In This Corner

The family has long been the building block of any strong, free nation. Those who seek to engineer a utopian nanny state know that. That’s why they are busily seeking to sever every meaningful tie between children and their parents. The movement to seize control of the lives of America’s children is among the ugliest, and most ungodly, things that is going on in the country today – and most parents are like frogs in the pot, they don’t even realize it’s happening. It may already be too late to do anything about it.

Not long ago, in Georgia, a young mother had occasion to discipline her nine-year old boy, who was acting up in a store. An employee of the store called the police. They quickly arrived and asked the boy if his mother had ever hit him before. "I get smacked when I’m bad," naively replied the boy. The lad’s mother also "admitted" that she had struck her son for misbehaving.

The police slapped handcuffs on the 35-year old mother and carted her off to jail. Last we heard she was free on bail, and awaiting trial on a charge of "cruelty to children." If convicted, she could get a prison term of up to 20 years for the "crime" of disciplining her own child. Since his mother was arrested, the boy has been plagued by horrific nightmares in which he finds himself permanently separated from his parents.

How in America could this happen? How did we drift into this not-so-fine madness?

In Scripture we read, "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him" (Proverbs 22:15).

Today’s increasingly invasive State is usurping parents’ right to discipline their own children. It is systematically attacking the natural bond between parent and child through a myriad of social engineering programs – beginning as early as the pre-school years. It is increasingly evident that foolishness is bound in the heart of the State even more than in children.

For today’s utopian social engineers, it "takes a village" – minus the parents – to rear a child. The drive to collectivize America’s children is proceeding apace, and today’s largely absentee parents are letting it happen without so much as a whimper of protest. It is one of the great social tragedies of the final days of the Twentieth Century.

Parental Rights Amendments Defeated
A few aware legislators have sought to protect the traditional family from the custodial state – to no avail. In Kansas, for instance, a bill to amend the State Constitution with the following words was introduced: "Parents shall retain the fundamental right to exercise primary control over the care and upbringing of their children." The words were then modified to include the words "the state’s traditional responsibility to protect the health, safety and welfare of our children." The measure was defeated by the state legislature. Remarkably, Republicans and Democrats alike voted against the amendment! They concluded that giving parents primary control of their own children would result in wholesale child abuse and injury to those children. This is lunacy of the first water.

It is also remarkable that such idiocy bursts forth in the heartland of America – the home of the Wizard of Oz, Mom and apple pie – in Kansas of all places.

America’s parents are asleep at the wheel. Incrementally, state by state, and at the federal level, they are losing their rights one by one.

Under this Administration, the State has achieved its greatest power over the lives of the people since the founding of the Republic – and it is by no means satisfied with what it has acquired. It means to get more. If you want to learn all about it, read the book Freedom on the Altar by William Norman Grigg (American Opinion Publishing Co., Appleton, WI, 1995). The book is extremely well documented. If I could afford it, I’d give a copy to every American parent. If that didn’t arouse them to reclaim what is rightfully theirs as parents, I’d declare the situation utterly hopeless.

Today’s parents are numbingly busy – they are frantically working for much of the year to keep those tax dollars flowing into Washington, so that Washington can continue its rapacious march into tyranny. They are, in effect, paying for the bullets that will be used to shoot them.

In Scripture we read, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ – which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:1-4).

The state would like to rob parents of the right to obedience from their own children, and the right to train, teach and discipline them. The state, in short, seeks to be both God and parent to all of its citizens. This is a gross distortion of the intent of the founding fathers. Our government was created to serve the populace, not vice versa. Its members are "public servants," not public masters. It is government of, for and by the people, not government for its own sake. There is no elite residing in Washington that may lay claim to a mystical hold on transcendental wisdom. They are us. The only difference is, we have given some of us power over the rest of us. When they abuse it – and they are – we should quickly take it back before its too late.

The urge to power is to some people like a drug. Once they get a taste of it, they want more and more until they are chronically drunk with it. The pervasive efforts to control every significant aspect of our children’s lives is part and parcel of the larger and even more ominous drive to create a global, totalitarian, state. As I have written many times before, evil unopposed is evil encouraged.