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Times change but people don't... the elite do-gooders that have such a clear vision of how society should be and the money to see it happen have never been in short supply; in reality just another breed of eugenicist looking to mold America in their own image- regardless of the cost. "History repeats itself, especially if money can be made. Charles Loring Brace, founder of the New York Children’s Aid Society, conceived the “orphan trains” as a way to “salvage poor immigrant children,” moving them off the streets of the city and into “loving” homes in the country, sending them by trains to live with families who were complete strangers."
The target of this largesse was the growing immigrant population, predominately Catholic, Irish, Italian, Polish, etc. who had begun to accumulate in the slums of New York and other large east coast cities. "Brace was an evangelical reformer who wished to remove the children of poor Catholics from crowded urban and family environments and place them in Anglo-Protestant farming families in small towns and rural areas. Brace and his peers considered Catholic parents unworthy almost by definition, but the philosophy of child rescue also emphasized nurture over nature."
"Malleable and innocent children, if removed early enough from depraved parents, could escape the inferior culture inherent in their homes and communities and become upstanding citizens. Not surprisingly, an ideology that seemed benevolent and humanitarian to many Protestants earned Brace a reputation in Catholic communities as a child-stealer rather than a child-saver."
Brace and his ilk were allowed to operate with impunity, although they had no legal authority. It also appears that, like similar elitists today, their motives were far from pure and altruistic... there was a farm labor shortage and many if not most of these children wound up as indentured servants.
"Between 1854 and 1929, as many as 250,000 children from New York and other Eastern cities were sent by train to towns in Midwestern and western states, as well as Canada and Mexico. Families interested in the orphans showed up to look them over when they were placed on display in local train stations, and placements were frequently made with little or no investigation or oversight."
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The only difference is that the government is now the overseer of the poor. The foster care system has evolved into a modern day slavery operation with over 70% of children taken, often from loving homes whose only "crime" is being poor, winding up being trafficked or entering a life of crime. 75% of the children removed are not taken for any form of abuse, but "neglect," a catchword for poverty. As time went on, the methods began to vary some, but the poor were always the target. In the late 1920's, when the Orphan Trains were being phased out, a new breed of do-gooder arose. They had a different tactic for solving the problem of poverty.
These were the eugenicists, people such as Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood. Their plan for eliminating poverty was preventing the poor from breeding. Their elitist vision has been consistent throughout history it seems... Sanger and her cohorts viewed the poor as "human weeds," that like any other weeds must be eradicated. The Eugenics Society got mandatory sterilization laws passed- in the 1930's alone over 15,000 people were forcibly sterilized. Sanger took it upon herself to print and distribute pamphlets encouraging young women in poor neighborhoods to use Lysol douches (the Lysol at that time was far more stringent and caused uterine scarring causing sterility). Eugenics quickly spread to Europe, as did sterilization laws such as the Nazi Racial Hygiene Laws, perhaps the most ambitious.
Currently in the US, studies have shown that children left in their own families almost always fare better than in foster care. "In 2007 Joseph Doyle, an economics professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, published a study which tracked at least 15,000 kids from 1990 to 2002. It was the largest study of its kind at that time."
"Children whose families are investigated for abuse or neglect are likely to do better in life if they stay with their families than if they go into foster care, according to a pioneering study. Kids who stayed with their families were less likely to become juvenile delinquents or teen mothers and more likely to hold jobs as young adults."
"Doyle’s study…. provides ‘the first viable, empirical evidence’ of the benefits of keeping kids with their families, says Gary Stangler, executive director of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, a foundation for foster teens. Stangler says it looked at kids over a longer period of time than had other studies. ‘It confirms what experience and observation tell us: kids who can remain in their homes do better than in foster care,’ says Stangler."
Here are some of the findings:
Children who stay in troubled families fare better than those put into foster care. Those who:
Were arrested at least once:
• Stayed with family: 14%
• Went to foster care: 44%
Became teen mothers:
• Stayed with family: 33%
• Went to foster care: 56%
Held a job at least 3 months:
• Stayed with family: 33%
• Went to foster care: 20%
Here are a couple of more troubling statistics... 74% of prison inmates were in foster care and 80% of death row inmates were also in foster care. The system doesn't work and children deserve better. "In another article, National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR) shares some case histories of children who were abused in child care, proclaiming:
But in the name of ‘child protection’ children have been beaten. In the name of ‘children’s rights’ children have been raped. And in the name of ‘erring on the side of the child,’ children have been murdered. These are the stories of some of those children." (Wordpress seems to have removed this page)
The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general public and that once removed to official ‘safety,’ these children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation than in the general population... and the numbers have increased exponentially. 1997 was the year that the Clinton administration passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the number of children removed from their homes skyrocketed- the states saw an opportunity to cash in.
"Recent sting operations revealed that more than half of the children being traded for sex come from foster care. The same children identified by our courts as most in need of protection from abuse and neglect are being bought and sold everywhere from truck stops and cheap motels to wealthy suburbs. They are being used, reused, and then discarded like trash.
What makes it all the more appalling is that, in the vast majority of cases, no one even looks for these children when they go missing from the system.
‘Research shows that most victims of child sex trafficking come straight from the foster care system. This is totally unacceptable,’ said Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash.
Reichert is absolutely correct. In order to keep the promise we, as a civilized society, have made to our most vulnerable children, we must mandate concrete, actionable steps. To begin with, let’s look at what we know: state governments admitted they could not locate 4,973 foster children at the end of fiscal year 2012. Almost unbelievably, this is one of the numbers (“Status=Runaway”) that states provide to secure federal funding.
These are real numbers, representing real children. Is anyone looking for them?"
There are solutions, if anyone is interested... but it's up to us to see that it happens. The government and foster care have found a wellspring of cash and have no interest in changing the status quo... "if it works, don't fix it." The problem is that it doesn't work for the children being targeted and their families.
"Brian Shilhavy, editor of Health Impact News/MedicalKidnap.com, firmly believes:
All federal funding for foster care and adoption should immediately be abolished. Let local law enforcement arrest and prosecute criminal parents the same as any other suspected criminal, rather than incarcerating the alleged victims by kidnapping them. Criminal parents are the ones who should be removed from homes, not innocent children.
Without the more than $20 billion in federal funding used for trafficking children, far fewer children will be taken from their homes. In cases where parents are removed with due process of law, the incentives in local communities would be to place the children with relatives, rather than the State. For the very few remaining children who have had their parents incarcerated and have no relatives, local communities can develop their own programs without federal funding, which would include adoption to parents who can afford to take care of children without the aid of federal funds.
It is time the American taxpayer stops funding the U.S. child trafficking business, which is nothing more than a modern-day form of slavery."