In the past week, I have noticed a number of dismaying stories about States snatching children from their parents on the basis of nothing more than trumped up charges. Earlier this week Danielle and Alexander Meitiv of Silver Springs Maryland had to retreieve their children from Child Protective Servcies (CPS) at 10:30 p.m. on a Sunday night.  

You might remember the scientists from their initial bout with unwanted fame last year when the couple’s children were picked up by authorities two blocks from their home, and an investigation was opened on the charge of “nelgect”  as outlined in a feature on the DailyMail.UK blog.

“On December 20, police in Silver Spring picked up Rafi and Dvora walking home on a Saturday afternoon from the park after a member of the public reported it.

The Meitivs told police they often let their children walk on their own and that the kids knew the area well.

The CPS sent the Meitivs a letter on February 20 informing them their investigation had been closed and told the Washington Post they would not be commenting on the process.

Outraged, Danielle Meitiv said she does not see why it is wrong to give her children independence.

‘We’re just doing what our parents did. It was considered perfectly normal just one generation ago,’ she said on Today in January.”

The 10 and six year old were playing in a park within blocks of their home this time and were picked up by police and deposited at CPS’s facility. The police were advised by the children that they were within two block of their home and the police said that they would drive them home. Imagine the terror in the children when they were taken to a state kiddie gulag instead.

“They kept the kids for hours,’ a shaken Danielle Meitiv told Fox 5 after being reunited with them. ‘It’s 10:30 at night. They’ve been missing since 6 o’clock…Somebody called 911 and the police called CPS and they decided to bring the kids here and they didn’t call us.’

According to Mrs. Meitiv, the children were expected home no later than 6:30. When 6:30 came and went, they became frantic.

They would not receive a call from CPS until 8pm. Even then, they say they weren’t reunited with their children or even told where they were for hours.

in the interim, Rafi tells Fox 5 that initially he believed the responding police officer was simply offering them a lift. Rafi said:

‘The policeman said “We’ll give you a ride home” when we were like two blocks away. And two and a half hours later, after sitting in the car two and a half hours, he said “I’ll bring you home” and, instead, he brought us here.’

Whether or not you agree with their “Free Range” style of parenting, we can all agree that one generation ago this was not unusual. I used to walk across an entire town from my Junior High School at age 11 to the High School my mother taught at by myself, a town that during that time period had a huge gang problem-and I survived without the intervention of the state.

Yesterday morning, it came to my attention that another 11 year old had been snatched from his mother in Kansas by the state-this time for knowing about marijuana and its medical applications. No matter how you feel about legalization (I am not for it, incidently) or cannabis applications in medicinal circumstances (the research is ongoing and many would argue in its infancy) I am fairly certain we can all agree that this was another huge over-reach by the State of Kansas.

Shona Banda’s son attended a drug education class at school, during which he countered some of the points being espoused in the class as facts. Ms. Banda has used cannabis oil as a treatment for Crohn’s Disease which is a very brutal intestinal disease. After this class concluded, the child was detained and questioned without the notification of either parent (Ms. Banda is seperated) which is technically legal.  A scant 90 minutes later, Ms. Banda was confronted by police who demanded to search her home. After the police left when Ms. Banda requested that they come back with a warrant, they returned with one and searched her home.  Since the police had no involvement in the drug education class, how did they become involved? Well dear reader, that is where my blood runs cold as a parent. Someone at the school contacted them according to a Washington Post reporter who wrote about the story on Friday.

As a parent, in an age where there are so many threats against our civil liberties from our own government-doctors inquiring after gun ownership as part of Obamacare, parents being targeted after being vocal about opting out of common core testing-now I have to worry that my son can be snatched by the State over his knowledge of pharmacutical application of controlled substances or being out with an older sibling??

No, we have a remedy for this insanity in 2016. Get out and vote to support the GOP nominee-whoever they are. No one will be 100% mapped to your issues but we stand a better chance of returning our nation to some collective sanity if we win.

GOTV people, or remember Dr. Meitiv’s comment “You don’t understand how cruel beurocracy can be”. Take his word on that, he grew up in the Soviet Union.