When I first saw the headline, I thought this was a touch of exaggeration by the Daily Mail (hardly my favourite newspaper). But it turns out to be fairly solid. Here is an AP version. My apologies to readers as this item is a few days’ old:
Scottish officials say they may take four heavy children away from their parents after warnings to help their kids trim down have apparently failed. The children are aged one to 11. The parents are obese and have three older children who are also heavy. For the past two years, the family has lived in government housing and had their eating habits scrutinized. Last week, officials in Dundee told the family their four youngest children could be taken into foster care or adopted. A government spokesman said they would act in the children’s best interests.
In the U.S., there have been several cases where obese children have been taken into care after their parents couldn’t help them lose weight.
Now, the issue of whether or when third parties – not just states – should intervene if children are thought to be at risk is not an easy line to draw. (It is one of those issues that I find can divide libertarians, such as intellectual property and immigration). But this case does seem a particularly egregious example of state over-reach. There is no suggestion that the parents of these children are cruel, or unpleasant, nor is there any suggestion that the children are unhappy, or held against their will. None of the usual markers of harm seem to apply, unless there are facts of the case that have not been issued for reasons of confidentiality or legal reasons. About the most that might be said is that the elders are not very successful in encouraging their offspring to be fit. And that might be fair, but I tend to regard much, if not all, of the current obesity obsession as another of those moral panics about which writers such as HL Mencken famously wrote.
This is a bad case, and I hope the children can be restored to their home as soon as possible. It seems bizarre, at a time when, in the aftermath of the riots, we are told about the importance of families, that certain people in governments should be so determined to break them up even where the problems do not appear to be particularly severe. If a child grows up with a loving mother and father and happens to be a bit on the chubby side, that is surely infinitely better than a generation of fit young thugs without fathers.
Ah, but Johnathan, the lessons of the riots don’t apply up here because, as the great leader Alec told us at the time, we’re different. Reality only applies in England. We learned this in the 1980s. If it weren’t for the Union, you see, the cozy corporatist economics of the 1970s that nasty Mrs. Thatcher callously took a hatchet to for her own amusement would still be ticking along quite happily north of the Border, Ravenscraig would still be producing steel nobody wants, and Linwood would still be churning out half-finished Hillman Imps.
So, safe inside this reality inversion field, the state in Scotland can quite cheerfully continue to break up families without any consequence whatever. Stop worrying.
This post is woefully unbalanced. A more moderate take was supplied by Frank J. of IMAO:
It’s important to get both sides of the story in difficult cases like this.
So this is the purpose for which we give the state the monopoly on the use of force for?
Not to defend our borders or to persecute the evil-do’er (to use George Walker Bush’s amusing phrase), but to persecute the new criminals, the smoker, the drinker and the fatty.
Where’s this fucking revolution? Time to put a few socialists up against the wall.
Based upon the experiences of my brother and sister-in-law at the hands of the UK’s ‘social services’, I’m afarid that my default interpretation of this story is that the ‘social workers’ involved are nothing more than lying, deviant sociopaths who don’t give a tinkers’ damn about the welfare of the children or the family involved, and who have created this Kafkaesque nightmare out of equal parts of
– an uncontrolled desire to indulge their sick socio-political domination fantasies by imposing their will without limit on powerless victims, and all at taxpayers expense, and
– a purely-venal impulse to maximize the consumption of ‘social service’ resources, in order to justify existing budgets, demand larger future budgets, provide endless (make-)work and overtime for useless drones, furnish new and ‘transgressive’ material for publication and presentation at conventions of other similar drones (preferably at pleasant South Coast resort towns), and generally inflate the ego(s) and apparent significance of themselves and their department.
Absent evidence to the contrary, I will go with my default. But maybe I’m biased.
llater,
llamas
I could maybe understand this if the kids in question were like 500+ pounds(or the age-adjusted equivalent), the kind of overweight where it just makes you incapable of operating in society. But from that pic in the Daily Mail article, they look entirely normal. Yeah, it’s not exactly an ideal weight, but you’d probably have to take 20% of all kids away from their parents if that’s a crime. As if the foster care system is so overburdened with willing parents that we need to find excuses to throw more kids into it.
