You are perverts until proven innocent
Parents are being banned from playing with their children in council recreation areas because they have not been vetted by police.Mothers and fathers are being forced to watch their children from outside perimeter fences because of fears they could be paedophiles.
Watford Council was branded a ‘disgrace’ yesterday after excluding parents from two fenced-off adventure playgrounds unless they first undergo criminal record checks.
Children as young as five will instead be supervised by council ‘play rangers’ who have been cleared by the Criminal Records Bureau.
Councillors insist they are merely following Government regulations and cannot allow adults to walk around playgrounds ‘unchecked’.
Bets now, how many years before Britian requires people to pass background checks and obtain appropriate licensing before being allowed to even have children?
And how long until America does the same?
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Are you fat? Lose your kids.
Comment by JuliaM on 10/29 @ 2:07 am #
The respose from our local public servants on being challenged over this policy is quite thought-provoking: “Council Mayor Dorothy Thornhill said they are merely enforcing government policy at the play areas, in Vicarage Road and Leggatts Way.
She said: ‘Sadly, in today’s climate, you can’t have adults walking around unchecked in a children’s playground and the adventure playground is not a meeting place for adults.
‘We have reviewed our procedures, so although previously some parents have stayed with their children at the discretion of our play workers, this is not something we can continue to do.
‘There are other places in the town for parents with small children to go’.
Or, to translate: “We are only following orders. You are all suspects until you have a nice government card to say you are not. If you don’t like it, there’s the door - don’t let it hit you on the arse on the way out.”
Comment by N. O'Brain on 10/29 @ 4:40 am #
What happened to the British?
Comment by JHo on 10/29 @ 4:41 am #
Family law here and elsewhere has pointed to this outcome for a long time. Kids have already been the State’s property and responsibility whenever, typically, their mothers (and sometimes fathers) sought to partner with that State instead of with the other parent. That statist ground had been prepared.
There aren’t too many areas where classical liberalism is more essential than in family law because without it we see things advancing toward the Orwellian future State we all instinctively know is likely, even assured. It started with “feminism” and it ends in the unintended consequence thereof. It’s one of the simpler State constructs and it’s among the most devastating. God help us.
Comment by B Moe on 10/29 @ 4:46 am #
A further erosion of the presumption of innocence.
Comment by Carin on 10/29 @ 4:54 am #
This is where society has looked at a problem, and taken the wrong fucking road.
Just perhaps if they didn’t decide that perverts were redeemable …. there wouldn’t be so many walking around. Perhaps if we didn’t have such lax morals, there wouldn’t be so many folks who’ve decided that if satisfies THEIR urge, they should do it.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 10/29 @ 5:02 am #
If you had tried to come between me and any of my babies, you’d be dead, mofo.
Comment by serr8d on 10/29 @ 5:13 am #
Parents? What are these ‘parents’ of which you speak? Don’t you realize that non-vetted, unknown ‘parents’ might carry newly-unwelcome concepts, maybe even those terrible things called ‘traditional values’?
How could a modern, streamlined, progressive society function if it’s bogged down and clogged with parents and their traditional values?
Comment by Pawn on 10/29 @ 5:14 am #
I didn’t know the Brits were such pervs!
Really, I concurr with JHo, the US is just leaving the garage on this one. Any parent with a kid in school sees this crap all the time. The child is a ward of the State. The parents must conform to what is expected of them, otherwise they are placing the child in “jepordy” and the State must act to prevent this.
This sucks as it is conditioning the kids to a authoritarian mentality. They are being taught that their parents are just genetic donors and that the State is their true benefactor. This is rooted in “feminism”.
The upside is maybe kids will rebel against the state instead of their wussy parents.
Comment by JHoward on 10/29 @ 5:22 am #
Any parent with a kid in school sees this crap all the time.
Indeed. Keep a close eye on Teen Screen programs these upcoming months and years. “Mental health” is a great place to start: Get some human behavior isolated and declared into that damnable psychology manual — say, free liberal thought — and from there its a very short step to tying it to government school policy and procedure. Next: conformity, baby. All your kids are belong to the US.
Comment by serr8d on 10/29 @ 5:22 am #
Seriously OT, but does this constitute a wakeup event?
Comment by JHoward on 10/29 @ 5:22 am #
Quoting Pawn, that…
Comment by Sue on 10/29 @ 5:40 am #
I have a theory about this. I think the government has an ulterior motive.
If they can’t arrest you for an offence like environmental damage (putting the wrong rubbish in the wrong bin), or dropping a cigarette end on the ground in order to haul you in and get a quick sample of DNA (10 million on the database now), the next best thing is to get you to register with the criminal justice department for a Criminal Records Check. It’s a totalitarian governments’ way of cataloguing every single person in the country, one way or another.
Our particular dictatorship in the UK has several methods of achieving their goal.
“If you had tried to come between me and any of my babies, you’d be dead, mofo.” Erm No, in the UK, YOU would be arrested and your children would be taken away and given up to foster parents.
Just a word of warning from your cousins in the UK… don’t let this happen in the States!
Comment by meya on 10/29 @ 5:51 am #
They could have just banned creepy uncles.
Comment by serr8d on 10/29 @ 6:08 am #
Re: #10. Sorry for the OT. I put it up in the Pub.
Comment by Rusty on 10/29 @ 6:15 am #
#13
No. Just creeps like you.
