Good Texas Common Sense
A series of articles concerning what the new government of the Republic of Texas should be and do, what the Constitution for the Republic of Texas should be and say, and the philosophical (common sense) reasons behind these statements.
Copyright at Common Law 1996, Donald Dale Henson, sui juris. This article may be reproduced and distributed using any media as long as the article, the author's name, and this copyright notice remain together and unchanged.
Article 5
What About the Children?
by Donald Dale
Henson, sui juris
The rallying cry of the dedicated socialist is 'Save the children'. This phrase is used to garner support for everything from welfare to terrorism bills and is the one objection sure to be brought up when discussing a free society. But what about the children? Are children better off under socialism or in a free society?
First, what objectives do we have for our children? How do we want them 'managed'? How do we want them to turn out? I think most people would agree that we want our children to be safe, well-educated, capable of taking care of themselves, and perhaps just a bit better off than we are.
Let's examine the current situation. When socialism first came into vogue, many laws were passed to protect children. Public education was instituted. Child labor laws were passed. Child protective services came into being. But what has been the effect of these protective laws?
Does anyone claim that the government-run public education system is doing a good job? Children today are graduating from high school unable to read a simple sentence, calculate change from a dollar bill, or point to the United States on a map of the world. Do these children sound like they are well-educated? And when parents complain about this situation, they are told that the school could do a better job if only they had more money. Never mind that they already get twice as much as the average private school.
But at least child labor laws keep children out of the dangerous workplace. Right? It's true that children are not allowed to work in an environment that can cause injuries even in the face of extreme measures to protect worker's health but what do they do instead? They either go to school where they can get drugs, get into fights, get shot, contract communicable diseases, etc, or they go hang out on a street corner where they can get drugs, get into fights, get shot, etc. But they aren't in that dirty old factory learning how to make a living. Besides, if you would just give the schools and the police more money, everything would be ok.
And even if all those other things don't work, at least child protective services protect children from abuse in the home. Right? Don't bet on it. It's not at all uncommon to hear about a battered child that died as a result of a beating in the home only to learn that child protective services had been called to the home several times before but failed to take the child out of the home. On the other hand, cases of social workers taking children out of homes for obscure and even silly reasons abound. The reason you don't hear more about the abuses of 'the system' is that the system is designed to be self-contained supposedly to protect the privacy of the child. Family courts are not open to the public and court records are sealed. Families, both parents and children, have no rights in family court and the judge almost always follows the recommendations of the social worker. This is about as close to a totalitarian police state as you are likely to find. Do you think experiencing this process is good for the child? Of course, they say, if you would only give us more money we would be able to hire more social workers and do a better job.
Wait a minute. Did you notice that all these 'services' started out with good intentions but didn't work so we started giving them more money. They still didn't work, and in fact conditions got worse, so we gave them more money. And more money. And more money. If we continue to give the system more and more money and the conditions continue to get worse and worse, do you think there may be a connection? Do you think that if we continue to do what we're doing, we'll continue to get what we're getting? Could it possibly be that 'the system' is what is 'causing' our problems?
Enter the free society. What happens to children if we get government out of the picture altogether? No government-run schools. No child labor laws. No child protective services. Nothing. What happens?
If there were no government-run schools, parents would have to be responsible for educating their own children. This could be done in the home by the individual parent or several parents could get together and form a private school for their children. Parents could send their children to existing private schools of course and new private schools would probably come into existence to fill specific needs. The advantage of this approach is that parents can ensure that their children are taught what they want them to be taught. Want your children to be raised in the Greek Orthodox tradition? Start a Greek Orthodox school. Want your children to be taught strict scientific methods only? Start a science school. Want your children to pray six times a day? Start a religious school. But, says the socialist, what about the poor people? How would they get an education? Well, rich people could contribute to a fund to educate poor people, entrepreneurs could start schools focusing on inner city neighborhoods, existing schools could offer to take in a few 'poor' students, etc. We can look to history to see that this will, in fact, work. Robert F. Kennedy once said, and this is true, that the literacy rate in Massachusetts was never higher than it was just before the beginning of government-run public schools in Massachusetts. Sounds to me like the government-run public schools are the problem, not the solution.
Without child labor laws, children can start working at an earlier age and may even learn something that will enable them to earn a living later on in life. (Could this be part of a well-rounded education?) Of course, they will be in that dirty dangerous old factory. But is this a real problem? Children can get hurt, of course, just as anyone can regardless of how careful they are or how many safety procedures are implemented. But there is a powerful incentive for factories to be safe. Under the Common Law, there is no limited liability so if someone gets hurt in a factory, the owners, operators, and managment of the factory may have to pay large judgements to the person hurt. Also, workers are a valuable resource and it is in the owner's financial interest to keep them healthy and productive. In fact, factories in the previous century were beginning to become much safer due to this situation even before the government started issuing safety regulations. And of course the parents have a say in whether the child should be working or not. Would you rather make the decision as a parent or would you prefer that some bureaucrat with no kids make the decision?
But how about child abuse? Children do get saddled with irresponsible parents. How do we protect children in such an environment? First, interfering with a parent's treatment of his or her children is a very dangerous process at best. One parent's abuse may be another parent's discipline. Fortunately, we have a remedy under the Common Law. Children are protected by the Common Law in the same way as adults are. A child can file a complaint against his or her parents in a Common Law court or someone can file the complaint in the stead of the child. Of course, most of the jury members are probably parents themselves so it would be difficult to convince most of them that being sent to bed without supper as punishment for lying was a Common Law crime. On the other hand, a spanking severe enough to leave bruises for several days should probably qualify as battery. And, of course, you must always remember that a Common Law court can decide that a complaint is frivolous and award damages to the defendant so you need to be very sure of your case before filing the complaint. Will some child abuse go undetected and unpunished in a free society? Of course. But that happens under the current system anyway even in the face of police state tactics. Since 'the system' doesn't solve or even significantly reduce the problem, why do we put up with it?
As we have seen in at least three of the major 'services' of the socialist system, children would be better off or no worse off in a free society. Given this information and a choice between the current system and a free society, which one would you choose?
Does this make sense? Good Texas Common Sense?
Copyright at Common Law, West El Paso Information Network, 1996