Absolutely disgusting.
What Alsaidius said. Some of these children are clearly overweight, but none are morbidly obese.
There is a hidden agenda here. Most probably, some local social worker has a grudge against this family, possibly because they have so many children, possibly for disrespect of social worker.
I would survey the “catchment area” of this particular agency, and see if there are other fat kids in the area who have been left alone – and if any of those kids are morbidly obese.
I don’t know what’s more depressing – the fact that it’s happened, or the fact that I’m not surprised.
…and this, O Samizdatians, is yet another example of why the Second Amendment is so important.
Note: The whole thing will be covered by all sort of reporting restrictions – supposedly for the benefit of the children, but in reality for the benefit of the social workers and their accomplices in the judiciary and the legal professions.
If there were no reporting restrictions, and say Scotland’s own Lorraine Kelly was to interview the parents on TV then very quickly the public outcry would cause the social workers to drop the case like a hot potato.
The simplest reform to break the power of the “Children and Families” social workers is a law to prevent reporting restrictions and to require all such cases to be held in open court.
Note: The whole thing will be covered by all sort of reporting restrictions – supposedly for the benefit of the children, but in reality for the benefit of the social workers and their accomplices in the judiciary and the legal professions.
If there were no reporting restrictions, and say Scotland’s own Lorraine Kelly was to interview the parents on TV then very quickly the public outcry would cause the social workers to drop the case like a hot potato.
The simplest reform to break the power of the “Children and Families” social workers is a law to prevent reporting restrictions and to require all such cases to be held in open court.
Note: The whole thing will be covered by all sort of reporting restrictions – supposedly for the benefit of the children, but in reality for the benefit of the social workers and their accomplices in the judiciary and the legal professions.
If there were no reporting restrictions, and say Scotland’s own Lorraine Kelly was to interview the parents on TV then very quickly the public outcry would cause the social workers to drop the case like a hot potato.
The simplest reform to break the power of the “Children and Families” social workers is a law to prevent reporting restrictions and to require all such cases to be held in open court.
Evidence that the welfare state is government promoted, sponsored, and subsidized child abuse (too those not wilfully blind at least).
Evidence that the welfare state is government promoted, sponsored, and subsidized child abuse (to those not wilfully blind at least).
They should emigrate to the U.S. The boys would be quickly signed up as linemen on their new schools’ (American) football teams. They’d be happier and healthier turning some of that fat into muscle while crushing their puny opponents week after week. The schools would enjoy winning more games than last year with such formidable players on the line. And the parents could keep their kids. It’s win-win-win.
Obviously, John Galt, they can’t pick up those heavy rifles so as to shoot the socialists against the wall- nor would they know where they can buy guns and/or rifles! Being fat means they’re lazy, after all!
Here, though, we can invert Lenin- the socialists will make us all fit enough to be able to kill them all!
I find this disgusting.
Obviously a case of ‘power’ run amok and it needs to be stopped. If it isn’t stopped, this, these ‘people’ ( social workers ? ) will end up moving INTO your home and running your entire life !! Running, ( or ruining ? ) peoples lives is what they live for !!
If these were my children, taking them away from me would literally be, ‘over my dead body’.
‘You’re taking my children ?’
Expect a VIOLENT reaction aimed at the messenger, who in this case, I’m sure is also the perpetrator !
maybe someone needs to try a ball bat ( cricket
bat ? ) on the knees, work your way up to the mouth and then the nose. I would suggest items that are somewhat more effective than a bat but you
( effectively ) can’t own those any longer.
If this or something similar it isn’t done, it will only get worse – as it has over the years because NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE !
Where and when do you draw the line and say to hell with everything else, ENOUGH ???
About the most that might be said is that the elders are not very successful in encouraging their offspring to be fit.
It is not necessary for elders to encourage their offspring to be fit; it *is* “necessary” to *stop* feeding them the wrong food. Google “paleo diet” to see what I mean.
And just to forestall any who think I endorse such action by the State: those who threatened to steal the children should be shot. Those who *sent* those who threatened to steal the children should be shot. Follow that chain all the way to the top. Not very civil but then neither is kidnapping or the application of State force.