Posted on 02/02/2010 3:15:29 PM PST by jazusamo
Your response is full of false assumptions and straw men. I understand your paranoia about government. I am a conservative also. But I do not accept your beliefs about the protection of children. If anything, the government is too hands off and often late to save dead children from their parents.
What is so hard to understand about...
CHILDREN DO NOT BELONG TO THE STATE.
Children are immature, physically weak, psychologically vulnerable,and need protection. I want the government and the law to have some role in providing that protection, especially from abuse and murder by their own family members. You don’t. Next case.
Straw men ? Paranoia ?
Sorry, government intervention in families is not a Conservative viewpoint.
I just did a quick web search for this to illustrate my point (I hope you’ll take a look yourself):
government intervening in families
and found 760,000 results.
here’s a link that was found:
http://www.familyrightsassociation.com/bin/excessive_government_intervention.htm
I know nothing of the site, I just perused it for 20 seconds and saw that had some relevant information.
I think every Conservative could agree that parental rights versus government intrusion in families is a primary issue for us, and when in doubt, we favor keeping government out. Libertarians are with us on that, as well, so an overwhelming majority of Americans feel this way.
But when confronted with a news story like this one, it’s easy to chant “law and order” and let’s get those bad parents who hurt their kids. But how did America arrive in it’s present moral mess: for the past 100 years we have seen more and more authority taken away from parents. And it only leads to more out-of-control kids who of course get away with as much as they can.
The past hundred years or so of “improvements” have resulted in the moral bankruptcy we see today. I hope you read up a little so you can begin to think about the direction the left-wing is taking us and why.
“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help?” - is that our solution ? I thought Conservatives had pretty much agreed that more government was NOT the solution.
According to census.gov there were 56 million students in K-12 schools in 2007, 11% of which went to PRIVATE schools.
1.5 million were HOMESCHOOLED, compared to 850,000 in 1999, according to homeschoolers. And public school proponents absolutely hate homeschooling, because the quality of education blows away public.
Ask some of those non-public school parents why they don’t have their kids in the public school. Why would make that effort ?
I had read a few years ago about the number of false accusations levied against parents; what must that be like ? Police taking mommy and / or daddy away - falsely accused by a willful child. Want problems ? Just get the government involved with your family. Please do some web searching on this. I’ve heard of many families being very very seriously hurt, broken up, etc., by various government agencies, never have I ever heard a happy ending. Never. And those who were in a truly bad situation - are they really helped by government agencies ? If you dig into those stories of what the courts, etc., actually accomplished in the children’s lives and how their adult lives went - that’s the dirty little secret no government agency wants you to know. They simply take messed up kids and make messed up adults, which we don’t need to pay billions in taxes for, we could have just left them alone.
I’m sure you’ll find that Conservatives overwhelmingly support family authority and family responsibility staying within the family and a growing number of people who are abandoning the obsolete ideas of government control over their children.
History is littered with governments that forcibly took children from parents and forced medical procedures on their own citizens. Hey, even current events is littered with that, right ?
Let’s think before we get our pitchforks and go over to those weird neighbors and go save their kids.
Oh, certainly not !
We’re two people with some very strong opinions, and I see in my zeal I’ve forgotten to agree on a not-so-subtle point !
I certainly do not feel that government has _no_ role, that’s lunacy, that’s up there with NAMBLA.
Of course, if through legal law enforcement activity crimes are found out, they of course need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Of course, we should not even ever be releasing some of these people for the very sickest of crimes when they do get convicted - how often are there repeat offender problems.
Law and order is absolutely necessary, but I think it’s pretty obvious that the “government control of children industry”, i.e., child services, teachers, counselors, etc., is far and away mostly made up of left-wingers, and also it is a bureaucracy with statistical goals, etc., so it does a miserable job. Another troubling part of this is that homosexuals are now allowed to adopt. I wonder how many convicted sex offenders are foster parents ? Bottom line, this is a big, big mess.
But as far as basic police work and prosecution where there is a real case that is actually proven, of course we all want justice. I just think there is no sense to the current policies, no common sense, and I think its very important to protect families from frivolous prosecution. I’ve heard of cases of out-and-out lies, and the law has to be designed to cause zero harm to families where there is no abuse, because, sine they did nothing wrong, they should suffer no consequences. Isn’t that what libs say about the death penalty ? Execute none for fear of executing someone who is innocent ? Well, it should be the same level of truth applied consistently, punishment should be severe where there is incontrovertible evidence, caught on tape, admission, etc. String’em up !
