In what sort of place are children taken from their parents, or parents investigated by the authorities with that in mind, because they allowed their 10- and 6-year-olds to walk to a park to play?
Not a forced 20-mile march across Death Valley, mind you, but a Saturday stroll of less than a mile under normal earth conditions.
What sort of place? These United States — Silver Spring, Maryland, to be specific.
That’s where Danielle and Alexander Meitiv’s two kids, Rafi and Dvora, were picked up by police, on their way home from a neighborhood park.
A two-month Montgomery County Child Protective Services (MCCPS) investigation followed. Now, there’s no law against youngsters walking in public by themselves. Local public schools don’t provide bus service for kids within a mile of the school, deeming that close enough to walk. Nevertheless, this week, authorities announced that the Meitivs were “found responsible” for “unsubstantiated child neglect.”
The good news is that the neglect charge is completely “unsubstantiated.” The bad news is that official “Free State” busybodies seem to have not one clue as to what that word means.
MCCPS will keep a file on the suspicious family for five years. “We don’t know if we will get caught in this Kafkaesque loop again,” says Mrs. Meitiv, noting that the agency left unanswered the question of what might happen if they ever again dare allow their kids to walk outside the house without adult supervision.
The family is appealing the nonsensical MCCPS “finding.” In the meantime, the Meitiv children will continue to walk in public as if it’s a free country.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “Well-Substantiated Insanity”
People have to be afraid or they can’t be controlled effectively. Afraid of elements in their own community or the government. Either is good for control. Obey. Mind. Don’t question authority. Specifically, Federal authority. Lincoln might have helped along the demise of slavery, but he ruined the Union. We are not a union of free states and haven’t been since the Civil War. It is a forced union with the Feds firmly in charge. That’s why we have political groups and individuals constantly yammering for money from any body and everybody trying to make it to Washington. Politics pays big. Federal politics pays bigger. Ever notice how a political party sending out a 3 page paper asking for your opinion always, and I mean always, attaches a form to mark how much money you’re sending back with your opinion? The world’s oldest profession comes to mind every time I read or see some of this stuff.
A total abomination, while actual crime statistics have fallen and these children are probably safer than ever before in America’s history, the paranoia and intrusion of “society” into private lives and liberty becomes ever more stifling. They should win on appeal, but at what cost?
This “social action” negates the concept of a free society, and solidifies the belief that the society is responsible for all, good and all evil.. What are we doing, penalizing parents for not “preventing” the POTENTIAL crime of another?
I, Stalin and Hitler, can make very good use of the double-think concept that additional scrutiny is justified and necessary because the charge of child neglect was totally unsubstantiated.
P. Long — I’d like to see government decentralized (though, the Feds still protecting liberties against encroachment via state governments). You’re right that far too many decisions, most in fact, are made at the level most removed from us. BUT, this travesty is coming from the Feds or even the State of Maryland, but from local officialdom.
That’s how much these kooky totalitarian ideas have permeated our society. VERY SCARY.
Oops! I meant to write that this travesty is NOT coming from the Feds or the State but from the local government.
Hello….. Maryland (the “Newman” of all the States).
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