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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   33690 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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Mineral Bluff is a small, isolated, unincorporated community in Georgia (US, not the other one) of around two hundred souls, six miles away from the big city of Blue Ridge--a proper city of over one thousand people (yes, more than ten hundred), the seat of the Fannin County (population just a tad over 25K). Demographics-wise, Mineral Bluff follows similar trend and makeup of its larger neighbor and its county, with almost a 100% non-Hispanic White back in 2000 Census, with that percentage dropping to around 90% by 2020 as more identifying as multiracial.

Mineral Bluff is in the news because a local 11-year-old boy walked about a mile to its center, by himself which precipitated a chain of decisions and actions that led to the arrest of the child's mother:

  • While the boy was walking along the road (speed limit 25/35 miles), a woman stopped and asked him if he's OK. He said yes. She called the sheriff's office anyway.

  • A female sheriff from Blue Ridge picked up the boy and called the mother. The mother told the sheriff that she didn't know that her boy went off to the town, and was upset he didn't tell her, but was not worried since the boy knows the area and there are plenty of family living within walking distance. The sheriff dropped the boy off at home (a house on 16 acres of land) and left him in the care of his grandfather, who lives with his daughter and her four children (while the husband works out-of-state).

  • Later that evening, the sheriff and a back-up came back to the house and arrested the mother--in front of her four children (of which the 11-year-old boy is the youngest)--who after booking was soon released on $500 bail.

  • The next day, a case manager from Children Services came to investigate. That investigation resulted in requiring the mother to sign a Safety Plan that requires her to install an app on her son's phone that would track his location, and to designate a Safety Person who will oversee the the children whenever she's not home. Again, the youngest is 11.

  • The assistant district attorney says that he'll dismiss the charges if she signs.

But no, that's not why the case is in the news. The case is in the news because the the woman got smart, lawyered up, and told the Assistant DA and the Children Services to take a hike. She got the lawyer who heads ParentsUSA and she ain't gonna sign nothing.

Five years ago, Utah passed a law that parents cannot be investigated for child neglect based solely on the fact that they let their kids walk alone, play by themselves, or wait in the car by themselves. Several states followed suit. I hope that more do so, and that publicity of this case in particular--and cases like it--precipitate adoption of similar legislation.

Because what this case so aptly illustrates is that, under current laws, it takes one stranger with safetyist mindset to see the child unaccompanied and make the call. In this particular case, the call went to the sheriff's office, landing on a sheriff who agreed with the exaggerated sense of danger for the kid (I checked the FBI stats for the county, it's not a dangerous place), which led to the dramatic arrest of the mother.

But the more typical case bypasses the law enforcement and goes to the child protection agency, which is stuffed with social workers that, charitably, over-train on the worst of parenting, and who like all bureaucrats feel the urge to To Something. That potential harassment means that even parents who themselves do not have a safetyist mindset must rationally conclude that the probability that there is one such person in the area where their child would walk or play is so high that they better not allow it. Which leads to fewer kids walking by themselves; which leads to every kid that does walk by itself being a glaring exception, which leads to higher probability that a well-meaning adult with a deranged sense of danger will call the authorities...

I don't have a Culture War angle to this. I mean, I have heard of cases like this happening in urban areas (coded Blue), but this case happened in a rural place (coded Red). When all it takes is one deranged stranger (to report, not to kidnap!), coordination becomes near-impossible. Thus the need for explicit laws like Utah's: This Is Fine And Thou Shall Not Investigate.

I live in a suburban area where there is a group of children who run around essentially unsupervised. This past Fourth of July they set off fireworks in the street and hid behind the tree in my front yard(it’s a good tree to hide behind).

This should be the default, but it’s not. I suspect that if all the parents in the city decided to send their kids on mile long walks into main street, something similar would happen, and no one would think about calling in to report it. And that’s the solution, not some words on pieces of paper. Be the counter revolution.

I suspect that if all the parents in the city decided to send their kids on mile long walks into main street, something similar would happen, and no one would think about calling in to report it.

