Category Archives: Nanny State

Congress Wants to Help You Buy a $730,000 Home

June 25, 2008 – 7:21 am

It costs a lot to get reelected to Congress. So the incumbents are willing to take your money and my money to help ease their pain. Not directly, mind you. Devious politicians never do anything directly. After all, it wouldn’t be devious if it was direct. The AP reports:

A mortgage aid plan is on track for passage in the Senate as soon as today. The massive foreclosure rescue bill cleared a key Senate test yesterday by an overwhelming margin, with Democrats and Republicans both eager to claim election-year credit for helping hard-pressed homeowners.

The mortgage aid plan would let the Federal Housing Administration back $300 billion in new, cheaper home loans for an estimated 400,000 distressed borrowers who otherwise would be considered too financially risky to qualify for government-insured, fixed-rate loans.

So all those people who have already demonstrated that they are poor risks for loans are going to get another loan backed by you and me. The Senate wants the loans to go as high as $625,000 and the House wants to up that to $730,000. Think about that. If someone with a bad credit rating wants to spend nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to buy a house, you and I are going to be forced to guarantee them a loan — if the House has its way. President Bush has said that he will veto the bill if it is passed, but that is because he doesn’t like some of its provisions.

Some of the lawmakers are pushing to make the bill revenue neutral. But who believes that will happen? If a lot of the “400,000 distressed borrowers” weren’t expected to default on their loans they wouldn’t need to have the tax-payers backing them.

What this bill is really about is a way for a bunch of well-connected builders to get rid of their over-built inventory of over-priced houses. What a stroke of political genius! Use tax-payer money to reward big reelection campaign donors and buy the votes of over-indulgent borrowers at the same time. I’m still looking for the day when such strategies backfire, but I’m afraid I’m looking in vain.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Congress, Politics | Comments (0) |

Bungling Texas Judge Still on the Job

May 30, 2008 – 9:32 am

The Texas Supreme Court has affirmed the appellate court’s ruling that District Judge Barbara Walther was wrong to allow the FLDS children to be taken into state custody and placed in foster-care. It said, child welfare officials overstepped their authority, failed to show an immediate danger to the children, and removal of the children was not warranted. In other words Walther screwed up royally. Yet she is still in charge of resolving the case.

Why is a judge who made such an egregious mistake, one that has traumatized over a thousand people, still on the job? Because they are insulated from their mistakes. They aren’t penalized for incompetence. In some states it is theoretically possible for the citizens to vote a judge off the bench, but it rarely happens.

The child welfare officials in Texas are now talking about imposing restrictions on the sect when their children are returned. One possibility is requiring all the male adults to leave the ranch. Another is implementing safeguards to prevent the families from fleeing the state. All this even though there is still no clear evidence of illegal behavior. But they probably feel that Walther will back them up.

Why should I expect reason from crusaders? That is exactly what this is, a crusade. One set of bible-thumpers trying to impose its will on a different set of bible-thumpers. The set with the most power will eventually prevail. Reason is not likely to be a strong factor in determining the outcome.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Religion | Comments (3) |

House of Cards Comes Crashing Down

May 23, 2008 – 8:52 am

Well, it appears there are some level heads in Texas. But what took them so long? The AP reports:

An appellate court decision upended the custody case that sent more than 440 children from a polygamist sect’s ranch into foster care, but it’s not clear whether the children might soon return home.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds under Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther now has 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and keep the children from immediately going back to their parents.

The decision Thursday in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history was a humiliating defeat for the state Child Protective Services agency. It was hailed as vindication by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who claim they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

…

“Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse … there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’ or ‘urgent,’” the court said.

“Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal,” the court said.

The court said the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children. Half the youngsters taken from the ranch were 5 or younger. Only a few dozen are teenage girls.

The court also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as a single household and to seize all the children because some parents in the home might be abusers.

Were these justices reading from my blog? No, it’s just that, like me, they weren’t among those hyperventilating over the strange behavior of the sect’s members.

Now the Texas authorities should decide not to appeal the decision, get those children back to their parents and get on with investigations of individual instances of abuse — if they can find any. Here’s a guideline: motherhood at the age of 27 is not evidence of abuse.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Child Abuse, Religion | Comments (0) |

Follow-up on "Guilt by Association"

May 22, 2008 – 9:55 am

Based on a comment on a previous post by a regular and respected reader I decided that I need to clarify my position on the whole Texas FLDS thing.

