Protecting Parent's Rights

Over the years I've held a lot of different jobs. Some were better than others. All of them taught me something. One of the most disturbing was the year I spent as a tracker for the Child Protective Services system her in Utah.

One the one hand, I worked closely with children whose parents were downright abusive. It really opened my eyes as to just how much better my own upbringing had been. My parents weren't perfect, but they weren't raving lunatics, either.

On the other hand, I saw plenty of abuse within the system itself: private organizations being contracted for services by CPS worried more about their upper management and paperwork than about the kids in their charge, case workers who talked a lot about caring, and taking action, and then sitting on their duffs and doing nothing, foster parents that were in it solely for the money and creating equally abusive situations in their home, and so on.

Honestly? I was glad to get out.

Over the last year or two I've become more and more aware of the abuses, and potential abuses, of power within the CPS system. Children being removed from their homes on trumped up charges that are discovered to be false only years after the children have already been psychologically damaged by being torn from their families. Young teens being given into foster care because they complained to a school councilor that their parents grounded them after discovering the teen was using drugs and being sexually promiscuous and, worse yet, the parents even suggesting that their kids should attend church with the family.

All of this is being done through policies that being enacted on a whim in board rooms and are given the full weight of law without a single lawmaker in site.

It's crazy. It's like there's an entire movement that believes the government can raise our children better than their parents.

Our rights as parents are getting harder and harder to defend. Some people seem to think we have no rights when it comes to our children, only responsibilities. With what's going on in Texas with the FLDS polygamous sect, it's getting harder and harder for the rest of us parents to defend our rights, as well.

One organization aims to change that. ParentalRights.org is a group of people who would like to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that spells out in very clear terms what a parent's rights are in regards to their children. They've got a new video out that I thought I'd share with you.

Why is Violence Increasing in Utah?

I've noticed a horrible trend of increasing incidents of violence within my home state of Utah, and across the rest of the United States as well. The latest victim in the news is 7-year old Hser Nay Moo, a beautiful young girl from Burma. She had been abducted a couple of days ago and was found dead, late last night. Reports say that the police already have a man in custody and that he has admitted to causing her death.

This seems to be happening more and more. Why? All I could think of, as I listened to the formal press conference, was of my own children. This young, innocent, girl was described as being very bright and out going. Why would someone abduct her? Why would someone want to hurt or destroy such a beautiful life?

This isn't the only case that caught my attention, though. There have been allegations that a group of 3rd graders in Georgia were planning on killing their school teacher. Their actual intent is in doubt, because of their age. Most premeditated acts of violence don't occur until children get to be 12 years old, or so. It's quite likely that the students were involved in an elaborate form of play, in order to act tough around each other and vent their frustrations, rather than actually hurting their teacher.

What's gets to me, though, is they brought together everything they needed to do it. They brought weapons, handcuffs, and other supplies they would need, to school. That's what got them caught. One of their peers told a school official that one of the other students had a knife. Even if they were just "playing," where did they get the idea that plotting someone's murder was an acceptable form of play?

How do we defend our kids? What happened to the halcyon days of my youth, when playing outside in the neighborhood for hours at a time was considered safe? What happened to showing basic respect for adults, especially teachers, whether they were your parents or not?

On the other hand, how come we haven't prepared our children better? When I was a kid, strangers were potentially scary people to avoid at all costs, and yet my kids think nothing of engaging an unknown adult in conversation. Have I failed them? We've talked about "stranger danger" and all that, and yet sometimes they still don't get it. How can we teach our kids to be safe without making them paranoid of everything and robbing them of their innocence?

I'm so disturbed by all of this that I just don't know, anymore.

Questar Gas Makes Utahans Pay

Questar Gas, which really holds a monopoly for natural gas delivery in Utah, has made a mistake and wants Utahans to pay for it. They screwed up calibrating some of their meters, and now say that about 500 customers owe them more money, about $600,000 more.

Interestingly enough, they didn't tell anyone. They just billed them for a "correction." Bob and Ann Slattery's natural gas bill jumped from $112.00 a month to $400.00 in their February bill, because of a $370.00 "correction."

This is on the low end, it turns out. The average "correction" billed to make up for Questar's mistake was $1,200.00.

If Questar, and some other public utilities, didn't have a government sanctioned monopoly on services, this wouldn't be happening. Any other company would be apologizing profusely and then eating the cost themselves in an effort to keep the customer. Questar doesn't have to do that. There is no competition for them. They know they've got a hold of the customer by their heating elements.

The whole thing has, thankfully, sparked an investigation. There is going to be a hearing by the Public Service Commission (PSC) on the matter because 34 of the 500 affected customers have filed complaints.

If you're one of the affected customers, I recommend you contact the PSC to file a complaint, as well. Don't just "roll over" for this. We can't allow our public utility companies to take advantage of us because they made a mistake. They are privately held companies and need to be held accountable for their own actions.

For more information, see this KSL article.

Utah Man Wants to be Reimbursed For Scam Operations

Jack Daggs of Heber Utah was convicted of running several fraudulent business scams for over a decade. He was sentenced to six months in jail, and reimbursement of all the money he scammed his victims out of, at a rate of $2,000 a month, only covering out-of-pocket losses. Nothing for pain and suffering.

Get this. Daggs wants to be reimbursed for the phone calls and drive time he spent on the victim's projects.

What's he doing? Trying to scam the courts?

It might be working. The restitution hearing is set for April to determine just how much he actually has to pay back. You can read more about it at KSL.