There's a thin line between wanting the children of other 'bad parents' taken away, and wanting to give the state the power to take children from
their parents on a judgement call. You'd better be real careful who you give that power to, and be watchful once they've got it.
In cases of physical violence, to protect the child's safety, I can see it. But that's exactly where the line gets
very thin. What's
within the boundaries of protecting safety?
This falls on the courts to decide, and I guess they do a fair enough job at it, but something nags at me... Protecting kids from parental
abuse/endangerment/neglect is fine, unless you just thrust them into a different sort of abuse/endangerment/neglect, which is exactly what happens,
time and time again.
So it's no longer dad beating up little Johnny, it's six kids at 'the facility.' And yeah, little Annie no longer lives with her junkie mother in
their needle-infested flat, but now she's stuck with Mr. Hernandez (deemed 'kindly' by some well-meaning social worker) who molests her every
night.
If the state is going to run facilities for at-risk youth, and if the state is going to shoulder the burden of every bad parent, then the state had
damn well better be prepared for the Herculean task. It's not numbers, it's kids, and it's important. If the state assumes the role, and bungles
it, they get no pass from me. What am I talking about? It's been fumbled, the ball is somewhere in the stands, there's a pig pile on the 40 yard
line, the cheerleaders are drunk, and the coaches have gone off together to live as cowboys.
The situation is really, really bad at some American facilities. I can't speak for other countries, but I suspect they all have some problems, of
one kind or another. It's hard to raise good people in a bad society..it's really, really hard.
If the state is just going to mess it up as bad as the parents, you might as well save a whole ton of money and do nothing!