Among the reasons I stopped writing publicly for a few years was my other work. Starting a nonprofit newsroom has not only been time-consuming; it has also made me hesitant to voice an opinion on matters that may be or have been covered by our team at Inside Investigator.

Last week, however, I edited an article for Inside Investigator involving Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) that demanded a response. In this case, covered by intrepid reporter Marc E. Fitch, a 10-month-old child died just three weeks after DCF closed a child abuse/neglect case against the child’s family. This was the 26th article I had edited involving the DCF employees and their various misdeeds since we launched the paper in April 2022.

I felt compelled to write my newest op-ed, published in The Connecticut Examiner, in part because of the Principle of Human Respect and the commitment I made to applying it during these six months – even when I would rather focus on other things. My opinions are mine alone.

You can read that op-ed, titled “How many people should DCF fire? All of them.” then read on.

The post below is an answer to a question I received in the editing process. The second paragraph initially included the line: “This, of course, does not absolve the mother, father, friends, community members, and all of us who care about the well-being of children from our share of the responsibility.”

The editor asked: “Curious: What IS our responsibility for another child we don’t even know? How, exactly, are we supposed to live up to it?”

The final text was changed to better serve the audience. My thanks to the editor for keeping the piece tightly focused.

The question stuck with me, however, and prompted the following:

>>>>>

This is a good question. It requires an answer in multiple parts.

> Moral

>> Our moral responsibility to children we do not know is whatever we choose, and may never nonconsensually initiate violence or diminish wealth through force or fraud.

>>> Kids are amazing. If it existed, I’d be signing up to support the “Committee to ensure perfect safety and perfect morals” where every second of my time would be perfectly well spent. Kids would only have the proper amount of negativity impact their lives and growth, and they would become self-actualized with no physical harm or violations of their consent.

As adults, we know that the “proper amount” of negativity is variable, and tethered to reality. We are formed, in many cases for the better, by happenings beyond our control. There is no perfect safety or morality in humans. I’ve never met a perfect person, have you? 

Even if all of humanity were perfect, we still have nature and reality more broadly to contend with. Our obligations, even to moral ideals, are limited by time, among other factors. Simplicity and consistency, then, become important to defining and fulfilling our moral obligations. No one can be all things to all people.

I cannot dictate to what degree another person should feel morally responsible for children they don’t know. There is no one right answer to this moral question. Given natural constraints, I would argue each person would best live up to their potential good by narrowing their scope of action to the children they know, but I could not justly force anyone to share that belief. You are entitled to carry the burdens of the world, though I doubt it will help and I know it will diminish your ability to help those around you.

What is clear is the boundary that can be justly imposed on moral obligation and attempts at moral action: All self-imposed moral obligations must be allowed for at the level of consent.

To allow less is to limit free exchange of value between consenting persons, and minimizes the opportunity for voluntary good while serving only for those in a position of power to exert over others.

In other words: take on the responsibility you want to pursue and believe to be right. No one else can know it or speak it for you. Living up to it is a personal journey.

The proper role of government, and every law, is to ensure your right to that pursuit.

> Legal

>> Our legal responsibility for a child we don’t know should be limited to our own actions. You should not have legal responsibility for the actions of others.

>>>Human life is complex enough to fill the limited time we have. You can’t be responsible for every other person, so don’t waste time worrying about that which is beyond your control – go chase your consensual moral obligations and love every second of that adventure!

Accountability for others, a “collective responsibility,” freezes action. A collective of people who do nothing will see nothing done. It is a downward spiral.

You gotta know and love, yourself, fully, and let others do the same. That is what it means to “live up to it.” Law only has a role if there is a violation of consent that creates an opportunity for just power to be exercised.

Individuals are not required to partake in the action of loving themself and others. We have every minute of every day to act, and no more. Less than 100% of our time spent loving is possible, by choice, but why bother?

“Non-love” time is wasting time in the truest sense of the word. It is of lesser value than love, which is always available. 

In this case, there is a just role for the law to act as there was harm being done to the now-deceased child, the current system is simply broken in its arrangement and, subsequently, its ability to help. 

> The DCF

>> DCF employees consented to do the work. So must accept the responsibility or step aside for those who will.

>>> Even in non-life-threatening circumstances, the Connecticut DCF makes and enforces rules that hurt peaceful people. They limit choice and innovation and violate consent. DCF employees harass and intimidate our friends and neighbors and call it service. It’s not, thanks.

Keep an eye out for future investigations into this form of corruption.

In my view, a functional DCF replacement must be structurally in line with the fluid nature of the human experience. Parenting defies order over time, so it isn’t surprising that a state (centralized) bureaucracy is failing to deliver anything close to acceptable results.

The DCF is slow to adjust and accountability is masked in layers of bureaucracy (statutes, unions, paperwork, internal policy, and so on) that only serve to further slow the gears and obfuscate moral and legal responsibility.

This problem occurs perennially in governance as it becomes more complex. This is one of the reasons Thomas Jefferson advocated for all laws, even the Constitution, to expire every 19 years. Writing to James Madison in 1789 he said, “If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.”

Force, not right, is precisely the position DCF employees and those they interact with are currently enduring.

I do not envy DCF employees. They are voluntarily bound to this slow system until it is changed. They should each be quitting and devoting their time to pursuing better ends. Public Servitude is a privileged space when done consensually. It grants power of a kind that must be able to be refused and should be, often.

As I have said before, Thoreau seems to have it right: “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”

I did not consent to the overburdened Connecticut DCF having jurisdiction over my children. I’m glad they do not. The Department is beyond broken. I feel for the human beings on all sides of the equation and hold them to the same standard: 

It is impermissible for a human to initiate violence against others, and/or to diminish the wealth of others through theft, fraud, or destruction of their property.

The Principle of Human Respect has it right in terms of identifying what has gone wrong. Children are being harmed by people who are charged with their care, in many cases by DCF employees, DCF leaders, and the Department’s rigid policy.

Solutions must be decentralized because human problems require individualized attention.

In both legal and moral matters, consent functions optimally. It can be a boring way to express love, but it opens the door to living a richer and more rewarding life.

---