Six young brothers and sisters face being taken from their parents and put into care because they are overweight.Needless-to-say, I'm talking about the social workers, not the parents.Social workers have warned they will intervene if three of the youngsters – including a 12-year-old boy who weighs 16 stone – do not shed several pounds in three months.
According to the Mail:
The shocking development highlights Britain's childhood obesity crisis, which has already forced those as young as 13 to seek NHS weight-loss surgery.No it doesn't. What it highlights is Britain's nanny state crisis. Let's get things straight: this is none of the government's business.
2 comments:
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Andrew Duffin
Nobody is talking about law and order.
We are talking about the State barging in because (in someone's opinion) someone else's children are too fat.
Nobody suggested, either, that the children concerned are exercising their liberty.
The liberty we are concerned with - and you should be too, William - is that of the parents.
It may be obvious to you that fat children should be taken into "care" (scare quotes used deliberately, since care in these cases means anything but). It won't be so obvious when other children - perhaps your own - are removed for some other reason that you happen not to agree with.
The liberty, on the other hand, is the same in both cases. It can't be subdivided; a tyranny, once permitted to establish itself, will go whichever way it wants.
Does the history of the 20th century not provide enough warnings?
27 March 2008, 17:45:42 GMT
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William
So, only people on the welfare state are obese? I don't think so. Are you seriously arguing that people should be allowed to treat children how they please if they're not on the welfare state?
I use liberty in quotation marks above because it's a perversion of the term to describe children in that scenario as exercising their liberty in any meaningful sense.
27 March 2008, 12:20:21 GMT
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David Farrer
I am always suspicious when people use the word liberty in quotation marks. Usually it indicates that the person doesn't understand or support liberty.
If we grant government the right to police our diets then there will eventually be no limits on state power of any sort. The best way do deal with obesity is to abolish the welfare state.
27 March 2008, 07:33:11 GMT
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Title: A New Cultural Revolution
Excerpt: I wish this surprised or even shocked me. True, this is Dundee, but even so...Six young brothers and sisters face being taken from their parents and put into care because they are overweight. Social workers have warned they will intervene if three of t...
Blog name: The Debatable Land
25 March 2008, 20:46:37 GMT
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William
It is the Government's business if children are morbidly overweight. If parental/family control has broken down to such an obvious degree then the State has a duty to take control. The alternative is to leave children with chronic health problems and drastically shortened life expectancy, in the name of 'liberty'.
If you overfed your dog to that extent, a vet would report you. But it's okay to treat children like that?!
"my view that Social Workers and other agents of the State should not have the power to remove peoples' children against the wishes of the parents, WHATEVER the circumstances"
Absolute lunacy. Children are not flat-screen TV's or some other property bought from a shopping catalogue to be treated as you wish. They have rights and where those rights are not being respected then the State is entitled to enforce them - law and order being one of the duties of any respectable government.
25 March 2008, 13:58:13 GMT
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Anne
There is no fault for children, but the society. we're blamed for the McDonals and other chains that are creeping into these societies with much of the same results. I am a fat girl on pluscupid.com. I got overweight when I was a teenager for having much junk foods and less excercises.
24 March 2008, 02:25:12 GMT
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Neil Craig
It is not merely the scandals of abuse leading (sometimes) to prosecution. It is the fact that imprisonment, illiteracy, alcholism, drug dependency, homelessness & virtually every sign of human failutre is orders of magnitude worse in those brought up in "care" than the rest of society. Kidnapping children provides opportunity for social work empire building but demonstrably, on average, harms the victims of "care".
23 March 2008, 16:51:59 GMT
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Andrew Duffin
For the avoidance of doubt, as the lawyers say, let me make it clear that my comment above is NOT written in jest!
23 March 2008, 16:34:45 GMT
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Andrew Duffin
Given the number of abuse scandals which have now arisen in local authority childrens' homes (and we can, I am sure, assume at least as many that either have not been discovered, or have been hushed up), it's my view that Social Workers and other agents of the State should not have the power to remove peoples' children against the wishes of the parents, WHATEVER the circumstances.
State "care" seems now to carry an unacceptable risk of even worse outcomes.
Let them prove otherwise if they can.
23 March 2008, 16:33:56 GMT
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Bill (Scotland)
You 'libertarians' are all the same! You think you know better than the wise social workers who are there to guide a simple citizenry in furtherance of socialised government's aim to make every new day better than the one which preceded it. Shame on you!
You will realise, I trust, that I wrote the above in jest
23 March 2008, 16:27:20 GMT
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