What if every child had a “State Guardian” from birth?

May 28th, 2013
Under a bizarre new proposal every newborn child in Scotland may be assigned a “state minder” to spy on families to prevent “child abuse.” The program is part of an initiative called the Children and Young People Bill, because who could be against children and young people. Children’s minister Aileen Campbell justified the proposal by asserting it would “make sure there is someone having an overview of what is happening to that child, to make sure that early indicators of anything that would pose a threat or risk to that child are flagged up.” So finally, when people quip that government coddles people from cradle to grave, the cradle part is true.

Stuart Walton is a sociology and criminology lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee, and he happened to write a dystopian novel based on the same idea. Most dystopian sci-fi writers have to wait decades to see their draconian predictions realized, if they even live to see, but for Walton it may be realized before his book is even published. He writes:

“Unfortunately, this dystopian future has arrived a little faster than I imagined, as last week the Scottish Government’s plan to give every child a state guardian from birth was launched.”

“This state-appointed overseer will be a specific, named individual, and every child will have one, from birth. The responsibility for creating this named guardian will fall on the heads of the health boards for the first five years of a child’s life, before being transferred to councils.”

Public school are often accused of encouraging children to spy on their parents, and report them of victimless crimes that the State has no way of tracking otherwise. But if child spies aren’t enough, the next step is spying on children. After that it’s just a matter of the State broadening the definition of “child abuse” and suddenly the State appointed social workers become ready made State appointed kidnappers. And that’s already part of the proposal. Some Scottish judges are also calling on the State to remove children from “criminal families” at birth. They call it “Family Intervention Projects.”

The definition is already pretty broad. The proposal includes home visits to ensure that children go to bed on time, attend school and eat proper meals. They’ve already installed surveillance cameras inside thousands of private homes.

Assigning a government bureaucrat to every child is a surreal and totalitarian notion that many would have thought was beyond the realm of possibility. And yet here it is. Even George Orwell only went so far as to suggest children would be encouraged to turn in their parents. Even Big Brother doesn’t assign an open spy to each individual.

Think it can’t happen here? The groundwork has already been laid. Such a proposal can only come from the ideological view that children are the collective property of the State. We already see this notion in the US. Last month College professor and MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry remarked, “We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families,” as part of a promotional video for an MSNBC campaign entitled ‘Lean Forward’. It makes perfect sense in a sick sort of way. If it “takes a village to raise a child” how much of a leap is it to regard the child as belonging to the village, and not to the parents or the child themselves?

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About the Author: Davi Barker

In grade school Davi refused to recite the pledge of allegiance because he didn't understand what it meant. He was ordered to do as he was told. In college he spent hours scouring through the congressional record trying to understand this strange machine. That's where he discovered Dr. Ron Paul. In 2007 he joined the End The Fed movement and found a political home with the libertarians. The Declaration of Independence claims that the government derives its power “from the consent of the governed." He does not consent.

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