Not to mention that the elderly fall into the same defenseless classification and suffer much abuse, but mainstream libdom ignores it. Is the rape of a child or and old defenseless lady worse, right ? It just doesn’t seem as popular to be “for” that issue.
Both your comments are enlightening, and from a recent experience I don’t doubt that at least sometimes there is exaggeration or even coercion by medical professionals for one reason, money. I took an elderly neighbor to the emergency room because she had been dizzy for some days and then fainted. I am not a medical person, was this a stroke, a heart attack, or just maybe she wasn’t eating right? But to be safe, I called 911. An ambulance came with 3 paramedics and tons of equipment which they hooked up to her, all seemed very professional. In a manner of minutes they seemed to determine it was NOT a heart attack or stroke, but due to the fainting she should go to ER. In the ambulance more things were done, such as certain hook-ups to fluids and monitors. I followed to the hospital and the diagnosis was simple dehydration. Of course the paramedics did the right thing to turn her over to the ER. But the ER nurse started pointing out all sorts of things to me that were completely unnecessary, many different tubes and things they used in the ambulance. I asked why on earth would they do it, as a safety precaution? He said, no, they already knew it was not necessary for her, but this way the bill will be about $1000 more!
“He said, no, they already knew it was not necessary for her, but this way the bill will be about $1000 more!”
Unfortunately your example is reminiscent of many calls that I have been on. However the paramedics weren’t doing what they do to run up a bill. I doubt whether one person on the crew even had a clue what the charges would be. They were simply following their training and protocol. Please don’t get me wrong I work with some wonderful people. They are very professional. The problem that I have tried to describe starts when someone doesn’t want to play the game the way that protocol and training would dictate. These people are often given innacurate information to get them to go along with the system.
Yes, that was disgusting and the person blatantly admitting their unethical act is surprising.
It was my experience that medical people whether doctors, nurses or paramedics want to err on the side of caution and that’s for the benefit of the patient.
Many things are taken into consideration; vitals, symptoms, age, previous history, etc. Generally many things are ruled out by these but if an ER doctor or nurse wants to run up a bill they can do it with a person not aware of what’s taking place, which unfortunately is the majority of people. It’s wrong and unethical but it happens, however I don’t believe it’s the norm.
The system is designed to be paint by the numbers so that it limits the City's liability. We have fairly strict guidelines which different people still interpret in different ways. Some paramedics want to transport everyone who meets their very liberal interpretation of the protocol and some want to “turf” (get everyone to sign an ROR and get back to the station for dinner). Most of us like to treat everyone the way that we would want to be treated ourselves. Unfortunately there are also those who think that they know the best for everyone whether it is a strict interpretation of our policies and procedures or not and who will use every trick in the book to impose their will on others.
But I can tell you that this business can be very tricky. Recently we had a situation where a person had taken too much of her prescription meds and was acting incoherent. The persons spouse said that under no circumstances was the person to be transported because the last time this had happened it cost them $8000 and they didn't have medical insurance and they were in a very bad financial situation. We all felt very sorry for the couple, but in the field there was no way to determine that this was not a life threatening situation. Until we got her in the back of the rescue unit and gave her medication we could not rule out that the patient was not having a stroke. After the call I told the paramedic that I admired the way he handled the situation very much because he did not try to manipulate the spouse in any way, but he stuck to his guns in what was actually the best interest of the patient. The spouse was still very upset but agreed to meet us at the hospital.
The situation I described in the previous post was not referring to a particular motor vehicle accident. But it was very similar to previous situations that I have witnessed. I have literally seen a fender bender turned into a Mass Casualty Incident where multiple people were transported none of whom were seriously injured. I work with mostly people who act in a professional way and can take a little criticism. I am not shy about sharing my observations. I have a big problem with people who exaggerate and lie, but it is a very common occurrence. I have been doing this for a long time and I have seen many other departments in action also. People tend to filter and interpret their experiences and most seem to think a “little white lie” is OK if they know it is in the patient’s best interest.
FRmail in a few minutes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.