I believe that Mormonism as practiced by the FLDS is all about male domination, power and sex, just like I believe that Islam as practiced by its radical elements is all about male domination, power and sex. I believe that clear instances of abuse should be punished, but when we ditch the constitution in order to right what some in government feel is wrong we are stepping out on a very dangerous slippery slope. I fear the unbound power of government more than I fear fringe religious elements.

If there is one family caught in the wide net cast by the Texas officials that can show they were in no way involved in illegal practices and that there was no probable cause for search and seizure, I hope they sue to the full extent of the law. If there are a hundred such families I hope they all sue.

What Texas should have done when they received the telephone complaint from the young woman was to get a warrant from a judge and go out to the compound and conduct an investigation. If the sect leaders refused to cooperate the authorities should have taken the steps provided by law to force them to cooperate or go to jail. If this process produced clear evidence of abuse, those instances of abuse should have been prosecuted. All other parents and children should have been left to continue their lives as they see fit, as long as it is within the law.

Some have said that if one child was saved from abuse the actions of the Texas officials are justified. This is an absurd argument. Absolutes in a complex social system are unattainable. The FLDS children are being placed in foster-care. Texas cannot guarantee that none of them will be abused. We sacrifice children in accidents because we won’t give up our freedom to travel. We may have to sacrifice children to retain our constitutional rights.

The reader says to ask those who have escaped or been cast out of the FLDS. That is a very good suggestion. Why has their testimony not been used to investigate and prosecute the offenders in the sect? Perhaps it has in some cases. I seem to remember that this might have been a factor in the Warren Jeffs case. But why have we not heard of a lot more of these cases. Could it be that no clear evidence of abuse is found in many of the cases?  Or that the escapees or cast-offs won’t cooperate?

This affair smells to me like a bunch of self-righteous do-gooders getting a bit overwrought over some beliefs and practices that are not like theirs. Neither do I have any clear evidence of that, but I’m not going to go out with armored vehicles and force them into my custody.

I believe that any religion that seeks to force its will on people is despicable. I also believe that a government that unlawfully seeks to force its will on people is despicable and more dangerous (at this time).

Having said all this, I’m willing to admit that I’m wrong about this particular case if Texas proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that all the affected parents are guilty of placing their children in imminent danger of physical abuse.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Child Abuse, Freedom, Religion | Comments (2) |

Guilt by Association?

May 20, 2008 – 8:35 am

It’s a puzzling world we live in. The State of Texas believes that all members of the Eldorado FLDS sect are guilty by their association with some of the Sect’s leaders, who are suspected of sex crimes. But we are lectured constantly by the media that Barack Obama should not be considered guilty of race-baiting through his association with his long-term pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Why weren’t all Catholic children rounded up and put in state custody in Texas when many of the priests were found to be pedophiles? Is there not a Baptist church in Texas whose pastor was charged with having sex with a minor member? It’s in the news somewhere quite frequently.

CBS and AP report on hearings in Texas on the FLDS mess. Some of the parents’ attorneys complained that the Book of Mormon was confiscated from some of the children at a foster facility. If this is true we have Texas taking the Book of Mormon from citizens while the federal government is providing the Koran to foreign terrorists.

State Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said officials have not been able to confirm whether the sect members’ holy text was taken from them, but they have removed photos, sermons and books of FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, a convicted sex offender.

Texas now decides what is fit for children to read? I don’t know what the materials say but it looks like censorship to me. Does this mean that if your child is found to be reading black-listed materials the state can take him or her away from you?

Church members insist there was no abuse. They say the one-size-fits-all action plan devised by CPS doesn’t take into account specific marriage arrangements or living circumstances.

CPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam said the plans look similar now but will be customized as officials get more information.

“It’s logical they all look the same. All the children were removed from the same address at the same time for the same reason,” she said. But “it’s an evolving plan.”

“It’s an evolving plan” is code for “we acted hastily, we didn’t have much concrete information at the time and we used a broad-brush approach, but we are now compiling information that will cover our asses when all this is scrutinized.”

The plans call for parenting classes and vocational testing for the parents. They also require the parents to prove they can support their children and call for safe living environments, though they offer no specifics.

Before they get their children back all the parents will have to be indoctrinated and reprogrammed.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Child Abuse | Comments (2) |

More on the Texas FLDS Mess

April 26, 2008 – 4:17 pm

Legal challenges to the raid on the FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas are starting to pile up. MSNBC and AP report:

The state of Texas made a damning accusation when it rounded up 462 children at a polygamous sect’s ranch: The adults are forcing teenage girls into marriage and sex, creating a culture so poisonous that none should be allowed to keep their children.

