Why I Support @familyprotection And Why I Think You Should Too!

Image Credit

A little over a week ago now, I had the pleasure of reading a fantastic post by @markwhittam in which he outlined his intention to set up a Family Protection Service to help families dealing with the Social Services, Child Protective Services and other like organisations around the world. As someone who is aware of the over-reaching arms of the state interfering with and abusing the God given rights of mothers and fathers and who also sees the positive possibilities for steemit in having a direct impact on how we live our lives and interact with one another, I was extremely pleased to see such a wonderful initiative being launched on the platform.

While many of us are enjoying the financial rewards of being a member of this growing community, we should also remember that part of the reason most of us are here is to change the world. From my experience of interacting with other steemit members, most seem to be of an anarchistic or voluntaryist disposition and believe in decentralisation and redistribution of power from the state and corporate world back into the hands of the individual. We all know that the rulers of our world have been abusing the power we give them for far too long and in the case of the protection of children, there is no exception.

My wife and I have already experienced the interference of the state after our young son was born and expect more in future.

I plan on writing more posts in the near future relating to these issues but for now, I’d just like to share my story (so far) and call on you to support and follow @familyprotection.

MY OWN STORY

My story began with the arrival of a letter in the post one day from the local Registrars office informing my wife (not me, even though they are the ones who hold the record of our marriage), that we had not attended the Registrars Office to apply for a registration certificate for our son and that we had such and such a time period to make an appointment and complete the application.

I am not a man who knows a great deal about a lot of things but one of the things I do know is that there is a significant difference in the meaning of language when comparing Black’s Law Dictionary to the Oxford English Dictionary.

For example, I know that the word ‘apply’ may appear quite innocent to those who don’t know the difference and who take its meaning from the OED but in legal terms, to apply means to beg, with the assumption that you understand fully what you are begging for and accept any implications of the assistance provided by those from whom you are ‘applying’.

The term register, as @markwhittam rightly points out, means to hand over ownership, which is something I couldn’t possibly have done if I had wanted to, since I don’t own my son. Obviously, it goes without saying that I refused their invitation to register my sons ‘birth’ with the state since I am actually pretty pleased to have a son and have no requirements now or in future to have anyone from the state interfering in my guidance of him on his journey through life, so we ignored the letter and hoped that would be the end of the matter, which of course, we knew it would not.

Once the given deadline had passed, we found ourselves in receipt of another letter from the Registrars office along the same lines but this time with the inclusion of stronger language designed, in my opinion, to intimidate. I was less than amused and so decided to give the local Registry Office a call and make arrangements to attend straight away since I had many questions which I needed answered before I was willing to enter into any agreements. Questions such as ‘Which law requires me to register my sons ‘birth’ with the state? A very simple question but one that is very difficult for anyone at the Registrars Office who knows what they are talking about to answer since there is no law which requires any of us to do any such thing. There is an Act of Parliament which is given the force of law but only if we choose to consent to it and if we do not then it is not enforceable. So we made an appointment, making it quite clear to the woman we spoke with on the phone that there would have to be someone present willing and able to answer any and all questions we had regarding the registration. We were assured this would be the case and so we attended at the date and time given.

Unfortunately, the advisor who was appointed to us had no answer to any of the questions we had and was very surprised, taken aback and even seemed a little threatened that we had any questions at all, as is the way with a lot of these things, nowadays. Any critical thought or unwillingness to comply with cultural norms is seen as an act of aggression and a sign of instability, no matter how demonstrably insane that cultural norm may be.
Anyway, she went away for a bit and when she returned she told us that the Head Registrar was on their way and would be able to answer any questions we might have but that we WOULD have to register our child regardless of what question we had or what answers we were given.

Apparently it wasn’t voluntary in a voluntary society but she didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, so I thought it wise to leave her in her bubble and await the answers of the ‘Head Registrar’. After another few minutes waiting though, we were told that the Head Registrar was no longer available and so we decided to leave but I left my phone number for her to call me at her convenience, which she duly did a few days later.

