4 ms·

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

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.

spoils19 4y ago
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.
manquer 4y ago
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.
- candiodari 4y ago
  > 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 https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583 Or, more dramatic: https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/article238206754.html 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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    Wow, this is terrible. Obviously we need increased CPS funding to resolve this :^)
  - manquer 4y ago
    Solution to bad government is not less government. If the CPS is terrible we should figure out how to fix it not throw in the towel. Basically you are saying that it is not possible for government to be competent no matter what we do, so we are better of without it interfering in our lives ?
    - candiodari 4y ago
      Why does everybody always that that offering children the choice of CPS or not is effectively "throwing in the towel"? Yes, CPS will have to offer something meaningful (ie. a reasonable path to a decent future) to children, or not have any children. That's a good thing. It does not mean CPS ceases to be, just that the (many) really bad parts will get into serious trouble. That will be a very good thing. I want the power of government to FORCE themselves into 99% of the life of a child to cease. If that doesn't improve the lot of the child (the outcome), it's an abuse of power. I do not even imply it's their intention to abuse power (although clearly that exists), it just needs to stop. So I must say I see your position as something you often see when it's about CPS: that they are about guaranteeing jobs/organisations' existence for existing employees/organisations (and subcontractors and ...), and absolutely not about children. That it's about guaranteeing punishment for "bad parenting", whether that means vaccinating children or NOT vaccinating children. About destroying lives of undesirable groups. The large majority of people working in CPS have zero interest in caring for children. That's fundamentally what needs to change: CPS needs to fundamentally be about caring for children. Not about fixing society. Not about punishing whatever some people consider bad. Not about forcing people to live a certain way by means of threats and punishments.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  > 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.
- UnpossibleJim 4y ago
  >>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.
  - jjk166 4y ago
    Unfortunately there isn't a way to know ahead of time which complaints are frivolous and which aren't. They don't know whether the person who is calling in a complaint is a busybody worked up over nothing or if it's a jealous ex who wants a leg up in a custody hearing or if it's someone has misinterpreted what they've seen or if it's someone who has just witnessed the tip of an abusive iceberg. A quick visit by a trained professional is not particularly expensive and is much more effective means of data collection than a slow trickle of information from poorly informed and possibly malicious random people. Considering that this case worker is probably not getting pulled off a "real" abuse case to do this visit but is instead going when they have an opening in their schedule and would otherwise be idle, the claim it is drawing away much needed resources is questionable.
- dionidium 4y ago
  > 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 4y ago
    I agree with you, but almost everyone else disagrees with us.
  - D13Fd 4y ago
    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.
- brandonmenc 4y ago
  Sounds great, until the opposition is handed the keys to that sprawling legal and administrative apparatus.
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  > Depends, if a person is really abusing a child which unfortunately happens more frequently than we all want to believe How frequently does it happen?
  - jjk166 4y ago
    About 1 in 7 children have experienced abuse or neglect in the past year.
    - kbelder 4y ago
      Does the definition of 'neglect' include letting your child out into the neighborhood alone?
      - jjk166 4y ago
        I recommend checking for yourself
pessimizer 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
  - LocalH 4y ago
    This shows that it's not really about actually "thinking about the children", otherwise they'd be actually thinking about the children long term and not just using them to gain political platitudes.

spoils19 4y ago

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.

manquer 4y ago

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.

candiodari 4y ago
> 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 https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583 Or, more dramatic: https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/article238206754.html 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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  Wow, this is terrible. Obviously we need increased CPS funding to resolve this :^)
- manquer 4y ago
  Solution to bad government is not less government. If the CPS is terrible we should figure out how to fix it not throw in the towel. Basically you are saying that it is not possible for government to be competent no matter what we do, so we are better of without it interfering in our lives ?
  - candiodari 4y ago
    Why does everybody always that that offering children the choice of CPS or not is effectively "throwing in the towel"? Yes, CPS will have to offer something meaningful (ie. a reasonable path to a decent future) to children, or not have any children. That's a good thing. It does not mean CPS ceases to be, just that the (many) really bad parts will get into serious trouble. That will be a very good thing. I want the power of government to FORCE themselves into 99% of the life of a child to cease. If that doesn't improve the lot of the child (the outcome), it's an abuse of power. I do not even imply it's their intention to abuse power (although clearly that exists), it just needs to stop. So I must say I see your position as something you often see when it's about CPS: that they are about guaranteeing jobs/organisations' existence for existing employees/organisations (and subcontractors and ...), and absolutely not about children. That it's about guaranteeing punishment for "bad parenting", whether that means vaccinating children or NOT vaccinating children. About destroying lives of undesirable groups. The large majority of people working in CPS have zero interest in caring for children. That's fundamentally what needs to change: CPS needs to fundamentally be about caring for children. Not about fixing society. Not about punishing whatever some people consider bad. Not about forcing people to live a certain way by means of threats and punishments.
RHSeeger 4y ago
> 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.
UnpossibleJim 4y ago
>>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.
- jjk166 4y ago
  Unfortunately there isn't a way to know ahead of time which complaints are frivolous and which aren't. They don't know whether the person who is calling in a complaint is a busybody worked up over nothing or if it's a jealous ex who wants a leg up in a custody hearing or if it's someone has misinterpreted what they've seen or if it's someone who has just witnessed the tip of an abusive iceberg. A quick visit by a trained professional is not particularly expensive and is much more effective means of data collection than a slow trickle of information from poorly informed and possibly malicious random people. Considering that this case worker is probably not getting pulled off a "real" abuse case to do this visit but is instead going when they have an opening in their schedule and would otherwise be idle, the claim it is drawing away much needed resources is questionable.
dionidium 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  I agree with you, but almost everyone else disagrees with us.
- D13Fd 4y ago
  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.
brandonmenc 4y ago
Sounds great, until the opposition is handed the keys to that sprawling legal and administrative apparatus.
CogitoCogito 4y ago
> Depends, if a person is really abusing a child which unfortunately happens more frequently than we all want to believe How frequently does it happen?
- jjk166 4y ago
  About 1 in 7 children have experienced abuse or neglect in the past year.
  - kbelder 4y ago
    Does the definition of 'neglect' include letting your child out into the neighborhood alone?
    - jjk166 4y ago
      I recommend checking for yourself

pessimizer 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.
- LocalH 4y ago
  This shows that it's not really about actually "thinking about the children", otherwise they'd be actually thinking about the children long term and not just using them to gain political platitudes.