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How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

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Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#151

Post by logicalmind »

olliesaunders wrote: post #111
jacquesm wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that avenue is that this sort of agency is very vengeful and they have the power to make your life very miserable. So if after you've won your injunction they find half an excuse to 'intervene' again they'll definitely do so. It's rare that I would advocate to just let it be but in this case that would seem to me to be the safest option. Pick your battles.

How is accusing them of negligence going to generate more evidence against you? If no-one stands up to this organization this sort of thing is going to continue to happen.

It's really not difficult for them to find some violation that could be some kind of "dangerous" situation. Is every outlet in your house child-proof? Is every bookshelf, dresser, etc. secured to the wall so it cannot tip over onto a child? Are your toilet lids locked closed to a child cannot fall into them? There really is no limit to the things they can find.

Even worse, they can bring your children to psychologists and ask them leading questions that could lead to concerns about anything they like. DCFS can make your life a living hell if they like. And the more you piss them off the more they are likely to do just that.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#152

Post by mattmaroon »

Taking pictures of naked 8 year old boys and groups peeing on a fire is really weird. If I were the random drug store employee processing that film (for $8/hr) I'd report that without hesitation. If I worked for the government agency tasked with such things, I'd investigate it too.

I know this won't be a popular sentiment here because there's so much loathing of government in general. It's hard to make a judgment about how well the situation was handled from one side of the story, but that he was investigated seems about right.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#153

Post by tomjen3 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #50
kls wrote: post #13

I had a similar run in with DCF, not for child pornography but for accusations of child abuse. I helped out a high school friend who had become a heroin addict (I had no idea what I was getting into), by letting his family and himself live with me while he tried to recover. It ended up that this was a common scam with him and his wife and they use a sob story to get friends to help them out and once they wear out the…

DCF is a really problematic thing. I completely understand where you're coming from and we've had people close to us under false investigation from family services and it's a pretty bad gig. They act like everything you say is such an absurd lie and that you're just waiting for them to walk away so that you can start slamming your children into the floor again. It is really sad that they can't use common sense. But a…

>I sympathize that it sucks to be falsely investigated, but if you consider that there are people like those described above, who have become expert manipulators and liars to conceal and feed their habits, and DCFS has to investigate them too, you can understand some skepticism on the part of the agents.

Saying that is the same as saying that they should have taken their children away just cause somebody claims you abused your children.

Do you want to retract that statement, or should I call DCF?

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#154

Post by cagey »

Confusion wrote: post #34
cagey wrote: post #11

We had "a run in" with Child Protective Services about 10 years ago. The charge: "Shaken Baby Syndrome" (symptoms medically caused; a long story). The "advocates" at CPS had me and my wife (in hospital having just delivered child #2) tried and convicted immediately. Only, I think, thru my self-advocacy directly to the head of pediatrics at the county hospital where my child was being held for examination, resulted in…

(at best they were all "just doing their jobs", just like concentration camp guards) Quoted for truth. This is not an invocation of Godwin's law, but the closest possible analogy, as these bureaucrats make the exact same repugnant decisions someone like Eichmann made. They fully well know they ruin the lives of many innocent folks; at least half the cases turn out to have been nothing. The problem is not 'the governm…

  The problem is not 'the government' or 'society'. 
  The problem is our neighbors: citizens like you and me...
I fail to see how my neighbors caused this problem (aside from demonstrating a tendency to vote for legislators who themselves had a latent tendency to write the laws creating the bureaucracy which assailed us). The problem is in fact those legislators (and a system that offers minimal checks on the legislation they pass into law), and an apparent collective swoon they fall into, where they think that every "issue de jour" needs a new law in response, and every law is a good law (and more laws, new laws, are better than no new laws) so they spend all their time writing and passing laws, thousands upon thousands of pages of new laws (and often vote to pass same w/o having read the laws being voted upon), many of which require new bureaucracies to enforce. Basically they are busy with their long term project (driven to some degree by the constant cajoling of "advocates" of all stripes who wish to inflict, by rule of law, their point of view on everyone) of legislating a straitjacket for each citizen. Do you like yours?

  the teachers that immediately distrust you
Even aside from our CPS experience, this is true: the classroom is their kingdom, and any parent who dares to question a teacher, or come across with an attitude other than "we worship the ground you walk on" (with smiley faces all around), is going to have trouble. NB: we were (parents) "in the special ed system" (another fine bureaucracy ... not!) so got to "get up close and personal" in ways most parents do not. Our ultimate solution? Home Schooling. I had assumed that switching to this schooling mode would, if not simply impossible, at least be a bureaucratic nightmare, but to my complete surprise, here in CA it is so easy to switch to Home Schooling (this improbable result is thanks entirely to HS groups fighting and winning a number of court cases), and you are (can be if you choose) completely cut loose from the government education bureaucracy.

