Hussein Obama, we backwoods believers, desperately clinging to the right to own a Smith & Wesson are doing so because we're out of work.  That's why we're against illegal immigration and gay marriage, too.  The point, easily extrapolated from Obama's comments to a crowd of sycophants in San Francisco, is that when poor folk lose a job they get bitter and use God, guns, and bigotry as therapeutic outlets. 

Clearly, this suggests that successful people with money and upward mobility don't need guns, God, or closed borders. 

His exact words: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them, and they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Couldn't be the steady attack on their beliefs and their rights that's got 'em down, could it Barack?  Couldn't possibly be the daily redistribution of their wealth through an overgrown tax system that doles out free cash to Jerry Springer guests while leaving the working poor, well, POOR.  It would be silly to think they are upset about the erosion of their culture through the reeducation of their children, the rewriting of their history, and the invasion of undocumented job-seekers and even legal immigrants whose refusal to assimilate burdens an already behemoth government bureaucracy and requires even more funds from our pockets to pay for bilingual services.  Press uno para Espanol, Barack.

Nope - sad, mindless proles, they just need boots, a nine-to-five, and a controlling party to keep 'em occupied with state sponsored lotteries and sour smelling beer. 

Backthink life preAmersoc, preunGod... (Remember life before American socialism, before God died...) 

yeah... me, too.