I took a quick peek at an Amarillo newspaper headline that intrigued me. The article was addressing proposed reforms in the state Child and Protective Services (CPS). At first glance, I was encouraged. Maybe these reforms would address the countless abuses of CPS caseworkers who use their position to press their personal platforms regardless of the constitutional rights of their victims or of the community bullies who use CPS to bully their neighbors over largely unrelated disputes (I have files containing numerous examples of each).

Sadly, the answer was no. The state is working to increase funding for CPS, and INCREASE the power and oversight these individuals have over the populations they are supposed to "serve". This means more workers to pull children from parents who decline vaccinations, have the children vaccinated against the parents' wishes, then returned to the parents without so much as a "by your leave" when the court determines that the parents violated no laws. This means more workers to remove children from homeschooling families, force them to take standardized tests, then return them under the same conditions when the same determinations are met. This means more workers to remove breastfeeding children from their mothers long enough for the milk to dry up because a militant doctor has an issue with breastfeeding (again, NONE of these situations are fictional; I have spoken with people who have experienced examples of each and every one of these).

The government, folks, is supposed to SERVE the people. It is SUPPOSED to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people". And yet, in the world of CPS, parents have no rights. They have no right to due process, they are guilty until proven innocent, they have no right to representation, and they have no right to insist that their children be sent to foster homes that don't undermine the values the parents hold dear when the children ARE removed from the home (by the way, not having a television set has been deemed neglect in certain cases as well). We have every reason to fear the increasingly oppressive government, and yet we continue on the course that we tread.

The founding fathers began a course of revolution against a government that was FAR LESS oppressive than the one that oversees us in this day and age. It is time we as Americans STOP being sheep, and STOP empowering the government to remove our rights.