I think you'd be horribly, horribly disappointed. And do you want to be the one who goes first, and risks having CPS remove your kids because some childless cat lady keeps reporting you for "neglect"?

I mean, I live in a neighborhood where I won't have to go first, and I find that a very minor benefit towards expanding my house over moving. But I also live in a filter bubble of people who have gone first and gotten away with it- mine own parents were among them, once upon a time, for letting me bike to 7/11 or the library on mine own far younger than the other children in the neighborhood.

So I think if I had to make that gamble I'd feel comfortable rolling the dice. Lots of people I know did, and it worked out for them.

I mean, I live in a neighborhood where I won't have to go first, and I find that a very minor benefit towards expanding my house over moving.

And we were talking about "parents in the city" — if you lived in such a place, instead of where you do now, would you still take such a risk? If, in that scenario, a bunch of busybody Karens call CPS on you for "neglect" by insufficient helicopter parenting, what then?

mine own parents were among them, once upon a time, for letting me bike to 7/11 or the library on mine own far younger than the other children in the neighborhood.

That, of course, was a different time, when people — especially cat-lady "karens" — were less likely to report people to the government for being more permissive than the norm. This is the age of "see something, say something (caveat: unless "seeing" would be racist)."

And we were talking about "parents in the city"

The city in this case is rural Georgia. I doubt whoever reported the kid was a ‘childless cat lady’.

and no one would think about calling in to report it

Texas has arrested mothers of 12 year old boys doing the same thing. They haven't yet fixed their law completely.

And that’s the solution, not some words on pieces of paper.

Yes, but that's scary.
The problem with telling Karen "fuck you" is that it's ultimately a risk- a risk that should be taken for the sake of your children (something most parents have forgotten how to do- it's a generational problem), but a risk nonetheless. Otherwise you're teaching your children to never take risks, which just pushes the societal balance further towards evil.

I’m saying no one in my neighborhood would think to call in and report twelve year old boys playing with firecrackers in the street(after all, they appeared to be taking appropriate safety precautions like hiding behind a tree, checking for traffic before going into the road, etc). No doubt in the woodlands and Frisco it is different. But in those places it is so much less common as to be highly unusual. No doubt a man wandering around in a bear suit singing the national anthem would generate a police report, despite not being illegal. Why? Because it’s weird. The solution is to make children playing without direct supervision more normal.

despite not being illegal

Unlike driving while black walking down the street while 10, apparently.

Gotta stay within a few feet of the head of the [long]house; you should be grateful they're not requiring the burka like they did a couple years ago.

That's to prevent sexual crime- don't you know literally all men are overcome with lust when they see a child? If they're not literally on a leash there's no limit to what perversion could happen. (The people who identify with this most strongly even have their own version of making boys into girls.)

It's no different than fundamentalist Islam. For the women who espouse this philosophy, the Handmaiden's Tale treatment would be an improvement for both them and the rest of us. And perhaps ironically, the first polity who have passed anti-Karen laws was the Mormon one.

My whole point, of course, is that things only generate a police report if they're weird. If you make ten year olds going out and about by themselves normal nobody will call the cops.

And perhaps ironically, the first polity who have passed anti-Karen laws was the Mormon one.

A bunch of mormonism's social technology(the mission year, subsidized BYU tuition, singles wards) appears based around being able to separate the young from their families, so that's unsurprising.

I would have thought the culture war aspect would have been obvious.

a woman stopped and asked him if he's OK

A female sheriff from Blue Ridge

My life, over the years, has taken weird turns, and put me in contact with people are are decidedly outside the norm.

Nothing best exemplifies this by my most recent job, which has put me in close contact with law enforcement around the country, Sheriffs Office's most heavily.

What I've learned is that Sheriffs actually have a very broad range in how they can enforce the law. Complaints from constituents can result in everything from just a general wellness checkup to brushing the matter off('I know the guy, he's fine, and I know the person complaining, she does this all the time') to putting out a warrant for someone's arrest.

So when I see something like this;

Later that evening, the sheriff and a back-up came back to the house and arrested the mother

That makes me raise more than a few eyebrows.

