OK, first thought, maybe OK. Serious thought: yes, this is a bad idea. DJ, you have done a LOT of good so far this year; this would not be included in that pile:
House Majority Leader to Request Rules Change to Allow for Introduction of Caylee’s Law BillConcord–House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt (R-Salem) announced today that he intends to ask the House Rules Committee to permit the late drafting of legislation that would make it a felony for any parent who failed to report a child missing within a certain time of their disappearance. According to Rep. Bettencourt, he would like to work with the appropriate policy committee to set the window for reporting a missing child to a time specific, but said it would likely be somewhere between 48 to 72 hours . The legislation, called "Caylee’s Law," comes in response to the recent death of the Florida toddler, Caylee Anthony, whose disappearance went unreported by her mother for nearly a month.
"It is unconscionable to think that any parent or guardian of a child would let their child’s disappearance go unreported for any length of time," said Bettencourt. "The Caylee Anthony case has clearly brought to the national consciousness the need to close the hole in any laws that don’t adequately protect our children. We need to take steps right now to ensure that the search for any missing child can begin as quickly as possible and that any parent or guardian who fails to file a report suffer the consequence. I intend to ask our Rules Committee to allow the late drafting of this bill so that we may deal with it in the 2012 session," he added.
The theme of this year’s session has been the devolvement of power from Concord and the State back down to the lower levels of government here in NH as well as returning that power seized by Democrats to those that lend their consent to be governed – the citizens. Examples are:
- Parental notification in the issue of minor child abortions
- Parents rights to remove students from objectionable school material
- Protecting homeschoolers
and the like. All have a single theme: parents know best what is good for their children. Unlike Progressives (who do not trust individual), each of these Acts are emphasizing that Individuals/Parents know what is best for THEIR kids and not the State and have returned ‘stolen’ responsibility and oversight back to those parents.
The House passed parental notification under the rubric that the Government should not be the Nanny of a child as Parents can be trusted for their care and for being responsible for them. A "Caylee Law" would demonstrate, again, that Government (this time, under Republicans) does not trust parents to do the right thing. Imagine the PR black hole that the Republican leadership will be in when the Democrats point out the hypocrisy of this stance?
I really wanted to leave this whole Casey Anthony case alone – horrific as…
… it was, it was an outlier, a rare case given the millions of parents that do, as they believe they should, sacrifice all for their kids and put them first. It is NEVER good public policy to create law based on such scattered cases – is the incidence of this kind of crime 100% of parents thatrefuse to do the right thing? 75%? Even 50%? Or is it a fairly or extremely small percentage? Why should we, as a society (as we seem to be doing more and more lately) put the vast majority at risk for the actions of a truly tiny minority (which is probably not even a rounding error in the grand scheme of crimes)?
How many laws do we have to pass before we realize that we are hardly able to make any rational and free decisions on our own without violating some law or some regulation? I’m not an irrational bombthrower, but where is the trend leading us in terms that all behavior is becoming subject to more and more intrusive government? Don’t we already have general child endangerment laws that could be applied without having to specify each and every restriction? It seems that how we clothe our kids, feed our kids, transport our kids, nurture out kids, and dicipline our kids is subject to one regulation after another yet another law with the Holier Than Thou Political Correctness crowd willing to accuse every traditional value parent (e.g., anti-spankers) and convict them, if not in a legal court, certainly in the court of public life. We soon won’t even be able to buy a lightbulb (thanks Republicans!) unless it meets Government approval.
My rant ISN’T about the kids – but it is about asking "when is enough intrusion into our lives sufficient"?
In fact, Majority Leader of the House Bettencourt, when is it enough? Where is the line in the sand, a la our GPS units at a journey’s end, that says "you have arrived"? The same question is also asked of pro-taxing Big Government Progressives (both Republican and Democrat) – when is enough taxes….enough? I present that as a serious question so as to evoke serious thoughts; no matter the intention or purpose, where is that line at which Government should stop? If not this spot, then where?
Life is not without risk or bad outcomes – and Government cannot ever legislate either out of existence without causing harm itself. Remember, given sufficient laws and regulations, you can legislate individual freedom and liberty out of our society – and that was one of the driving forces of the House’s session. Thus, how does this play to that?
I also ask the question: which is a better solution – promoting internal governance and self-discipline (hard to do given the seeming lack of personal morality with the rise of secularism in our society) or the continued imposition of external governance?
In the case of another C.A. event, aren’t there laws already in place: child endangerment? And what would be the next step – legally involving other family members or friends under the rubric of "silence is consent"? I say this quietly with no snark: why not go to that next step as wouldn’t that be "for the child" as well? Again, I ask the serious question that few seem to be willing to answer: when is it enough, and where should a line be drawn so as to protect the idea of limited government that was set up by the Founders?
And could this give rise to multiple instances of the greatest law on the books, the Law of Unintended Consequences? This could be a PERFECT law to use if an estranged parent wished to cause their "ex" nothing but grief; such a shot of short term satisfaction using this as a tool. After all, how does the other parent get their good name back after such an accusation (and the search engines never letting go)?
I guess I just question the relevancy of each new outlier problem necessitating yet another set of laws that either already cover more general laws or possibly create contradictions from just the sheer number of laws. Would this be really be good public policy, or simply a case of "me too – look at me, I care for your kids"?
Again, I have to ask (and you know these are the kinds of base questions I ask over here all the time) – when is enough, enough? Are we willing to even ask where is that line between limited and too intrusive governments types? More and more, people are asking that question and the Republicans ran on that notion this last election. They moved Government more towards that more limited govt model this past year….so WHY pass a law that has yet another set of eyeballs over a citizen’s shoulder that says "Boy, are you in trouble if you don’t do this in the time frame we tell you to observe"?
And I ask the REAL question – really, how effective would this law really be? How often would it really be invoked? Will it actually have a positive effect here in NH, given the actual reporting time frame in the C.A. case?
I posit that given the absolute rareness of such a happening even at the national level (re: planes crash so seldomly given the absolute number of planes / passengers flying that it IS news), would it be once every 25 years here in NH? Once per 50 Years? Do we even have any stats to go on here in NH to be able to reliably ask: is the general NH population at such a risk that this HAS to be put into place? Is this a truly needed law? Or is this "is this just another "seemingly good idea / feel good / politically correct" law vs an actually needed law?
Sadly, I fear if this is a "for the best" trend for society. And I believe that it has come about (starting with the Boomer generation) from a trend of being, at one time self-responsible to the "now" time of a selfish "it’s about me" outlook; an emphasis on Rights instead of Responsibility and Self-control. But in trying to either restrain that tide (or even attempt to roll it back) does it make it worse by passing law after law after law in that it seems that one more bad behavior that makes it into the news evokes yet another law from politicians who think they are on top of a situation with yet another law? Sure, times change, but are they changing for the best?
Do we allow ourselves to be merely swept along, helplessly, in that tide and merely being steered by externalities (i.e, laws)?
Or do we say "ENOUGH!" and instead of expecting Govt to mind us, that we finally turn around and start telling our neighbors "be better – because you can be? Stop being governed and govern your own actions!"
I know, a bit of melancholy here – because I just can’t refuse to give up on the Founders’ vision of a limited government and self-governance
