That makes a lot of sense. Also,it should be noted that the federal DHHS agency does not take children from dangerous homes. They write reports,do research and give out grant money. They also publish guidelines on ethical standards in human research . Additionally they administer programs that provide food aid to the elderly as well as dozens of other things that have nothing to do with the case at hand. Heres a link.
http://www.hhs.gov/about/whatwedo.html Now Im certain many small government libertarian types think that they there is no need for them to exist,but that's a debate for another time. They dont take peoples children.
As for DHS,they dont take children away from dangerous situations. In fact,local police usually dont even do that. When there is a potential problem,they call social services,CPS or the local or state department of health and human services and let them deal with it. In these cases,the police dont tell the social workers what to do,its the other way around. Social workers take the kids,and the police are there just to make sure that no one gets in the way. The social worker shows up with a couple of officers and tells the parents that the children are coming with them and that the police will arrest them if they interfere. The social workers run the show. The police are law enforcement officers. They enforce the law and arrest people. In fact,I dont think they even have the authority to take kids. They need the appropriate agency to come out and do that ,and yes,that agency will probably place a heavy emphasis on the officers word. Still,that job and the decision whether to do it rests with the local child welfare agency. If "the police took your kids" chances are what really happened was that the police ARRESTED you,and then called the local child welfare agency to come get the kids becuase they cant just leave them in an empty house after arresting the parents. Yes an officer COULD lie to get your children taken away,but then again,so could I. I could tell them that I saw something. That sucks if it happens to you,but honestly,if you were that social worker and you had a believable witness that alleged child abuse,what would you do? Do you have a better way to protect children from abusers that do their abuse behind closed doors and threaten children to make them keep their mouth shut. What if I'm not lying. What if the abused child confided in her friend and her friend told me what happened. (the social worker would speak to my child and if it seemed legit,they could take action) Do you really think that a social worker should come to a parents door,and say "Your neighbors child said that you had been touching your daughter inappropriately and said you would kill her and her mother if she told anyone. Have you been doing that? No you say? OK,then we will go away and assume that your daughter or your neighbors daughter is lying and trust that you will not do anything illegal to her for telling people that you molested her. Have a nice day sir! If anyone have a better idea to protect the children that ARE being abused in that way than taking them out of that situation,speak up.
I would like to add that in my opinion Department of Homeland Security is about the most Fascist name you could come up with for an agency. Personally,I dont think we needed it,we just needed a few reforms with what we had before. I imagine the politicians sitting around saying "After 9-11 we need a domestic security agency. We need to decide what to call this new domestic security agency. There are a lot possibilities,and in the tradition of other federal agencies we should choose a three letter acronym that easy to remember so that people will be able to instantly know we are talking about the new domestic security agency when we use it. The name for the new domestic security agency should be something that doesn't evoke an image of a dictatorial secret police organization. We want people to understand that this domestic security agency is there to protect them,not to spy on them. How about Department Of Homeland Security! Seriously though a traditionally American name would have been something like DSA,the Domestic Security Agency. Thats how we have historically named these agencies,instead of throwing around terms like "Motherland,Fatherland,Homeland,etc. It just seems to me that too many dictators throw those terms around. Its like if we decided to have a sweeping immigration reform measure that would deal with the problem in a comprehensive and complete way and called it the FSIA "Final Solution for Immigration Act". I dont really care HOW fair,balanced and effective it really is. Its a terrible name. Its one of those "What the hell were you thinking" sort of things.