To put it bluntly, what the hell happened here to cause this reaction? Was the person filing the complaint a political bigwig who could have stirred up a massive fuss and the Sheriff wanted it taken care of properly to quiet a reaction? I've seen this happen before, so it wouldn't surprise. Or, more unfavorably, did the female Sheriff get a particular bee in her bonnet that made her bring the hammer down? I have no idea. An uncharitable part of me wants to lean in this general direction, because this entire thing is odd, no question, but who knows?

And on top of all that, this entire commotion was brought about by an 11-year old boy walking a mile in an area where a mile really isn't that big of a deal. Hell, I walked more than a mile away from my home when I was a kid, and I certainly don't live anywhere near the Blue Ridge mountains!

What an absolute mess and embarrassment for the Sheriff's Office.

Nybbler is going to shoot me as a back-the-blue conservative normie for this, but it's also the case that sheriffs know who the troublemakers are, and use stuff like this to go after them.

It's unfortunate, but there's going to a lot of free range kid incidents that do involve genuinely negligent parents or feral kids, and from our perspective 30,000ft above the media firestorm we'll never see it.

Where I live there's a group of tweens+teens who roam around breaking into empty summer houses. The sheriff can't really even arrest them, and even if he did the leftist prosecutor wouldn't do anything about it. So naturally his only leverage over the parents is going after them with CPS. So far this seems to be working, with little pushback because the local head of the ACLU isn't inclined to start a fuss due to her summer house being broken into.
But if it did blow up, I can already write the reason dot com article about "rural kids reported to child services just for riding their bikes to town!", and the resulting shitstorm would distract from any real conversation about how law enforcement got like this in the first place.

See this locally famous case for another example. Any attempt to do something about the kid before his crimes escalated to international aeroplane hijacking would have been based around a CPS investigation, because realistically there was nothing else the police could do about him. Many such cases, and a lot of them end in deadly carjacking rather than just hilarious levels of property damage.

So for the "free range kids" movement to win, it's going to need to help solve the youth crime problem that incentivizes helicopter-parenting mandates. And since a lot of the big media figures are left-libertarians like Radley Balko who also went all-in on BLM, the odds of them owning up to this are low.

Any attempt to do something about the kid before his crimes escalated to international aeroplane theft would have been based around a CPS investigation, because realistically there was nothing else the police could do about him.

The law is far too soft around young children who commit serious crimes. Deadly carjacking by under-age girls? Death penalty!

Not:

The 15-year old received the maximum sentence allowed by law and was remanded to the care of a youth agency until deemed rehabilitated or reaching the age of 21; the younger girl (age 14 at time of sentencing) received the same sentence on July 6, 2021.

If swift use of the death penalty returns, people will be amazed at how quickly the random stabbings of 3-year-old children ends, how these violent carjackings and armed burglaries get squelched. These 'mentally deranged' people rarely try stabbing attacks or pushing-onto-the-tracks against 190 cm bodybuilders or big, tough construction workers. They go for women and children or they bring weapons. They know what would happen, even within their esoteric, legally fortuitous 'unable to understand the consequences' mental state. They do understand consequences, we just don't inflict the necessary punishment.

If all else fails, the death penalty will cull the problem people out of the population.

If swift use of the death penalty returns

Technically speaking, 2A + property rights is the death penalty. It's distributed (and you'll get prosecuted if the perp fails the paper bag test and you live in a jurisdiction that conducts them), but it's still there.

Nybbler is going to shoot me as a back-the-blue conservative normie for this

<BLAM!>

You're just-worlding this nonsense hard. You've got no evidence, aside from blind trust in authority, that this 10-year-old kid was up to anything troublesome.

That's the thing: you're right in general, and I don't have any evidence about specific cases other than the ones in my local community. But CPS is still a tool to "do something about those damn kids" that normies find a lot easier to stomach than caning the little shits, so unless you can deal with the underlying problem your CPS-reform movement is going to be resisted by people who are sick and tired of having all their shit stolen by 17yr 364day & 23hr old minors who get away scot free.

But CPS is still a tool to "do something about those damn kids"

And it was used to exactly that end in this case.

