The State of New Mexico Would Like to Raise Your Child For You...

...But should you let them?

Last week I was sympathizing with friends in Connecticut about plans for new regulations that would interfere with families over the first thousand days of life in that state. For more information on those plans, check out this entry over at Consent of the Governed. Imagine my surprise when yesterday I opened the paper to read of a similar plan in New Mexico.

Yes, folks, the great State of New Mexico, where it takes 20 years to get a bridge built across the Rio Grande, wants to authorize home visits to new families by social workers, as well as mandatory health insurance ("Can you say 'corporate welfare,' junior?"), and pre-school classes for every four year old in the public schools. All because those poor people don't know what their children need.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether it is the job of the state to do all of these things, ask yourself honestly, do you think the State of New Mexico, where the high school drop-out rate is one of the highest in the nation, is competent to raise your kids? Given what I read in the paper, the whole idea that the state wants to interf...er, 'help me' raise my kids scares the living daylights out of me!

It scares me even more as I read other stories about how our local and state governments function. Is the great State of New Mexico going to help me teach my kids ethics and morality? Like how to solicit bribes, for example, which happens regularly in the state insurance commission where our public servants protect citizens by making small regulatory infractions "go away" if large contributions are made by insurance companies to the commissioner's favorite charity? You know, the one that he controls? Or perhaps they will teach my kids how to accept kickbacks for contracts to build public buildings, like the county courthouse? Or perhaps, they'll show us how to teach our kids to read and write by siphoning off most of the money intended for classrooms to buy swank new offices for the superintendents and middle management of the government schools?

No, thank you, State of New Mexico. I really don't want you to raise my kids for me. In fact, I want to keep my kids as far away from the antics that regularly occur in the Round House as I can. And anyway, isn't there a law against being a corrupting influence on a minor? I sure wouldn't want to have to bail you out of jail for that. I am running out of money after paying for the lawsuits regularly filed against the State.

I am no fool. You are going to come to me on April 15th and hold me up for the funding to pay for all of this, as well as the bribes, kickbacks and lawsuits that go with your corrupt and dissolute lifestyle. The best thing you can do to help me with my kids, State of New Mexico, is to reform your evil ways and demonstrate to them the beauty of repentence. From a distance, at that. You can let us New Mexican families keep our money so that we can raise our own kids. We know what they need. We just need you to get out of the way so that we can do it.