Sunday, December 19, 2010

Big Brother and Your Child

As it is ending its tenure before the new guard takes over in the new year, the state legislature has been busy. Contrary to the rants of squawk radio and conflating conservative bloggers, they have not been doing the people's work, but instead appears to be paving way for our new overlords, the Republican Regime.

They failed the state's working class and the state's tax payers by passing the union contracts with concessions.

Now they are enabling the Big Brother mentality that the conservatives love so much.
In order to prevent further scams to occur in the child care system, they thought it to be a grand idea to start fingerprinting the children that attend state-paid day cares to ensure their attendance.

Obviously, taking steps to prevent the millions of dollars that were being fraudulently stolen by some unscrupulous people, but those steps should not include tracking kids like so much cattle or slaves. It's an infringement of the children's civil rights now and in the future as their personal data (nothing's more personal than your own body) could be used for any number of nefarious purposes.

Digby has her own sarcastic, but hard hitting, take on it. I'm just surprised, and glad, that they didn't think of contracting with TOMMY!! who would have us putting chips in all of the kids.

So, what's the answer?

Eugene Kane, who has a column pointing out how most of the children targeted by this tracking system would be black children, has a good solution:
Clearly, it's the adults in this story who should be placed under increased scrutiny, not the kids.

Perhaps a better plan for the $1 million would be to hire enough dedicated child care case workers to check up on each of the centers on a regular basis to make sure they are doing what they say they do.
Of course, the Republicans won't go for that idea. Their goal isn't to create jobs. Their goal is simply to save as much money as possible, no matter whose rights they have to violate.

H/T to a regular reader who is equally outraged by this violation of the children's civil rights.

3 comments:

  1. Who has not been doing the people's work? The new guard? Your sentence is confusing...

    Are the children forced to be scanned? Do their parents have choices?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Parents must protect their children, sensibly.
    However, it is a NEED to ensure the safety of our future adults. Allowing some failure promotes learning..
    Again within reason.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TerryN-

    I don't know.

    "...the state legislature has been busy...

    The subject would indicate that I was referring to the state legislature, wouldn't it?

    ReplyDelete