You're probably thinking "aha! He's Home Schooling, therefore he's a Fundamentalist Christian therefore he's a loony tune, and I can scoff at him"; wrong; I am areligious. My bible, if any: http://www.amazon.com/How-Found-Freedom-Unfree-World/dp/0380...

EDIT: formatting

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#155

Post by tbrownaw »

steveklabnik wrote: post #110
Yaggo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading the article, my first thought was "why I can't imagine that happening outside the US?". When and why did nudity become such a taboo there? It seems to be much more acceptable to show children violence than nudity, which I found absurd. I mean, which is more harmful for 13 years old child to see on TV, a breast or shooting?

I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a terrible troll, but when an entire religious group gets up and sails across an ocean because everyone back home won't stop telling them that they're crazy... what else would you expect?

That makes quite a lot of sense, but unfortunately doesn't fit with the general impression I have that things didn't used to be nearly this bad.

On the other hand, I hear that a really long time ago women always had really long dresses and the only skin you ever saw was their face and hands. So maybe the rules really are being relaxed, and kids just don't get an exemption any more.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#156

Post by infinite8s »

Sukotto wrote: post #97
midnightmonster wrote: post #5

I'm very close to people who were saved from really horrible situations by state intervention. But then for them, foster care was hardly any better until they were adopted. The state taking my kids is actually my worst parental nightmare--even beyond all the accidental and criminal bad things that could happen. I'm a very good parent (you'll have to take my word, I guess), but I'm not conventional. And I know all it…

For me it's the #2 nightmare. Leaving the baby in the car in the sun is #1.

As a new parent, I can't imagine how anyone would ever accidentally leave a child in their car.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#157

Post by infinite8s »

sliverstorm wrote: post #77
nagrom wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's terrifying because your position is that one shouldn't do something that is entirely harmless and innocent, for fear that you will be branded for life as something evil. It's even more terrifying because your position appears to be tacit acceptance of that situation. Some things should not have to be worked around. Some things are wrong, and should be decried. A situation where parents are scared to photograph a…

You can crack jokes in the airport about bombing planes, and carry bundles of wire in your luggage, and fight the system. Jokes are harmless and innocent, and you should be allowed to make them. Stand up against the injustice. Or, you could simply not do those things and get on your flight and on with your life.

Not quite the same thing. Taking photos of your children running around having fun in that state of clothing is probably a fun, proud moment for a parent, documenting their joy in their family.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#158

Post by nooneelse »

randallsquared wrote: post #143
Yaggo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'm a bit confused. Does (real) breasts of an actress seen on tv count as "actual breasts"?

Yes. :) However, showing a centerfold spread on TV doesn't. I remember seeing _Dead Poets' Society_ on TV when I was a teen, and wondering how they could get away with showing the centerfold's breasts on broadcast TV. Somehow it doesn't count if it's a painting or photo of nudity.

This would be so very easy to push down the obvious slippery slope. Imagine a movie with a progression... painting of a nude male and female, then a picture of the subjects of that painting, then a sequence of paintings of them going from something like a slide-show with a transition every 10 seconds to a couple paintings per second so they do a little stop-motion dance. Then repeat the slide-show with pictures of the subjects. Next introduce another layer, a shot of a TV showing the painting, then the pictures... how can you tell the difference between the TV showing picture of the nudes and a paused video of the nudes? What if two people repeatedly hold up a black sheet in front of the two nudes while they are moving and then drop the sheet for a second as the nudes hold still... how is that different from the slide-show of the pictures of those nudes. All this could be done integrated with the plot and dialogue, maybe something about what is real and how you tell the difference between a real and fake photo/video of something.

So in the progressions, when would the censors put the black boxes over the "naughty" bits? Would there be a difference in that for the man and the woman?

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#159

Post by steveklabnik »

olliesaunders wrote: post #118
steveklabnik wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a terrible troll, but when an entire religious group gets up and sails across an ocean because everyone back home won't stop telling them that they're crazy... what else would you expect?

Not constructive.

My answer is the exact same one as roc's. Maybe I should take this as a sign to not post at 2am, and use more words to explain myself better.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#160

Post by _pi »

kls wrote: post #130
jacquesm wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that avenue is that this sort of agency is very vengeful and they have the power to make your life very miserable. So if after you've won your injunction they find half an excuse to 'intervene' again they'll definitely do so. It's rare that I would advocate to just let it be but in this case that would seem to me to be the safest option. Pick your battles.

Bingo, I live in mortal fear of DCF and our next encounter (that how crazy the paranoia is). I pray every day, even now, that I am off their radar. I don't want anything to do with them. I don't want their money (I have exited 3 start-ups, I have enough, I am not FU rich but enough that I don't want to bring their heat). I just want to give them a wide birth and stay away from them.

I understand your predicament, I myself don't have kids but I understand what it would feel like to take your children away. But I also understand that you have time and a lawyer who already knew about the case. I'd ask him if there's a statute of limitations on this sort of thing. You may have a chance to fight back, and at least help sort out this unjust system.
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