But the broad sweep — from nursing infants to teenagers — is raising constitutional questions, even in a state where authorities have wide latitude for taking a family’s children.

I believe that before this is over it will deal a severe blow to aggressive child protection agencies across the country. I don’t mind the government taking custody of children that are clearly being abused, but taking them when there is merely potential for abuse is a bit over the top. And there’s the question about what kind of care the children will get in foster homes. Just a few years ago there was a case in Florida where a foster parent of about a dozen children essentially had them enslaved and imprisoned in her home.

Up until about 70 years ago it was not unusual for 15-17 year-old girls to marry. And some of them weren’t shotgun weddings. One of my relatives married at 15. I know someone whose mother married at 14. My wife and I got married in 1961 when she was 18. I don’t have the statistics at hand (and I’m too lazy to look them up) but I’ve read that a large percentage of 16-year-old American girls have had sex, and practically none of them belong to the FLDS sect. None of this though is an argument that it is acceptable to force teenage girls into marriage and a sexual relationship.

On another note, I’m curious about the outcome of the DNA testing that the court in Texas has ordered for all the children in their custody. One of the reasons given for the testing is that the children aren’t forthcoming with information about their identities and parentage. In other words they can’t depend on the children to tell the authorities who they really are. My question is this: Are the Texas authorities going to brand each of the children as they are tested. Are they going to tattoo a number on their wrist? Are they going to depend on photographs or that the children will give their correct names? If not, how then will they match a set of test results with a child when the analysis is complete? Do they expect that the children will suddenly become cooperative?

Related post: Government Overzealousness in Texas — Again

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Child Abuse | Comments (0) |

Government Overzealousness in Texas — Again

April 17, 2008 – 10:44 am

In Texas, do they arrest every man in town when an anonymous caller claims she was beaten and raped by her husband? Or round up all the women in town and place them in protective custody? I think not. Do they collect all the children in town based on a tip that one has been physically abused? Well, probably not — yet. But that is essentially what the Texas government did at the FLDS compound in Eldorado.

I’m going on record. The FLDS raid will blow up in the Texas Child Protective Service’s face like the Waco raid did in Janet Reno’s face — but maybe not literally this time.

It’s not apparent that they have any real specific evidence of abuse other than the existence of pregnant teenage girls. But what town can you go to in this country and not be able to find pregnant teenage girls? Even if the authorities are holding some evidence, what is the likelihood that it applies to every child (or adult) in the compound?

The state took custody of all the toddlers. Did they think the toddlers were in imminent danger of being taken to the (spiritual) marriage bed? The state took custody of all the boys. Did they think the boys were any more likely to be abused than any other boy in the state? (I’d be surprised if the FLDS tolerates homosexuals.) Did they justify taking them because they thought the boys were being trained to become abusers?  If so, a raid on any church in the state that, for example, teaches boys that they will be the head of their households and that a woman’s place is in the home is not that far away.

How can Texas apply such a broad brush to this problem without violating the individual constitutional rights of the children and their parents? I can see that Texas had the right to investigate the call from the 16-year-old girl. But even if they found some evidence of abuse of specific children during the investigation, I don’t see how they could legally take children that weren’t being abused. I see lots of law suits coming.

Don’t get me wrong. I have little sympathy for the adult members of that cult. I’m thinking about all those little children who have been torn away from their parents. I don’t believe the stories about the kids not knowing who their parents are. They’ve been taught to keep details of their lives secret. Anyway, if what we hear in the news is correct, kids not knowing their daddies is becoming the norm across the country.

Update: This has happened before, and it turned out pretty much like I’m thinking this incident will. Read CNN’s account of a similar raid in 1953.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Child Abuse, Police & Law Enforcement | Comments (0) |

Martinez Wants Welfare for Aerospace Industry

April 8, 2008 – 7:37 am

An e-mail from Senator Mel Martinez contained these statements:

Senator Martinez called for more assistance to the aerospace industry in response to NASA’s estimate of job losses at Kennedy Space Center. “The aerospace industry is critical for our state and our country,” said Senator Martinez. “There is no simple fix to this problem, but we know where to focus our efforts. We need to accelerate the Orion and Ares programs, we need to foster a competitive environment for commercial space operations, and we need to assist the individuals and businesses affected by the transition. The aerospace industry is critical for our state and our country. This is more than a huge economic threat to our region; there is the real potential for a larger loss of human capital for our country at a time when we can’t afford to lose those who’ve dedicated their lives to specializing in engineering and science.”

