Say Anything Blog

Imagine, for a moment, that you are sitting at home one day when the police department calls you and explains that they feel that you might capable of robbing the local convenience store based on the testimony of a doctor you’ve never met, so they’re going to get an arrest warrant in a secret court proceeding and take you to jail for the good of yourself and everyone else.  After that, neither you nor anyone else (up to and including the media) will be allowed to talk about your case.  You, like most people, would be scared and angry.  Now imagine that you record a conversation you have with the police about your impending arrest and post it on the internet in order to inform your fellow citizens about what’s happening to you, and the police respond with a lawsuit to get it taken down.

Sound far-fetched?  It’s not, really once you consider that the scenario above is happening to a woman in Great Britain, except that in reality the police are really social services and she is being considered capable of harming her own child instead of likely to rob the local liquor store.

Behold the grim realities of the nanny state:

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of “emotional abuse”, even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.

Social services’ recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.

Hexham children’s services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.

Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.

From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.

Amazing, isn’t it?  This woman has broken no laws.  She has not harmed herself, her child or anyone else.  She is not being afforded proper due process, and when she attempts to engage her accusers in an open public forum (the internet, in this instance) the power of the government is used to shut her up.

How does this happen?  How does a free western democracy devolve to the point where bureaucrats can get a secret court order to take your child away from you and shut you up if you attempt to speak out about it?  It happens when citizens abdicate responsibility to the government.  Responsibilities such as providing for their own health care and raising their own children.

Here in America the idea of making the government responsible for providing us all with health care is one of the biggest issues of this election cycle.  Yet when we abdicate the responsibility for caring for ourselves in that manner to the government we invite politicians and bureaucrats in to start telling us when to go to the doctor and how to live our lives.

Recently here in North Dakota there was an article in the Bismarck Tribune about parents calling the police to help control their unruly (but not law-breaking) children.  Again, this is an abdication of personal responsibility in that the parents are essentially asking the police officers to raise their children for them.

This is why I’m a conservative.  I am adamant about personal responsibility, because if I invite someone else to be responsible for me I invite them in to control aspects of my life that I may not want controlled.