  Retroit Member Username: Retroit Post Number: 26 Registered: 04-2008 |
A Culturally Challenged dad buys his son a "lemonade." A Director-of-Homeland-Security- wannabee saves Childkind from those Evil Parents. And our All-Loving-All-Caring government "protects" the boy by not letting him see his mother for 2 days and his father for 2 weeks. www.clickondetroit.com/news/16 031059/detail.html And I be you thought I was joking! | ||
Hockey_guy Member Username: Hockey_guy Post Number: 35 Registered: 11-2007 |
I saw that in the paper. It seems like the employee selling the drink should have asked for ID. Because if the employee did, the dad would know it contained alchol. | ||
Crystal Member Username: Crystal Post Number: 182 Registered: 05-2007 |
I read that the boy tested negative for alcohol in his system. I am usually on the side of CPS, and support them erring on the side of caution when the circumstances are not clear. But it seems they made a very poor judgment in this case, and did not recognize what seemed clearly to be a mistake on the Dad's part. | ||
Dtowncitylover Member Username: Dtowncitylover Post Number: 85 Registered: 02-2008 |
I was thinking the exact same thing, Hockeyguy, but maybe he asked his son while in the middle of the line. Btw, this was an honest mistake and I think the treatment of the father after was a bit excessive, too. We are humans, we can all make those mistakes. The sign should read "Mike's HARD Lemonade". | ||
Detroit313 Member Username: Detroit313 Post Number: 652 Registered: 02-2006 |
Your right^^. It didn't seem like the father was doing it on purpose. If so he would have purchased TWO beers! <313> | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 4153 Registered: 06-2004 |
The dad is obviously over the drinking age. If the seller didn't hear the dad ask the kid what he wanted there's no way the seller could know it was for the kid. One question we had, though (ignoring the ballpark factor) - in the private home parents can legally serve their minor children alcohol. Doing so is even a part of some religious observations. At what point does that become abusive? Is a single case of intoxication abusive? A nightly drink short of intoxication? More than one serving a month? Why is serving at home ok but not in public? | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2254 Registered: 07-2004 |
Translation: You have no rights. You and your child are wards of the state. We know what's best for you and your family. Mess with the bull you're gonna get the horns. | ||
Darwinism Member Username: Darwinism Post Number: 736 Registered: 06-2005 |
This just shows how ridiculous government agencies can be if left unchecked. Think about it ..... all along the way, each and every personnel who processed this family; ranging from the arresting officer, to the EMT technician, to the hospital staff, to the case worker, to the magistrate/judge and beyond - NOBODY stood up for some common sense and challenge the books! I feel the same way as Crystal above, because I believe in protecting children from harm's way. In this situation, the CPS f*cked up terribly and will be taking it up the a$$, when the college professor parents and UM law department faculty go the distance. The bottom line - CPS hurt this 7-year-old kid mentally and emotionally beyond imagination by separating him from his parents and relatives for days. If I were the victimized parents, I would be making the agency compensate all the EMT bills, hospital bills, court costs, hotel/motel bills, travel expenses from New England and more. Absolutely unforgivable - the kid is 7 for goodness sake - he needs his mom and dad. | ||
Club_boss Member Username: Club_boss Post Number: 404 Registered: 12-2006 |
“The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.” “Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.” “Ratte (47) is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, which means that, on a given day, he's more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with the Stars" -- or even the History Channel, for that matter.” Above is shamelessly cut and paste: complete article is worth reading. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20080428/COL 04/804280375/&imw=Y With rare exception, I thought CPS had to go to court prior to taking a child away. | ||
Otter Member Username: Otter Post Number: 128 Registered: 12-2007 |
At least we're not (yet) England, the mother of all nanny states! | ||
Spacemonkey Member Username: Spacemonkey Post Number: 499 Registered: 03-2006 |
Ball games are dangerous. The kid could have been hit by a foul ball. The dad should be arrested for taking the boy there. | ||
Otter Member Username: Otter Post Number: 132 Registered: 12-2007 |
I sort of misspoke - England is more of the mother of all surveillance states. | ||
Eric_w Member Username: Eric_w Post Number: 393 Registered: 02-2007 |
Sue park the Tigers and the guard for anything they can. Err on the side of caution? ? ? ? The state network for child protection is a joke and to force this man to live in hotel for two weeks is totally asinine but what the hell it is the government. I'd like to plant my foot as far as I can up the ass end of any involved with this fiasco. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1122 Registered: 06-2004 |
The child protective services are pack of incompetent Nazis. They have way too much power and they do a crappy job. They did a number on our neighbor the other year. This is a woman who is a great parent, who I would not hesitate to leave my kids with. It was appalling. Every parent in Michigan should be terrified at the government's almost unchecked power to take your children away. I disagree with this "best interest of the child" standard. It sounds so laudable, so indisputable. But it is too subjective and there's something far more important at stake than the welfare of any individual child and that is the autonomy of the family -- one of our societies most crucial "intermediate institutions" -- and the limit of government power. Under the rubric of "protecting children" the government slowly extends its power. Ironically, children put into foster care do pretty badly. If you’re under 30, you may dismiss me as a crank. But if you’re over 40, you must admit that the government’s