Notice that he called for more assistance, implying that the aerospace industry is already being subsidized by the government. I know that a large segment of the aerospace industry derives most, if not all, its revenue from the government through defense and space programs, but I was not aware of direct subsidies.

If a supposedly conservative senator believes that engineers and scientists are in need of welfare he must have little confidence in them or our country. I say let the aerospace industry survive or fail on its own. If it fails the scientists and engineers can find or start another industry. Such resources should flow toward current needs, not be artificially sustained in an industry for which there is weakening or no demand.

If we continue down this slippery slope of propping up every troubled industry and individual who has made bad decisions, the last vestiges of our free market will vanish and we will be left with a socialized government and economy. This is a stated goal of Senator Obama but I wouldn’t expect it from a Republican senator.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Economics, Socialism, Welfare | Comments (0) |

The Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb Scam

December 18, 2007 – 1:50 pm

Get ready for the next huge scam — like that of ethanol — to be perpetrated on the American people. Why do I know it’s a scam? Because it has to be forced on us by an Act of Congress. Congress forced ethanol on us and now they are about to force CFLs on us. If CFLs or ethanol are as great as they are claimed to be why wouldn’t the free market usher them into universal usage? The truth is that they aren’t as great as the claims.

USA Today reports on a bill now being pushed through the Senate that President Bush has said he will sign. It sets a timetable for phasing in energy savings in light bulbs. Comparing fluorescent and incandescent bulb energy costs, it says that a fluorescent bulb “saves about $5 a year in electricity costs, paying for itself in as little as four months.”

Although they don’t say so, apparently that claim is based on burning the bulbs constantly for a year. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense. Its obvious that a bulb that’s only on for two hours a year is not going to save $5 a year in power costs. The lights in my boathouse are turned on about once a month and only stay on about 10 minutes each time. The lights in my detached garage aren’t on much longer. But Congress is going to force me to pay four times as much for these bulbs in order to save maybe about two cents a year in energy costs.

I tried CFLs and found two deficiencies so far. They don’t last as long as claimed and they don’t work too well outdoors on cold nights. And there’s the disposal issue. We aren’t supposed to just throw them in the trash because they contain mercury. Does this mean we have to get another recycle basket and have another big truck lumbering down our street each week?

How long before Congress tells us what color to paint our walls? After all, a room with white walls doesn’t need as much light wattage as the same room with darker walls.

Update: A commenter has pointed out that new problems with CFLs have surfaced. Some people with certain skin sensitivities have found that fluorescent light exacerbates the condition. And it has been found that the CFLs can cause migraines and increase the risk of seizures in people with epilepsy. See the comments for a link to a BBC article.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Congress, Conservation, Government Regulation | Comments (2) |

The Nanny State Saved Me Today

September 7, 2007 – 6:39 pm

Yep, the nanny state is on the job; it saved me from myself today. I ventured out with reckless abandon (at least I learned later that it was with reckless abandon) this morning on a trip to the local Lowe’s Home Improvement store to purchase a couple of doors for the new garage I’m building. But that’s not the reckless part; the reckless part was that I intended to purchase and install doors with those nice sunset style windows across the top. But that is not going to happen. The Lowe’s clerk informed me that the state doesn’t allow them to sell garage doors with windows, and the state doesn’t allow me to install them. Silly me. I thought that how I decorated my garage doors would be pretty much up to me and my wife.

Why am I not allowed to have windows in my garage doors? Because I live in a designated 130-140 mph hurricane wind zone. I live about 25 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico in Northwest Florida. Some bureaucrat has decided that it’s too dangerous for me to have the windows. Never mind that in my 67 year lifetime there have never been hurricane winds of more than about 110 mph where I live. Never mind that my garage is not even attached to my house. Never mind that no one is going to seek refuge in my garage during a hurricane. Never mind that well over half the garage doors in my town have windows. Never mind that it is alright with the state if I don’t even put doors on my garage. Never mind that it is alright with the state if people build carports with no walls. Never mind that it is alright with the state if I climb to the top of a tall tree to ride out a hurricane. Somehow the state has decided that it is just too risky for me to have that attractive row of windows across the top of my garage doors.

I tried to figure out the lobbying angle with this prohibition. Most building restrictions result from some trade group or company lobbying the legislature or the bureaucrats for rulings that will benefit them. But it’s not clear how that would play here; garage doors without windows cost less than doors with windows. I suppose it could be the insurance industry wanting to avoid some window replacement costs.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Building Codes, Government Regulation | Comments (0) |