[PebblesHD]

I say this literally every time a story like this pops up but, as ever, I'll say it again: Have the (adults) in charge completely lost their minds? Is the government so out of touch with reality that this makes sense to them? I loved going on walks or riding my bike to the shops or sleeping in/playing at home when i was 10 or 11, and yet now this seems all but impossible to consider? How the hell did this happen?

[rbcgerard]

Agreed, in the summers (in small town america), when i was that age i was kicked out of the house after breakfast and not allowed back (unless it was raining) until lunch, and then kicked out again until dinner. I loved running around outside with my friends, our dogs, horrendously constructed forts, and our bb guns. The "bad" parents were the ones that let their kids stay home and vegetate in front of the TV. What happened?

[icebraining]

The "bad" parents were the ones that let their kids stay home and vegetate in front of the TV.

I believe that's still considered true, the "good parents" will instead arrange for the kids to have lots of supervised activities and organized play dates. It's all about making sure the kids have no space to make their own mistakes.

[visarga]

They don't look at TV any more, instead, they play apps. That's what happened. Now it's all good /s

[vacri]

Are we being fed a heavily edited version of the story? Was there more to the parental history than is mentioned? Why hide the identity of the parents, given that they've already been through the wringer and the whole affair is a matter of public record?

Given how overloaded CPS usually are, this article fails the sniff test.

[dudul]

So true. When people are surprised when 1 boy out of 5 is diagnosed with ADHD. They can't do anything! They're freaking bored!

Millenials are called weak, entitled and useless, but wait for the next cohort of "bright" minds who are gonna lead this country. Will they be able to even feed themselves? Is it even safe to teach a kid how to cook an egg?

[mistermann]

I read absurd stories like this and try to understand how so many individual people who are involved drop the ball. All it would (should) take is one person involved to have the nerve(as if it should take nerve) to speak up and say "this is ridiculous".

In this case (assuming this story is true, but there's no shortage of similar stories if this one isn't), it took a fucking child to have the nerve to state the obvious:

* But then, according to Cindy, "My son spoke up." He said he wanted to talk to the judge. Surprised, their lawyer asked the boy: Did he have the courage to go through with this? And would he tell the truth? The boy said yes. "He went back there and spoke to the judge for about ten minutes," said Cindy. "And then the judge came out and called the two lawyers to the bench and talked to them for about 10 or 15 minutes. And with that, our lawyer came to us and said that if we admitted that we didn't know that it was wrong to [let our son] stay in the backyard, but that we know now that it's wrong and we will never let it happen again, and that we will explain this to our son, he would let the children come with us."

Cindy and Fred promised. The judge released the kids and closed the case. *

I wonder, how does this happen, and why does it happen mostly in western countries?

My best theory is, unless you are a true revolutionary/disruptor, if you are just well-above-average skill, but not Elon Musk level, your easiest ride is just playing the system. This case (ignoring that it shouldn't have even happened in the first place) could have been closed immediately, if people in the justice system were interested in administering justice. But they're not - they are interested in revenue. Stretching cases like this out for weeks / months increases (or at least maintains) federal funding requirements, but it also pulls external money into the system (defense fees) that goes to your brothers and sisters you attended law school with. Think of the $ this one case generated, and it's just a kid hanging out in his back yard!

It's not just the legal system that is like this, although it's one of the worst offenders. I see similar behavior working in IT (in medium to large companies)- things that are obviously easy to fix, problems that aren't difficult to solve (or don't even need solving at all) turn into multi-hundred-thousand, or even multi-million $ projects. And if you say "wait a minute, does this make sense what we're doing", your head will shortly be cut off, because so many people have skin in the game. But if you just keep your mouth shut and go with the flow, you can make an entire career out of it.

[graycat]

Let's look at this slightly differently: Suppose the 10 year old child the CPS abducted from playing safely in their back yard was -- right, you guessed it -- a girl.

In this case some fathers might -- I won't if only because I'm not a father -- might, ..., might, right, what's the term?

CPS abducted his 10 year old daughter: Zuilly makes a bundle selling pretty princess and angel clothes to grand parents for their grand daughters, often just 10. Those princess, angel clothes indicate some of the protective emotions grand parents and parents have for daughters, e.g., Perfect Daughter. In our society, there are strong norms that girls are cared for, protected.

