WorldNetDaily has new developments here and Restore the Constitution has an open letter here.
A comment poster on my GRE piece felt "nobody seems to be mentioning" the other allegations and that the father had weapons, and this was my response:
Yes, there is more to the case and Stewart did in fact acknowledge that by disclosing "Yes, there are other, very serious allegations" in the link I provided, so your assertion that "nobody seems to be mentioning" it is demonstrably not borne out by the facts--and I also specifically acknowledged that in the quote beginning "But an even more fundamental point is that regardless of the other allegations," and the WND report I linked to mentioned that as well. Those allegation are not what the issue here is--if the Irish case involved only due process and adjudication based on his and her alleged actions, I would not have been able to tie it in to other concerns raised in this column, as that is outside the scope of what I talk about in this forum--it is the specific referencing to a tangential association with OK specified in the official affidavit that brought this to the fore, along with the other points raised here, including outright official misrepresentation.
If you wish to make the case that a child protective services intervention was appropriate based on parental conduct and due process, that is a different argument. If the guy is provably a bad actor, we have a system of laws tempered by rights to determine the truth of the matter.The concern Stewart, I and some others have expressed is government using political sentiment they don't approve of as one of the elements in their response decision. It is wholly irrelevant to the situation, and if unchallenged, creates a free thought-squelching climate that can only result in abuse and usurpation outside of any legitimate authority.
(Also--do you know if he has been adjudicated a "prohibited person"? If not, why is the weapons ownership cite relevant?)
We cannot allow government agencies to disregard the Bill of Rights--any of it--in our zeal to "do the right thing" or we'll find we may not like their "cure" very much at all.
David, you may already know this, but Grigg's been on this topic too.
ReplyDeleteFirst, directly on the Irish case here, featuring this money line:
If Mr. Irish is a legitimate criminal suspect -- as opposed to a troubled parent who is considered a political criminal -- why wasn't he taken into custody? Why was he left relatively free, while his newborn daughter was wrenched from her mother and father through deliberate deception and the threat of lethal force?
Then, he did another piece on the agency in question, here. Therefrom:
"Nobody gets their kids back in New Hampshire," replied the DCYF official. "The government gives us the power to decide how these cases turn out. Everyone who fights us loses."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Polish_children_by_Nazi_Germany
ReplyDeleteThey were taught that God wanted Poles to serve Germans.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -H.L. Mencken
ReplyDelete