Comment by Andrew the Noisy on 10/29 @ 6:24 am #
It’s all right. I’m sure our MotherState will let us visit our kids from time to time, as long as we aren’t, you know, bizarre or too interested in it.
That clapping sound you hear is Orwell and Huxley giving each other high-fives.
Comment by Silver Whistle on 10/29 @ 6:26 am #
What happened to the British?
Ask Orwell.
To teach Sunday school, I had to undergo the criminal records check. To teach undergraduates (as theoretically in Scotland they could be under 16) I had to undergo another check. Of course, since I have shotguns, I had to be checked for them. And since I also have rifles, I had to be checked for them too. Also the ground on which I shoot. And my security. I am very well checked. You might as well check me too; everyone else has.
Comment by DarthRove on 10/29 @ 6:29 am #
Yeah. Because pædophiles are well-known for doing their thing in the middle of a crowded playground with anybody and everybody looking on and doing nothing. Yup. Happens all the time.
I’m starting to think that taking a job in government service comes with a mandatory frontal lobotomy and a complete common-sense-ectomy.
Comment by MTW on 10/29 @ 6:37 am #
Meya
Who do you think are going to be hired to be “play Ranger”?
Comment by LTC John on 10/29 @ 6:40 am #
“play workers” ‘play rangers’
That about says it all right there.
Comment by DarthRove on 10/29 @ 6:43 am #
But… but… the ‘play rangers’ are all government checked!!! The government NEVER makes a mistake! ALL pedophiles have a criminal record to check! The government believes it, so it’s true!
Comment by Silver Whistle on 10/29 @ 6:48 am #
But… but… the ‘play rangers’ are all government checked!!! The government NEVER makes a mistake! ALL pedophiles have a criminal record to check! The government believes it, so it’s true!
Yes, we all know how well that works out.
Comment by BJTexs on 10/29 @ 6:50 am #
In a bold move the Watford Council has relented and amended their playground protection rules. Parents will now be allowed inside the perimeter but each will be handcuffed to the fence and forced to wear leather mittins.
In other council news water was banned from council meetings due to being “fascistic-ally wet.”
Pingback by UK: Guilty Until Proved not a Pedophile … Parents Being Banned from Watching their Children in Play Grounds | Scared Monkeys on 10/29 @ 6:54 am #
[...] Protein Wisdom asks, … and how long until America does the same? I used to think that American would never come to this as we were a free society with civil rights. That was before “Hope and Change”. With the every growing intrusive Obama government socialist take over that question is not too far off base. [...]
Comment by sdferr on 10/29 @ 7:18 am #
More on Britain’s Police State:
Comment by Darleen on 10/29 @ 7:28 am #
sdferr
in the course of the UK criminalizing everything, there has been a surge in violent crime because the police are concentrating much of their arrests on middle-class “crime” such as parking tickets or unpaid fines for things like trashbins being overfilled — snagging that threatening demographic, middle-aged Brits. What the UK has done is made all crime equivalent and cops know arresting a 60 year old grannie counts “the same” as a knife-wielding 20 y/o thug. Guess who the cops are picking up?
Comment by JHoward on 10/29 @ 7:31 am #
They already have, functionally. We call it divorce and custody court.
Comment by Joe on 10/29 @ 8:24 am #
Who is vetting the vetters?
Comment by Andrew Sullivan on 10/29 @ 8:26 am #
John McCain is unfit to be seriously considered in politics or to be allowed near small children for failing to vet Sarah Palin.
Comment by BJTexs on 10/29 @ 8:39 am #
Sarah Palin may be unfit for politics for failing to vet the spectacular failure that was John McCain.
I think we can give her a pass on children … and moose.
Pingback by The importance of being a great parent for the first 5 years! | Parenting Help in Arizona on 10/29 @ 9:12 am #
[...] Government to Parents: All your childrens are belong to us … [...]
Comment by JD on 10/29 @ 9:52 am #
BJ - The MSM sure cannot get enough of Levi, can they?
Comment by kelly k on 10/29 @ 10:05 am #
You know, Britain, when you read Orwell, you were supposed to take it as a warning, not as a plan.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 10/29 @ 10:55 am #
I read in a novel once, of government functionaries “whose souls do not extend beyond their uniforms”. Wonder why Samizdata isn’t on this, as of this writing.
Comment by SporkLift Driver on 10/29 @ 11:16 am #
I’d like to think so but there’s some evidence that the target selection for youthful rebellion is hardwired. This is probably not the place to ask and expect an answer that represents the population at large, but how many here rebelled against say their peers instead of their parents? How many of your peers rebelled against anything other than their parents?
Comment by Chairman Hussein Teh Magnificent on 10/29 @ 11:22 am #
Bets now, how many years before Britian requires people to pass background checks and obtain appropriate licensing before being allowed to even have children?
Of course, this would not apply to immigrants only to the original peoples of the UK… Doncha know?
Comment by McGehee on 10/30 @ 8:51 am #
I rebelled against my dad some, but I also rebelled against what I perceived as the dominant political culture in Sacramento — which was definitely left-of-center.
It wasn’t until after I’d settled on a political point of view that I began to discover what my dad’s politics really were — “politicians: screw ‘em”. In the last few years I’m drifting closer to his position in a lot of ways.
Comment by bastiches on 10/30 @ 9:59 am #
Wonder why Samizdata isn’t on this, as of this writing.
Oct. 27