Are You Ready For The Department Of Parental Suitability?

In addition to the pages I help run, I belong to a few private Facebook groups for conservatives. They're groups for conservatives to get together, share ideas, gather facts, and just generally have fun making fun of the socialist morons we call "liberals."


(As an aside, I absolutely LOATHE using that word for them. Allowing them to claim they're standing for freedom puts true liberals - you know, the conservatives that stand with the Founders and Framers - at an immense disadvantage. We need to reclaim that word.)


The reason I bring up the groups is because late into the night a couple of days ago, I was engaged in a debate with a fellow conservative in the comment thread of this story, which is the Chicks On The Right commentary about this story.


The subject of our debate was this conservative's insistence upon setting standards for becoming - and remaining - a parent as a way to keep people off, or remove them from, government assistance programs. He didn't just insist upon standards, though; he wants to set up a government bureaucracy - a "Department of Parental Suitability," if you will - in order to administer his "objective test" for prospective and current parents.


Yes... You did read that correctly.


I have often said that conservatives need to bring the fight to liberals using the same tactics liberals use. That means flooding liberal pages with conservatives, but instead of using "what ifs" or feelings, we need to use the facts that most conservatives usually have on hand. Overwhelm them. Get down and dirty, call the names like they do to us, It's long past time to adjust our fighting style to match theirs. I did NOT mean to use the same WEAPONS.


According to this conservative's grand plan, the idea is to establish some sort of "objective test" to determine whether one is suitable to become a parent. The criteria includes your financial situation (salary, savings, home ownership, etc.), drinking and smoking habits, marital situation. Practically every aspect of your life will be laid bare before some faceless, "objective" government worker. Sounds a little Nazi-esque to me.


Basically, his proposal means that you have to earn a certain amount, lose the right to do as you please within the law, and accede to the demands of others in how you live your life. When he made this proposal, I literally had to check to make sure right and left hadn't changed places when I wasn't looking. Fortunately, King DingleBarry was making some patently ridiculous statement at the time and Ronaldus Magnus was still credited with ushering in the single longest peacetime economic expansion in the history of the world, so I figured it out pretty quickly.


My immediate response, along with several other people in the group, was to tell him that to invite more government intrusion into our lives runs counter to everything conservatives believe, and that using his "remove people from the government dole" excuse wasn't sufficient reason to expand the government into areas it was never designed to go. Good intentions aren't enough to ensure the system won't be abused.


How long before a Lois Lerner wannabe decides to start asking, "How conservative are you" to determine suitability for parenting? Think that can't happen? I'm fairly certain that the conservative groups that filed for their tax exempt status didn't think it could happen to them, either. Can you say "unintended consequences?"


The bottom line is that doing "good" at the point of a gun - which is what government is - isn't really doing good at all. It's just doing less bad. Our position as conservatives should always be on the side of less government, as the Founders intended. When modern liberal ideas start creeping into conservatism, we might as well switch sides. It is ridiculous to invite the government deeper into our lives, especially under the guise of "doing good." It's never worked before. All one need do is review the welfare system. The poverty rate has remained virtually unchanged in the fifty-plus years since LBJ declared his "War on Poverty."


While I agree with the overall premise that the breakdown of the nuclear family is one of the central reasons for the "need" for welfare, but in true liberal fashion, welfare is a major cause of that family breakdown. I submit, however, that being single should not be a disqualifier to becoming, or remaining, a parent. I was a single father, with custody for seven years before meeting my now-wife. On top of that, I was dirt poor (another disqualifier under his proposal). I challenge anyone to find a more respectful, better adjusted child than my son. No, my situation wasn't ideal for raising a child, but it clearly worked. I've also known two parent households, in what would be ideal conditions according to the "objective test," that aren't worth a damn. The point is this: parenting situations are not static, nor is one situation identical to another.


As I said earlier, good intentions aren't enough of a safeguard against further government interference in our lives. There isn't a single government program that has stayed within its initial parameters. Ever. Why would this one be any different?


If we don't guard against this kind of thinking, we're essentially no different than those we profess to be fighting against, and this nation really will be lost. FOREVER. ~ Hunter