And CPS abducts her? Perfect daughter?

Am I getting to make this situation clear?

Okay, maybe it's her dear dad or her dear uncle, one or both fresh back from Akrapistan, maybe Army Rangers, maybe Seal Team 6. And CPS abducted Perfect Daughter playing safely in her backyard?

CPS might be in line for a Darwin award.

Looks like Perfect Daughter needs two or three very devoted, young, healthy German Shepards or Rotweilers.

CPS overreach is not all just click bait: I know a family, well known coast to coast, in US finance, famous name, wealthy, generous philanthropists. Well, at one point a son of about 8 in the family fell and, maybe, bruised his arm or some such.

Well, somehow CPS paid a visit. Insisted on getting involved. Issued this and that order to the parents.

Absurd. Wacko. Overreach.

If my startup works, I get financially comfortable, and CPS or some such makes trouble for the nephews, nieces, etc. in my family, then I will go to a big, powerful, all-go, never-stop, nail'em to the wall law firm and see just how much legal trouble we can cause CPS and its wackos.

If they want a legal fight and my checkbook is much thicker than theirs, then bring it on. It will be a good purpose for my startup work.

I don't like gumment wackos hurting families and children.

It's happened. It shouldn't.

[graycat]

> How the hell did this happen?

Standard: Some bad parents actually do exist. So, with a few such examples, some people who want to get attention get some laws passed and set up CPS with some really big powers, e.g., ones that violate little things like due process. Some of the laws mention felonies.

Then the CPS department gets created, funded, and staffed. Then a phone call comes in, and CPS swings into action.

Then, CPS wants to look busy, do their job, believes that they are now responsible for the child, wants to make sure nothing goes wrong where they could be blamed, so take full control of the life of the child, as their rules say, and to heck with anything like due process, the actual good of the child, the good of the family, etc. Instead, CPS becomes just law and rules driven.

So, CPS is brain-dead, dysfunctional, dangerous, destructive, demented, deranged, etc. Why? They are just following the law and their rules to avoid any blame.

So, CPS put a torpedo just below the waterline of that totally innocent family. They did psychological damage to the child; they harmed the sense of security of the family; they wasted the time of the family; the may have wrecked the family finances due to the legal costs.

Earlier tonight I watched the Nova program on the June 6, 1944 Normandy landing. I was reminded of all the death and destruction fighting Hitler.

But then with something like CPS and US police shooting unarmed Blacks in the back, etc., we are creating disasters out of nothing, nothing at all, disasters, out of nothing, for no good reason.

The judge? He should have found a way to charge the CPS thugs, laughed their case out of court, and put the family back together. Since he didn't, he should get a new career cleaning sidewalks with a tooth brush -- "Nice and clean, now, y'hear?".

CPS must report to a mayor or governor, etc. Well, with enough such stories, the mayor or whomever should ensure that the head of CPS and everyone involved in that case should join the judge in brushing the sidewalks.

Part of the solution is sunlight, e.g., on the Internet.

Too often our government has become just a dangerous enemy of the citizens. The citizens should vote for the needed changes. Due to CPS, every family with children is at risk of essentially just thugs from CPS wrecking their families, a greater risk than a bomb from a terrorist and comparably dangerous.

TSA? Sure, they can steal money and valuables from your luggage and molest your wife and daughters.

Gee, when I was 10 or so, I got a three speed bicycle, and then, especially during the summers, I was gone for hours at a time, sometimes 20 miles round trip. No problems.

I was big for my age: If some CPS types had tried to do something to me, it would have been a fight, a real fight -- I would have defended myself from the CPS attackers. Sure, if I could have found a club, I would have beat them to a bloody pulp -- just ordinary self-defense.

Government wants to grow, like poison ivy or worse. Have to cut it back. The key way: Just cut their budgets. How to do that? Sure, vote. Then get rid of the government thugs who attack citizens and get lower taxes.

Read. Complain. Vote. Solve the problem. That's what our democracy is for and some of why we really need democracy. Else the government will grow and grow and become a hostile occupying force in our country like Hitler occupied Poland.

In Normandy is a cemetery with, as I recall from the Nova program, 9000 graves of US soldiers who fought for our freedom. Well, we should not let out of control government do to us what Hitler would have done.

