How the Free Market Would Deal with Child Abuse
Carlos Morales is a former Child Protective Services investigator, author of Legally Kidnapped: The Case Against Child Protective Services, president and founder of Child Protective Services Victim Support, the host of the Truth Over Comfort Podcast, and a committed legal advocate for family reunification.
Since leaving his career as an investigator, he has actively helped families throughout the country fight for their children in and out of court. His pursuit of a radical overhaul for child protection programs has taken him from university lecture halls, to television and radio studios, and the pages of a variety of publications.
I wanted to answer a question that is brought up nearly every time I talk about my past as a Child Protective Services Investigator and the reasons why I believe CPS must be dissolved if we actually want to protect children. That question is “How will children be protected in a society which no longer relies on governmental systems?”
The Current State of Affairs
Before I delve into the theoretical propositions and ideas, we must first look at how children are protected now or should I say how they’re not protected. Presently, due to an immense taxation system, it has become increasingly difficult for parents to be able to homeschool children. This has thrown children in the shackles of state run public schools. In these public schools children are corralled in a coordinated effort to breed conformity and a dependence upon others for original thought, direction, or motivation. They are not taught how to think or gather knowledge, but instead are taught what to think—well at least what to think until their next test, and then it’s immediately forgotten and replaced with other worthless facts.
Public Schools
Take a minute to put yourself back into your old size 4 kid’s shoes and think about what school really was like: We spend 8-10 hours 5 days a week with a discordant aggregation of coerced developing souls, and receive our values, preference, morality, our view of history and learning through the lens of this bureaucratic institution that has almost no form of oversight. This is, in part, due to the fact that a majority of our society has been put through the same motions of irrational absolutist and authority based “learning” that was antithetical to critical thought— for a society of critical thinkers ought not hold to the beliefs of others purely for the unearned position they hold, but instead by the merit of their argumentation and consistency in their message.
In addition, the lack of oversight is due to the coercive nature in which these public schools are funded. Though there is a superficial competition brought on by private schools, the majority of these simply mirror the public school format with the addition of god, because the 8 hour schedule of tyrannical imprisonment is what is assumed to be the way to get kids to conform to society’s standards and therefor is the norm in many of these “private” schools. The superficiality of this competition is also in the lack of actual competition, for the playing field is stacked towards the side that is funded whether or not an individual wants to pay into it. If a parent wants to stick their child in these highly regulated private schools, they still have to pay for the public school on top of that. Of course, the difficulty for parents to pay for them when they’re being taxed to the point that both parents must work and do not have the time to raise their own children is quite high.
Fatherless Homes and the Welfare State
The State’s war on consciousness within public education is only one aspect of the horrendous way in which children and families are treated in the United States. Within American, there is a coercive and cultural push against a strong familial unit due to an increasing welfare state which has incentived and has led to a rise in single family households. The War on drugs has synergistically worked with the welfare state to strip children away from their parents in the name of “protecting children.”
The effects of fatherless homes are tragic: 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes – 10 times the average. 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes. Daughters of single parents without a Father involved are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 711% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a pre-marital birth and 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.
Child Protective Services
After the state has led to this very horrific condition for children, they then introduce one of the most atrocious agencies on earth, Child Protective Services, which my book Legally Kidnapped: The Case Against Child Protective Services tackles. At CPS we rarely if ever struck out against parents for real abuse, i.e. physical, but instead focused on carrying out the drug war and using shaky evidence to ruin people’s lives. We had to make investigation reports based off our memory of the memory of someone else who in many times is basing it off the memory of someone else who had an inherint bias on the story, that story was then edited at least a few times until getting into the investigator and with that basis we had the ability to disrupt a family structure and traumatize a child. The ability and inevitability for corruption and deceit were imbedded in the system, and whether acting with bad or good intent the results were nearly always negative.
As a child protective service investigator I was at odds with morality, for to act morally in our agency would be to act against its interests, its intent, its motive, and its actions. CPS was not just supporting the war on illegal drugs, it was profiting off of it, as well as profiting on the war on children’s minds.
Foster homes are granted more money if a child has a disability, in certain cases getting paid more for each disability one child would have. So a diagnosis of a mental disorder means more money for foster parents. This in turn led to large dosing of children with pharmaceutical drugs, which are the wonderful 21st century version of mental slavery. You see, to add to the destruction of children’s minds due to the monotony, manipulation, and mangling of consciousness, they also throw on drugs. Don’t worry though, as they’re created in a lab so therefor they are safe to throw in a developing brain.
The Drugging of Child in America
There are 7 million children just in the United States on ADHD medications, and a couple million more on anti-depressant drugs. These drugs are never tested on children in clinics prior to release because that would be unethical, but of course it’s perfectly ethical to make test rats out of them once they are on the market.
How Will Children Be Protected Without the State?
So, how would the free market deal with child abuse? Well, as has just been discussed, once you acknowledge that the majority of the abuse occurring to children is the result of the State than removing it from society is necessary. Why would keeping the institution which institutionalizes abuse be necessary to prevent abuse?
Now, as has been discussed by others, the reality of a stateless society occurring can only come about when the majority of individuals no longer teach the language of violence to their children. Just as it would be nearly impossible to talk many children into the idea of domestic violence being moral and virtuous today, similarly we must get the point where the emotional and physical violence perpetuated by so many parents in society are rejected for peaceful means of voluntary communication and dispute resolution between children and adults. In the same way that you cannot make a moral argument that you had to hit your wife to keep her in line, you cannot make a moral argument that you had to hit a child – who is much weaker and less able to defend themselves – in order to keep them in line. In the cases where a stateless society would have to deal with child abuse, child abuse would already have become a much more rare case.