I don’t think @SteveKirk was claiming, nor even implying, that the specific kid from OP’s story was up to no good. I think the actual point he made is that it would be very dangerous to dismantle law enforcement’s ability to deal effectively with actual cases of child abuse, just because sometimes those powers will be overfitted to apply to benign cases. It’s no different from the general discussion about tradeoffs regarding how much power to give law enforcement and how much risk of overapplication of that power you’re willing to stomach.

Not so much "dangerous" because a) the benefits of cps-elimination for good kids might outweigh the harm done by yobbos anyway, and b) taking away that specific tool would encourage people to support real solutions to youth crime.

It's mostly that a lot of people are going to see cps-elimination as taking away the one thing they see actually being used against ferals in their community. And people are so sick to death of unpunished crime right now that you don't want to become an acceptable target for their anger. (It's a lot safer to attack white libertarian free-range kid activists than it is to give a physical description of the Youth who stole your bike.)

It's "you can't take my broken stapler; what else will I use to pound nails?" You need to at least hand the guy a rock if you want him to give up his stapler without a fight.

Iterate that sort of advice for several generations and you end up right where we are now. You can't improve things by being afraid to dismantle harmful institutions.

In any case, he's not talking about these laws being used to deal with child abuse; he's talking about using these laws to punish parents for crimes of their children which somehow the cops can't do anything about otherwise.

I have heard of cases like this happening in urban areas (coded Blue), but this case happened in a rural place (coded Red).

I agree this is strange.

I think there's something we aren't hearing in this case. Mrs. Patterson is a real estate agent in the city of Blue Ridge. She even has an office in the charming main street of the mountain-lake town. She probably has a billboard somewhere. She places Emerson quotes in her real estate biography.

Blue Ridge has boomed as a tourist destination the past 25 years. The city government and county surrounds it has all the typical trappings of a quiet place finding more and more money flowing in. Every small town has petty feuds, power struggles, and usually some corruption and/or incompetence. Add in the fact that New York millionaires and retired baseball players are setting up shop there it seems to raise the stakes.

The place is being gentrified. It wouldn't surprise me if local authorities might go out of their way to make trouble to the people selling out their culture as agents of change. It could also be something pettier, too. Maybe Patterson did someone's cousin dirty in a wrong way. Officer Powertrip happened to hear all about this story and never liked the woman or anything she represents. So she finds her kid wandering, decides to drop him off with gramps, and when she finds out that was her-- a quick call to Cousin Jimmy. A Sheriff that either looks the other way or himself was the one to receive a phone call and Make Things Happen. Bam. She done got what was coming.

That's all fiction, but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than Blue Ridge police demanding parents keep their kids on a leash at all times. As far as I know it is a place where the locals will give little Sam a deer rifle for his 13th birthday. The charge is one thing, but the follow through makes me think Patterson has upset someone at some point. It is a place where you do business, make friends with the local powers, do County Commissioner Rick a solid, and stuff like this never happens.

Could also be overzealous enforcement by Officer Karen. All the follow through is the typical signifier of loyal backing. Cops can do that. I don't blame Mrs. Patterson for assuming she lived in a safe place where her 11 year old could enjoy some freedom. Very strange.

Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left towards safetyism. I've considered myself allied with the right against leftism for quite a while now, and everyone here could have been Blue I have no problem imagining conservatives all around... well probably not Children Services. There have always been many Karens on the right and piece of shit sheriffs who last year grilled in MAGA caps.

Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left towards safetyism

"I swear officer I didn't mean to send those poor people gibbering and screaming for the insane asylum!" "Tell it to the Deep Old Ones, Chtulhu. We've finally got your number this time!"

I think my culture war angle on this is that most safety enforcement is too easily weaponized against ordinary people to be actually effective in preventing the worst excesses. Worse, they created a situation in which activities that are not only not dangerous, but actually good for kids are forbidden lest some overactive Karen decide to insert themselves into your life and use CPS to punish you.

