Jun

20

Family Matters

Filed Under Education, Government | Leave a Comment

I support Parents for Choice in Education. I support their cause because I support the idea that parents, not elitist government bureaucrats, know best how to educate children. The “anointed elite” believe that because of their highly educated status, they are among the very wise and therefore must be obeyed when it comes to social policy.

One example I want to share. This comes from a newsletter recently sent to me by PCE. It includes a portion of a letter by Denise Griffiths. She writes,

My daughter’s stress and anxiety left her hating school and suffering a down turn in her delicate health situation. We believed a change in schools and peers would help. A transfer should have been easy since our our school was overcrowded and the other school had room for almost 200 students.

We applied to transfer her by the deadline but were rejected. Our written appeal, with letters from two doctors, was also rejected. When I complained to the district I was told ‘It’s not about capacity, it’s about things you don’t understand.’

In desperation to help my daughter, we were compelled to turn over custody to grandparents. Unbelievably, a school administrator attended the custody hearing to inform the judge that we were just trying to get around district policy. I wish the district understood that it’s about the children and things that parents do understand.

The only thing the newsletter leaves out is the identity of this busybody school administrator who believes he or she has the right, even the duty, to interfere in the lives of other people. In my opinion, this administrator should be fired, their name well-publicized, and they should be made the target of public scorn, derision, and ridicule.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Remember the Jensen family that ran afoul of the State when their son, Parker, was diagnosed with cancer? Rather than subject their son to the torture of chemotherapy, which would leave their son sterilized in addition to offering little chance of saving his life, they opted to get a second opinion. That’s when their doctor reported them to the Utah Dept. of Child and Family Services. The DCFS took the case to a judge who ordered that Parker be taken into state custody and that his parents be arrested for kidnapping (they were on vacation in Idaho when the judge made his ruling).

Well, the family was recently spotlighted on a local news broadcast. The state has since dropped it’s case against the family, but only after two years of pursuing them. The father lost his job, they lost their home, and they are basically having to start over. But what they did was nothing short of heroic. Their actions are of the same character as those of our founding fathers, standing up against government overreaching its Constitutionally-limited authority. Instead, there are still many people here in Utah and elsewhere who see the Jensen’s as abusive parents who need to be jailed.

What these obtuse individuals have failed to grasp is that the government has never legitimately been given power over families like that. It has taken that power unto itself, which means that it does not really have the authority at all. It may have the power, but it lacks the authority.

Do these folks realize that the DCFS can sieze a child from its parents without due process? All they need is someone to say the child is in imminent danger. And the courts have historically sided with DCFS on the issue, Constitutional prohibitions notwithstanding. The DCFS and the courts thus routinely violate the Supreme Law of the Land.

Fortunately, there still seems to be a majority of people who oppose this usurpation. It’s one of the things I am asking Jason Chaffetz to address when he gets to Congress–to enshrine in our Constitution and laws the unalienable rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, including the recognition that government does not have first right of refusal in providing for childrens’ needs.

Vote for Jason Chaffetz on June 24.

May

31

Judicial Overreach Stalls Polygamist Family Reunion

Filed Under Constitution, Fascism, Government, Law, Marriage, Politics, Religion | Leave a Comment

Talks between Warren Jeffs’s polygamist sect Yearning for Zion and the State of Texas fell apart Friday when a district court judge decided to expand the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court and add additional restrictions and qualifications that must be met before the children will be returned to their families.

Judge Barbara Walther did not produce any authorization under State law for this usurpation of authority, to which several attorneys for the sect rightly objected. They pointed out that she had no right to expand on a ruling made by a higher court, and they counseled their clients not to sign the new requirements.

MSN has one version of the story here. I believe with this expansion of the ruling, many people will focus on the judge’s justifications but completely miss the whole point of the case.

It is essentially about legal kidnapping. And the Yearning for Zion group proved in court that the State Child Protective Services removed those 400 children under the color of law, but without legal justification. If you or I were to do the same, we would be prosecuted as kidnappers facing serious prison time. Since when does any government agency have the right to seize anything without due process, even if the life of a child is threatened?

The Texas Supreme Court ruling basically says the Texas CPS agency was wrong to remove those children. Now what would you or I do in such a case? Apologize? Hopefully, and do everything we could to right the wrong. So what does the State of Texas do? I have yet to hear any apologies from any state official, and instead of seeking to return the children as quickly as possible, officials are finding excuses not to return the children.

To make matters worse, this district judge refuses to let any of the children return to their families unless her demands are met. What is this other than legal terrorism? What is this other than blackmail? She holds the fate of the children in her hands, and unless she gets what she wants, she will ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling. She is holding these families hostage, and who is going to stop her? In my opinion, Judge Walther believes she can make such demands because her aim is only to keep the children away from their birth parents for as long as possible, hoping that exposure to other lifestyles will eventually break down the cult’s hold on them.

Where are we headed when the judges and the government ignore the Rule of Law? Judge Walther, by her actions, is demonstrating that in her jurisdictions the law of will prevails–her will. But the rule of will is tyranny. How long will we let officials trample on our rights like this? How long will it be before your children are threatened with removal because of some unproven allegation? Will you just stand there and let it happen?

Our officials need to be constantly reminded that they are bound by the law as much as any other citizen. We should be reminding them often that their authority is not granted by the office they hold, but by We the People who created those offices. We must not tolerate the government overreaching it’s legal bounds for any reason, no matter how well-intentioned.