I was pleased to receive her call since I wanted this situation cleared up as soon as possible. She too was adamant that we must register our child and while agreeing that we lived in a voluntary society, maintained also that we didn’t have a choice in the matter. A very strange and contradictory statement that I’m sure must have caused a few cogs to start spinning in her head somewhere. When I asked which law compelled me to comply I was again given the same Act Of Parliament that I was given before and when I enquired about the fact that that Act Of Parliament requires my consent to be given the force of law, I was told that that was my interpretation. Which to my mind meant, yes you are right but I couldn’t possibly admit to that. Despite the fact that I know also that to misrepresent an Act Of Parliament as a Law of the Land by a public official or Office of the Law is gross misconduct and tantamount to fraud (which IS actually against the Law), I decided not to press charges against her and agreed to disagree with her before pleasantly finishing our call without resolution. She told me that the Registrars Office only had the responsibility of collecting the information on behalf of the National Records For Scotland and that they would surely be in touch with us soon, which they duly were.

When we received a letter from the National Records For Scotland offering us a final opportunity to register our sons ‘birth’, it was accompanied by the threat of punishment should we choose to disregard their offer once again. The letter was again addressed to my wife alone and the threats were made against her, including the threat of a large fine as well as the threat of imprisonment for a period of up to two years. We were given a date by which we ‘must’ (in legal terms this word is also synonymous with the word ‘may’ meaning there is a choice rather than an order) make arrangements to register our son no later than such and such a date or else we would face either a fine, imprisonment or both.

Again, I was less than impressed and took to my phone to speak with the representative of the National Records For Scotland who had sent us such a threatening letter but unfortunately, she was on holiday until the date she had given us as a deadline. Convenient for her but not for us. I instead had to make do with speaking to another representative who reassured me that the registration process existed only as a means of recording the births deaths and marriages in Scotland for posterity and for the historical record so I in return reassured him that I had no intention of complying with something under duress just to satisfy the whims of others and that if there was no lawful obligation he could provide me with, we would not be doing so. Again I was given the Act of Parliament which I again explained required my consent to be enforceable. He agreed with me that this was the case, which was an improvement from my last call with the Head Registrar but he still assured me that we would have to comply and didn’t seem to understand what I was saying when I pointed out that this was a contradiction. He then told me that if we decided not to register our son then they had the power to do it on our behalf which would mean that his ‘birth certificate’ would be incomplete, but said we could pay to have the missing information inserted at a later date. I told him that this was not something I wanted but had no power to stop them from doing so if they chose to and again, pleasantly finished our call.

Six months later and we have had no further contact from them other than a photocopy of the birth certificate they created for my son which bares only a surname with no first name. (these are legal terms and should be known to be such. The proper terms are family name and given name) There have been no further threats of fines or imprisonment.

These empty threats never materialised but we have no doubt that our dealings with the state when it comes to our son are far from over. We have no intention of allowing the state to vaccinate our son and we have no intention of sending him to a state sponsored school either. We have given both of these choices a lot of thought and consideration but and having done so have come the conclusion that both of these things are not in our sons best interest. We have no intention of allowing our son to be injected with vaccines which have many serious known side effects and reactions as well as God knows how many unknown and as yet undiscovered future effects. Neither do we intend to offer our son up to the state for indoctrination by sending him to be trained what to think about the world rather than learning how to think about the world himself. Such is the strength of feeling regarding these two choices that many people would believe us to be abusing our son by our decision to opt out. This belief and attitude is propagated by the fear-mongering mainstream media, so it is no surprise that these are the prevailing opinions but it does mean that my wife and I must be aware that there may be some who feel we are not taking care of our son and so we may in time have further unwelcome dealings with the state and its representatives.

This may not seem like much of a story but this is the reason for my post and why I believe it is crucial that we support @familyprotection. Instead of being reactive to situations that we know might occur in future, we have to be pro-active and ensure that if things do happen, we are ready for them and able to call on the support of one another. The #familyprotection is a brilliant way for us to be proactive in our struggle against the corrupt nature of the state which abuses the weakest and poorest of our communities because they know they have little support, where-with-all or knowledge of how the system works to defend themselves properly. With the Family Protection Service we can have strength in numbers and access to a wide range of knowledge, experience and support, as well as hopefully the financial backing to help families around the world fight back.

Lots of steemit members have already shared stories of personal abuse while in state care or of their experiences of having their children taken away and I empathise with all of them very much. These stories strengthen my own resolve to ensure that this does not become my story or that of my son. I want to know that I have lots of support if and when I need it.

If like me, you are aware that due to your decisions regarding the raising of your children you may be likely to face some resistance from the state, then I would urge you to consider following and supporting in any way you can @familyprotection. If you have a story of your own to share then I would encourage you to do so.

Thanks for reading!

Banner by @son-of-satire!