Helicopter parenting has been shown to causing negative effects (https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/06/helicopter-parenting). Ordinary milestones like being able to play without a parent present, let alone walk to a neighbors house, are now pushed so far forward that a child is likely to be a pre-teen before doing anything away from the prying eyes of parents. This is something that harms kids because the normal avenues for learning to problem solve and be independent are now pushed to nearly adulthood where the stakes are much higher. At ten, outside of edge cases of kidnapping (which are pretty rare) the worst a kid could do is maybe stay out later than he should or cause minor trouble. At 16, the kid can get into drugs and alcohol and vandalism and so on. He hasn’t yet learned to handle peer relationships, knowing what is dangerous and what isn’t, and has no skills to handle himself.

I think my culture war angle on this is that most safety enforcement is too easily weaponized against ordinary people to be actually effective in preventing the worst excesses.

It's not just "safety" enforcement - enforcement of any standard is easier against the ordinary than against the willfully noncompliant. The battle against anarcho-tyranny is constant, and the temptation to slide down is extremely high on multiple axes.

to report, not to kidnap!

Reporting is just kidnapping by proxy, is intended as kidnapping by proxy (much like swatting is), and children today are at a higher risk of being abducted by the State than they ever were of the more typical criminals.

You want to fix the birth rate, this heckler’s veto needs to go. But then again, parents have gladly, like good conservatives, sat back and had their rights stripped from them over the past 50 years, and that was pretty negligent on its own…

But then again, parents have gladly, like good conservatives, sat back and had their rights stripped from them over the past 50 years, and that was pretty negligent on its own…

I strongly suspect this is downstream from increasing individual wealth, which makes the family unit less and less necessary as a locus of economic production and coordination.

I think that the propaganda machine is to blame as well. Look at just about anything on television or any movie, music, etc. The resounding themes are family is a drag, parents are idiots or don’t care, and that the point of life is hedonistic pleasure which things like family and religion are drags on. I’ve challenged people with this, and it’s hard to do it. Find four mainstream television shows that show intact, loving, and competent families. Find four such shows where religion and particularly Christianity is portrayed as good wholesome, and not full of hypocrisy and repression. When the entire culture tells you over and over that families and traditions and religion are a drag on your individual hedonistic pleasure seeking, and that the highest good of life is hedonistic pleasures, it’s not shocking to me that families are dying.

Find four mainstream television shows that show intact, loving, and competent families

Well good television (and possibly all storytelling) thrives on conflict and problems - there are a zillion films and television shows set in wars, whether real or fictional, but that doesn't mean we all love war and want more of it, it's just a compelling backdrop for engaging media. Troubled families are simply more interesting than 'intact, loving and competent' ones.

parents are idiots or don’t care

I mean, this part is 100% true- they have no parental rights, their kids have no human rights, and they for some reason appreciate that state of affairs.

Look at just about anything on television or any movie, music, etc. The resounding themes are family is a drag, parents are idiots or don’t care, and that the point of life is hedonistic pleasure which things like family and religion are drags on

Yeah "liberatory" culture and increasing wealth definitely work hand-in-hand on this.

Have you considered that those themes are popular because they contain a very large degree of truth?

Have you considered that having only the negative aspects displayed in media is pretty biased? I get that at least some families have negative aspects to them. Some families are neglectful or overly critical or strict or even abusive. But when looking at the mainstream media shows, I’m finding that you have to look pretty darn far to find a show that has a positive view of family life — present, active, competent parents who love and care for their children and know how to help them navigate through life. Likewise, it’s rare to find shows in which the parents are happily married and aren’t constantly spitting out one-line put-downs of their spouse and who actually seem to like being together. I would personally guess that less than a quarter of families are actually negative forces in each other’s lives. Maybe less than 10% are neglectful or abusive, maybe a bit more common to see people struggling a bit, though generally doing okay. Yet, to watch mainstream media, you have the opposite viewpoint. They show, at best, a Simpson’s style family that features a pair of idiot parents (especially a clueless dad) who don’t seem to like each other much and who are generally unaware of anything going on in their children’s lives or how to handle those issues.

I mean, I think a large part of this is simply the need to generate some type of conflict in order for there to be a plot for each episode. A happy family with two normal even-keeled parents assisting their kids with mundane life situations does not make for interesting TV.