Locus of Control
Something else to keep in mind is that the statist mentality has been terrific at removing the locus of control. What I mean by that is, if you see a kid getting hit in a grocery store, it’s very rare for anyone to actually go up to the parent and reprimand them for doing that. That is seen as the cop’s job, that’s CPS’s job, that’s everyone else but my job. This is seen in many cases, it is not the parent’s responsibility to educate children; it is the State’s job. It’s not my job to protect my property; it’s the State’s job. It’s not a good idea to help out a neighbor or a victim or the poor; no, that’s the State’s job. So, in order to move beyond these mental and sometimes physically imposed confines, we must take responsibility to do the things we want to see in the world.
Justice
Secondly, when I make the statement Statelessness, I mean the removal of a monopolistic coercive force that does everything through violence. A state based justice system is the exact opposite of just. If someone steals your car and then lights it on fire in a statist system, and is then caught, the victim has to go through a bureaucratic system that is paid for through force that has been imposed on him through taxation in order to receive some form of justice. In this case, this justice does not mean the person getting a new car or the perp having to work to afford a new car and interest for the person. Rather the perp is thrown into a cage which is paid for by money stolen from the victim in the form of taxation. I can’t understand how any rational human being could see this as justice. So in a stateless system, you would still have some form of rules which are at the least consistent for all individuals and based in some form of rationality. If you want a larger explanation of a proof for secular ethics, check out my presentation “Libertarian Ethics explained in fewer than 3 minutes”.
Essentially, individuals own themselves, property rights are derived from self-ownership, and to impose on individuals right to their life or property that has been justly acquired is unethical and unjust. There would most likely have to be some form of Arbitration Company and insurance companies which would work to ensure that those property rights are protected, but those could exist morally only if they were funded through voluntary transactions. The idea of protecting someone’s property and life by stealing some of their property and if they refuse to give it, their life is taken away is just as insane as it sounds, yet that is the state system we currently live. Now, insurance agencies would be used for things such as home and life insurance. Insurance companies would take precautions to ensure that homes are secure as to prevent theft which would then cost the insurance company money, as well as work to promote a healthy lifestyle in individuals for the exact same incentive. Insurance companies would most likely do routine checkups to ensure people are healthy, and the rates would be adjusted depending on the health of the individual. Realize that the major reason for our sky rocketing insurance rates of now are due to the absurd amount of regulations, corruption, and subsidizations within our current system. I can cover that in another episode, but let’s move on. You would also have a contract with Dispute resolution organizations which are only used in severe cases where disputes are unable to be dealt with behind closed doors, i.e. difficult contract negations, compensation for crimes committed, and the like. Now private defense firms would exist to help prevent the very crimes we are trying to prevent. What all three have in common is that they are incentived by competition to do their best, as the means of their profit are only tangible through voluntary means and as such must compete in order to remain in business. What all three also have in common is that they must protect and ensure the safety of their customers. Now, at this point in time we have very substantial proof that child abuse leads to a host of detrimental side effects that affect not only the victim but also possible victims if this victim becomes a perpetrator of crime and abuse later in life. If you want to see the largest predictors of a multitude of various criminal and antisocial behaviors later in life, you need only to look at the way children are raised. The government does not benefit off of raising individualist, forward thinking, and non-violent children, because those types of individuals do not fall in the line with the empty dictates of old men that want to enforce unjust laws that kill milions. On the other hand, privately run organizations actually benefit from peace, prosperity, and a respect for individuals property, So, what do you think would happen if it came out that someone was hitting their kid. Well, the insurance premiums would go up, the defense organization would let people know in the community as to shame and ostracize the parent, and dro’s may raise their rates as well, as this child is more likely to commit a host of crimes later in the future. Similarly, if the child commits property theft or a host of other antisocial behavior, parents will be actually held responsible for their actions rather than children being immediately blamed for everything. If the child is cutting themselves, suffering from bulimia, or displaying highly destructive drug use, rates would also go up. Of course, the rates could go down if the parents voluntarily applies to take therapy classes, and makes positive changes to remedy the situation. At this point in time, people in the community will already be aware of the detrimental effects of child abuse and will more quickly empathize and reach out to take care of the child rather than siding with the abuser, in the same way that people now empathize and reach out to take care of victims of domestic violence rather than siding with the spousal abuser. Realize that this is in no way like Child Protective Services, because CPS only remains open if abuse continues or abuse is made up, and foster homes and CPS similarly are subsidized to commit violence against children in the form of psychiatric drugs, the removal of parents for arbitrary reasons, and the insanity that is the basis for the family court system. Now, one may think, why wouldn’t parents just stop paying into these insurance companies, dispute resolution organizations, or defense agencies. Well, if they did, very few people would be willing to do any form of business with individuals who are not paying into a system that could deal with any dispute that they may have. So, in other words, the social and economic cost of continuing to abuse a child would be huge in comparison to simply raising a child in a moral and just manner. We live in a society where the people who are supposed to defend us our most immoral, irrational and violent. Where state agencies actually benefit from the abuse of children. Where the protectors of children are the most vile and despicable human beings. When asked how will children be protected without an organization like child protective services, ask them how will getting rid of an agency that has costs the lives of so many, ruined the live of many more, and strikes fear in the heart of rational and loving parents not immediately help children. Nearly anything is better to protect children, then an organization which benefits by preventing the protection of children.
Learn more about Child Protective Services in the book Legally Kidnapped: The Case Against Child Protective Services www.legallykidnapped.net
