There is no end to the multiplication of laws and regulations. As the picture shows very plainly just because there is a rule or a law doesn’t mean that anyone will obey it. We have laws about all kinds of things that no one is enforcing either. There are laws that we ignore and laws that we break everyday that we don’t even know about. So when I am in a discussion with someone and they say, “there should be a law”, I usually interrupt and say, “there probably is”.
There is also the law of unintended consequences. It’s a rule really. There is a terrible story in Minnesota about laws and rules.
Article by: BRANDON STAHL , Star Tribune
- Updated: October 14, 2014 – 6:17 AM
“A task force examining Minnesota’s child protection system spent its first meeting Monday discussing what critics say is its chief failing: a general reluctance to investigate reports of child abuse and neglect.
The task force was created by Gov. Mark Dayton last month, in the wake of a Star Tribune report about a 4-year-old Pope County boy who was killed by his stepmother despite repeated warnings to child protection.
Dayton, who appeared at Monday’s meeting, urged the group to respond to the “significant increase in the number and severity of child abuse” with recommendations to the Legislature on how to improve the child protection system, which lawmakers could take up in 2015.
The Star Tribune has found that Minnesota screens out 71 percent of all abuse reports — one of the highest rates in the country — and investigates only 7 percent of all reports. The remaining cases are referred to “family assessment,” a less confrontational approach intended to keep families together.
Some task force members questioned how a Legislative Auditor’s report released in 2012 could say that child protection agencies make decisions in a “reasonable and deliberative manner,” despite those same agencies not responding to most of the reports they receive.
Leaders of child protection agencies and the Department of Human Services have cited the report as evidence that the screening process works.
But Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles told the task force that the report did not examine the effectiveness of the screening decisions. The audit did suggest that DHS clarify screening guidelines because they could be confusing.
Task force members also questioned a new law, passed by the Legislature this year at DHS’ urging, that made it more difficult for agencies to investigate maltreatment cases. The law prohibited child protection agencies from considering rejected reports when considering whether a new report has merit.
DHS Commissioner Lucinda Jesson, co-chair of the task force, has said the law codified what child protection workers were already doing. But many legislators who voted for the bill said they did not know what they were voting for, and now say they want it repealed.”
Legislators voted for something and didn’t know what they were voting for – imagine that?
The truth is that we need lawyers to translate even the simplest language because folks read all kinds of things into laws that may or may not be there. The truth is that many things are written that deliberately confuse because folks do not want you to know what they are doing, they just want you to vote for what they want.
Measure 1 in North Dakota is getting all kinds of discussion with folks saying that it says what it really doesn’t say or vice versa.
You can check out the discussion on the North Dakota District LCMS Website.
