Here’s a story you should care about. Thank you to a few of my Facebook friends who brought it to my attention.
Anna and Alex Nikolayev are young parents from Sacramento, and they are the victims of a horrible crime. Their baby has been kidnapped. They can’t go to the police and they can’t ask the government for help. The abductors are heavily armed, well connected and very powerful. Anna and Alex have been told they must meet all ransom demands or they will never see their child again. Does this sound like the plot of a Mel Gibson movie from the ’90s? Well, it’s not. I mean, it is, but it’s also something else. It’s also just another day in a country where Child Protective Services has the absolute authority to abduct anyone’s kids, any time, for any reason.
Here’s a little more background to this story — a story that is FAR more common than you’d like to believe. Anna and Alex took their 5 month old to Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento because he was suffering from flu like symptoms. Unfortunately, however, they were not happy with the care at the facility. They had good reasons to be unhappy, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s their child and they weren’t satisfied with the treatment. Period. So they took their infant to Kaiser Permanente for a second opinion. Well, the staff at Sutter didn’t much like this — they said the child wasn’t properly discharged –so they called the cops and told them that little baby Sammy was the victim of “severe neglect”. Funny thing is, the doctors at Kaiser found the kid to be in perfect health and saw no evidence of any neglect at all. When the police showed up at the hospital, the doctor explained this to them, and so they left. End of story, right? Wrong.
The next day, while Anna, Alex and Sammy were at home, the police rolled up again. Alex came out to talk to them, at which point he was immediately slammed to the ground, his keys were taken from him, and the police and a few Child Protective Service agents let themselves into the house. Anna saw what was happening and turned on a camera. That’s why we now have video of cops and social workers storming in without a warrant and saying to this scared, helpless woman: “I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me ok?”
And so they did. And then they left. And now these two parents have to meet the State’s demands — and it’s not even clear what the demands are — to get their child back. Their CHILD. The government needs a warrant to seize your property or to take your car or to open your glove compartment. Yet they can seize your children without one. Without probable cause. Without anything. At what point, America, do we get officially SICK AND TIRED of inanimate objects and domesticated animals being afforded more legal protections than our children?
This story is horrendous. But it is NOT an anomaly and it is NOT a rarity. This sort of grave injustice happens in every state, every day. Right now, there are over half a million kids in foster care after being forcibly removed from their parents. Some of them, of course, actually were the victims of severe child neglect or abuse by their parents. But some of them, many of them, in fact, are the victims of severe abuse by the State. Maybe you choose not to believe this. And if that’s the case, maybe you should wake up.
Children need their parents. Parents are the ultimate authority over their kids. These two statements are true in all but the most extreme cases. And yet, somehow, it seems to be those extreme cases that CPS misses entirely. A child is locked in a closet and starved to death, but CPS doesn’t notice because they’re too busy tearing apart a family for failing to stay up to date on the vaccination schedule. Did you know that state governments get paid by the Feds for every child taken from their birth parents and successfully adopted out to new parents? I’m sure the financial incentive couldn’t possibly influence their decisions. No. No way. That never happens. Ever. It’s not possible. I mean, taking kids for money? That’s like, kidnapping, isn’t it?
No. No this is totally different. Totally. You know how I know it’s different? Because CPS says so. They’re just trying to protect children from their own families, that’s all.
Right.
Well, I’ll just tell you this: With all due respect, officer, if you try to “grab my baby”, you better believe I’m going to fight you. Nobody has the right to take my children. You can call yourself “Child Protective Services” or you can call yourself “Law Enforcement”, but, if you try to steal my children, you’re simply a “kidnapper” and that’s exactly how I’ll treat you.
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