As for TV representations of happy and well-functioning families with parents who are invested in their kids’ lives, I think Modern Family is a good example. Yes, the main dad is presented as a bit eccentric and gaffe-prone, but he’s clearly not a Homer Simpson level doofus, and he’s shown over and over to be a great father who makes a positive difference in his children’s lives. His wife teases him and gets mad at him sometimes - which, I think is realistic, and especially so given the sort of slightly-larger-than-life hijinks involved in some episodes - but she also very obviously loves him, and they’re shown to have a thriving sex life and a real love for each other.

I haven’t watched a ton of TV in recent years and can’t confidently comment on what’s going on in the current landscape, but it seems like Tim Allen’s most recent sitcom Last Man Standing also portrayed a happy and functional two-parent family.

Bob’s Burgers is pretty good at this.

I mean, Leave it to Beaver managed. It seems obviously doable.

From "The Simpsons and Cultural Decline" by Free Northerner:

The Simpsons family is intact and stable, if slightly dysfunctional, and hold to functional, almost traditional, family values. They all love each other, however much they might bicker. Homer is a flawed man, often selfish or stupid, but still loving and caring towards his family. Marge is shown to love and respect Homer, despite her occasional anger at his flaws. Bart disrespects Homer occasionally, but it is shown as a clear deviancy for laughs; it also clearly shown that he does look up to and admire Homer. The kids fight, but at heart care for each other.

Compare those family values that to the three highest-rated sitcoms of 2013: Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, and Modern Family. The first is about a bunch of (fornicating) nerds and their slut friend who spend the entire show snarking at each other. The second is about a cad, his divorced brother, and his nephew who regularly snark at each other; the cad is shown as cool, while the ‘family man’ is shown as a loser. According to Wiki, the third is about a blended family, a somewhat normal family, and a gay couple; the ‘modern family’ is so screwed up wiki needs a chart to keep family relations in order.

The Simpsons has a subtext of Homer as patriarch. A few times in the first couple of seasons Homer makes a family decision, whether it is selling the TV to attend counseling, buying a new TV, or choosing a camping spot, to name a few examples. The rest of the family complains or looks unhappy, yet it is not even questioned that, however flawed he or his decision may be, it is Homer’s place to decide these things. The show just assumes the father makes the major family decisions. Other than Duck Dynasty, would any modern show simply assume the father’s position as head of the home?

The show assumes that normal people go to church on Sundays and say grace at mealtime. Prayer is a casually accepted part of the show, as is religion. Does any major show today, other than Duck Dynasty, so casually accept religion as a normal, unremarkable, everyday part of life?

Other, less remarkable, moral lessons are also included. The pro-family/loyalty message of Life on the Fast Lane. How Marge’s sisters constant denigration of Homer is shown as negative, destructive behaviour. In one episode, Marge is casually referred to as Mrs. Homer Simpson.

All this is not to say the Simpsons is a font of traditional values, it is a liberal show, it does have some fem-centrism, and is rather subversive, but it is a good example of just how fast our culture is collapsing. Just a couple decades ago, the Simpsons was a controversial show that was held up by the president as an example of family dysfunction. Yet compared to today’s cultural wasteland, where broken families are common, disrespect and degeneracy are the norm, and the husband as the head of the family is, at best, a joke, it is very tame, almost traditional.

25 years is all it took. In 20 years, will Two and a Half Men and Modern Family be relatively tame and traditional?

If I was looking for healthy and natural family values in modern television, I would turn to anime, where girls still dream of getting married and having a child is still a blessing. The spirit of Shinzo Abe lives on.

Many things are true, but which truths we emphasize is all the battle. Yes, families can be a drag. They can also be tremendously-joyous sources of shelter and respite. Parents can be idiots. They can also be wise and protective. Whether the positive or negative aspects of a particular social relationship get highlighted often follows resource generation and self-interest.

Yes, families can be a drag. They can also be tremendously-joyous sources of shelter and respite.

Yes, there are those for whom families are a drag, and those in the families getting the joy by doing the dragging.

People do not universally experience the same relations in the same valence.

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