August 17, 2007

(South Carolina) - Two recent stories have sent a thought into my head which is both chilling and possible - a couple in Chester has agreed to therapy in order not to lose possession of their children and a couple in China is waiting for the police to tell them if they can name their child "@".

The Chester couple was turned in by a neighbor and the children were said to have been found playing in a filth-ridden, maggot-infested house. There may also be some developmental problems. There is no question that there is a serious problem here.

The Chinese couple would have had no problem if they had decided to name their child "Li," and we would never have found out that in China, THE POLICE decide who gets what name. This is clearly insane, even if it is predictable.

But both incidents pivot on the same point - bureaucracy is killing parental rights over their children.

There is no justification for what the parents did to their children in Chester. But bad law comes from bad instances, and there is no justification for allowing a government bureaucracy to remove children from their parents without judicial process. The Chester parents have committed a crime against their children and probably ought to be killed. But it is the court that should be moving aggressively, not a government bureaucracy. Period. Yet, that is exactly what happened. There are plenty of stories about children that were mistakenly taken by bureaucrats from their parents because the parents of the children were having a bad day, and the judiciary was left to clean up the pieces.

The Chinese parents may be kooky, but to have to submit to a governmental bureaucracy in order to name a child is, in itself, criminal.

Individuals owe NOTHING to the state. Bureaucracies, by definition, do not have judicial purview and should not be allowed to act accordingly - that's lazy peoples' law. You indict the Chester parents, convict them, lock them away, and then give the children to family or caring people with the means to raise them. We do not need a bureaucracy in order to do this. Arguably, one of the worst things we have ever done as a free society is to create "Family" Court.

And the police have no business regulating the naming of Chinese children - this is not freedom even by Marxist standards. Yet, there is, ethically, no difference between the two situations when it comes to the incredible arrogance of bureaucracy.

Government does NOT know better. When we allow someone else to do assume our responsibility, we give up another piece of freedom. Bureaucracy is the death of freedom.

- Dick Anderson