Dear LFAT,
I understand where you are coming from when you ask how libertarians would have dealt with the Baby P situation. However, it isn’t libertarians who have some serious questions to answer, rather the very opposite. It is the statists who have some serious questions to answer - how were they unable to stop these things despite state supervision?
As a libertarian Conservative, I want the government to be small but strong. There are some areas where the government is essential. But what is more important than ever is the government knowing how far to go and when to stop interfering.
The inevitable and unfortunate result of the Baby P case is that now there will be backlash of “the government has to do something” and further forward the statisation of growing up. Social services will have an extra excuse to invade the lives of perfectfully good parents and put children into care because of this massive failure on behalf of Haringey social services.
One simple fact that we must not forget is that cases like Baby P’s will always happen and cannot be prevented. No matter how much the state or anyone else keeps an eye out, it is impossible to stop it ever happening. But more state interference means more children unnecessarily taken away from their parents.
The errors made by Haringey Children Services are systemic issues of the state apparatus.
- Agencies acting in isolation from one another without effective co-ordination
- Poor gathering, recording and sharing of information
- Insufficient supervision by senior management
- Insufficient challenge by the Safeguarding Children Board to council members and frontline staff
The larger the organisation, the more fractured the communication. Social services do not need to be abolished, but they do need to be reformed and re-focused.
Markets do have winners and losers, and I don’t think that anyone would be “happy” with losers when it comes to child abuse. But social services are not something that would not be subject to market forces of this kind.
Libertarianism is not about abolishing government, just limiting it to its proper place and scope.
Yours sincerely,
ThunderDragon
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Ha, love it. Very interesting points.
I certainly learnt a lot about libertarianism today so I’m really glad I wrote the post.
As a nation we have to ask ourselves what we want to become. The Statists believe, and would have us believe, that it IS possible to prevent another case like this. I heard Beverley Hughes on the radio this morning saying that what was needed was some fine-tning between proceduralisation and trusting care workers’ professional judgement, and then everything would be fine. Tosh. No amount of state control can prevent abuse. Take every child into care and abuse will take place, in far greater measure, probably, within the state system. I would hazard a guess that it you’re in care you’re already more likely to be abused than if you’re not.
The question should not be “How do we preent this from ever happening again ?” It should be “How can we best reduce the risk without hugely reducing the freedoms of loving law-abiding parents, who are by far in the majority ?”
Since children are 5-6 times more likely to die i government custody than at home according to US numbers, governments should not be granted this kind of power.
libertyblogger.net
“Since children are 5-6 times more likely to die i government custody than at home according to US numbers, governments should not be granted this kind of power.”
Is that all homes, in general, or just abusive homes?
Bit of a difference…
TomP,
Could you cite your source for this? I’m not disputing it, rather I would like to be able to use in other discussion.
Excuse me, what I meant was that children are 5 times more like to be abused in government care.
Study this :
A TIME Magazine article in 2000 titled “The Shame of Foster Care” admitted that children are five times more likely to be abused in government custody.
Article not available on line!
Maybe you can find it!