[ghshephard]

The part you didn't mention is where CPS, and individual CPS employees are sued, and lambasted in the press when they don't act, and then something happens downstream, and they end up taking all the blame.

I tend to agree with your general theme though, that what we're seeing is the result of system systems that have been funded, and now are doing what they were created to do.

[kbart]

No offence, but your comment would be more convincing without Hitler/Nazi references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[graycat]

Some of the bad things government in the US does are as bad as some of what the Nazis did. E.g., grabbing a 10 year old child playing harmlessly in their own back yard, taking that child from its family for 30 days, charging the parents with a felony where they could go to jail, wrecking the family finances from the legal costs, TSA stealing from luggage and molesting women and girls, suddenly in the middle of the night breaking down the door of a house and shooting the family dog, shooting an unarmed citizen in the back fifty feet away running away -- such things are quite comparable with a lot, not all, of the stuff the Nazi thugs did.

In simple terms, what is in common is just thug behavior, some people (they feel safer in a group of several) with power and getting their jollies and feeling more powerful and, thus, more secure, from exercising that power over others.

Many of our fathers, grand fathers, great grand fathers, etc. fought for our freedom. Let's don't let power hungry thugs, paid by taxes or otherwise, take our freedom.

E.g., some years ago I was a researcher working in artificial intelligence at the IBM Watson lab in Yorktown Heights, NY. That's in the middle of Westchester County, the first county north of NYC. I lived two counties farther north, in Dutchess county.

I liked to work late so often stayed at the office after dinner and drove home at about 10 PM. So, if look at a map, sure, I drove north on the NY Taconic State Parkway. I was driving a Buick Regal Turbo T-Type, right, a banker's hot rod of the time, in very good condition.

For someone who has driven over 500,000 miles, I have relatively few convictions of moving traffic violations. E.g, my auto insurance bill here in NYS is about $260 twice a year. Part of the reason is that I watch for cops.

One night driving home in my rear view mirror I noticed some headlights looking like they were from a car gaining rapidly on me. Driving late at night like that, I tend to drive in the left lane because I can avoid cars entering or leaving the road I am on from side roads or the shoulder. So, when that car was about 50 yards behind me, I moved to the right lane to let them pass. Fine with me if they want to go way too fast -- go ahead, pass me, and be gone.

Well, that car shifted to the right lane also. So, I had changed lanes and slowed down basically trying to force them to pass me.

Well, it was a cop car with two cops.

I'd done nothing wrong. Instead, the cops had just seen a nice car driving at night on a nearly empty road and decided to stop the car for no good reason. Likely that's illegal.

So, they stopped me.

There were two cops, one really nasty and angry. He was a thug, out to harass a citizen just for his own jollies. He looked young, like he was a rookie on the force.

So, he had his jollies: He had me standing on one leg, walking a line, touching my nose, etc. The other cop stood aside and was not happy about the obvious harassment.

The thug cop wrote out a ticket charging me with something, maybe changing a lane without using a turn signal, e.g., when I was trying to shake their car off my tail.

While they were writing out the ticket, I was sitting in my car reading a published paper in applied math. The thug asked me what I was reading, and I said he likely wouldn't like it. He got angry and asked in a loud, threatening voice,

"Are you calling me stupid?".

I answered, "No, but the paper is quite technical and advanced and assumes graduate work in pure mathematics."

He kept harassing me, looking for me to say something he would use to start a fight.

Finally I just drove away with him standing there. They didn't pursue.

For the ticket, I went to court. The cops didn't show, and the judge dismissed the case. I handed the judge a letter describing the interaction.

That cop was a thug. He was loose on the streets, carrying a gun, making illegal traffic stops, harassing citizens, trying to start fights, basically a violent criminal, paid by taxes. He was using his power to get his jollies.

Lesson: Such things happen. They happened with the Nazi Brown Shirts. They happen with some US police. Apparently they happen with the TSA, DEA, DHS, FBI, and CPS. We should not give up our freedoms easily. In our democracy, we need to vote against such stuff.

[graycat]

Many US citizens need be more afraid of illegal and/or improper actions by the government we pay to protect them than of the bad things government is supposed to be protecting them from.

That is, for government as a protector, too often the cure is worse than the disease.