standards of parental care have moved wildly in just 20 years. For example, when I was a child of 6, I and my entire grade school class walked or rode our bikes to school down Coolidge Hwy, alone and without adult supervision. When I was 11, my father gave my a .22 caliber rifle - a Remington Youth Model 22, with a small stock that was easy for a child to handle. My mother drove us down the highway as we played in the cargo area of the station wagon. And my parents occasionally let us drink table wine even as young as 12. And of course our parents and teachers did not hesitate to spank us. Anyone over the age of 40 will tell you, this is how entire generations were raised for decades and centuries. Yet suddenly, in the space of 20 short years, the standards have changed so radically that any of the foregoing parenting behaviors would today be criminal. This is nothing short of absurd. The human condition is not so altered in 20 years that standards of child care that persisted for decades or century's are now suddenly criminal neglect. Surely some reforms have been life-saving. Car seats are good. But our children now grow up under virtual lockdown. I think we has a society are being stampeded by fear to these ends: further governmental control and media greed, where our once respected sources of information have whored themselves to ratings. And nobody utters a word of resistance. The manipulation of the population is so transparent, it’s almost comical. Read a milk carton lately? Don’t you know that our children our being shot and snatched at an alarming pace? Better not let Johnny go out and play after school. Yet it's all crap. The rate of child murder and abduction is flat over decades. The crisis is manufactured; an illusion borne by turning every custody dispute and runaway into an "Amber Alert." Natalie Holloway stories broadcast over and over to an audience staring in rapt horror at their cable news station night after night. It’s truly something out of Orwell. Now apparently, the triumph of the media and popular culture as the Supreme Arbiters of Truth is complete. To be considered fit to rear a child, a parent is required to watch TV and be familiar with tacky ads for tacky adult beverages. It's not just kids. That bastard Bush (who to my shame I voted for twice) has whipped the country into an perpetual state of war and fear. WAR ON TERROR. Before him it was the WAR ON DRUGS, in which persists in wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of poor people. We should all be on guard. America already has the highest percentage of its population in prison of any country in the world. Our founding fathers must be rolling in their graves. | ||
Club_boss Member Username: Club_boss Post Number: 405 Registered: 12-2006 |
I still can’t believe this entire story, correct me if I’m wrong: That the only reason the child was returned as quickly as he was, is due to the fact that the child’s father (Ratte) explained to his department chairman at U of M, that person contacted the U of M legal department and they made a few inquiries on the fathers’ behalf. Additionally the child spent his nights away from home on a couch. I was not aware CPS could take a child on the spot like they did. | ||
Jrvass Member Username: Jrvass Post Number: 637 Registered: 01-2007 |
Google Ricky Holland... a classic CPS F-up. A Hard lemonade at 10 proof or 5%? What a waste of state resources. Doesn't anyone working for the government have any common sense? | ||
East_detroit Member Username: East_detroit Post Number: 1720 Registered: 11-2003 |
"A Director-of-Homeland-Security- wannabee" No doubt. | ||
Craig Member Username: Craig Post Number: 757 Registered: 02-2007 |
"Bush has whipped the country into a state of perpetual war and fear." And all this time I thought it was Islamic suicide squads who'd infiltrated us that had inspired fear. Thanks for setting the record straight. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1123 Registered: 06-2004 |
Oh but, Jrvass, this was an "emergency". God help us all. Ironically, while this is going on, there is a new phenomonon of little children "arrested" and charged with "crimes". Here's an example: http://www.prisontalk.com/foru ms/archive/index.php/t-82368.h tml Read this and explain to me the juxtapostion of a government so worried about protecting a 7 year old as to summarily remove him from the home over a harmless mixup and then on the other hand arrest and handcuff and 8 year old for a school fight. I'll tell you: We live in a diseased society. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1124 Registered: 06-2004 |
Craig, You've proved my point. | ||
Wash_man Member Username: Wash_man Post Number: 749 Registered: 05-2006 |
Retroit, do you work in the media? The title of this thread couldn't have been more sensationalized if you had tried. READ the article. The kid wasn't DRUNK! | ||
Kathinozarks Member Username: Kathinozarks Post Number: 1225 Registered: 11-2006 |
Amen Ray. | ||
Diehard Member Username: Diehard Post Number: 472 Registered: 03-2005 |
The authorities "protecting" the kid did a lot more harm to him than his dad's honest mistake, no doubt. I wonder if there's a potential lawsuit in this, based on the sign just saying "Mike's lemonade" and nobody asking for ID. Makes me scared to have kids, knowing that any little harmless mistake could turn me into a criminal. | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 239 Registered: 08-2006 |
Club_boss, What are you talking about? On the non-Detroit thread you were rationalizing Texas taking away over 400 children from their mothers. By the way, one of the Texas mothers gave birth today and CPS and Texas Rangers were there to claim the newborn as a ward of the state. Also, the Texas CPS has lost two of the children, and 9 have become sick enough to be put in a hospital while under CPS care. http://www.dailypaul.com/node/ 46586 From the Free Press article - A U-M law professor who directs the university's Child Advocacy Law Clinic, represented Ratte and his wife. He said that the emergency removal powers of CPS, though "well-intentioned" are "out of control and partly responsible for the large numbers of kids in the foster care system," which is almost universally acknowledged to be badly overburdened. Like the prison industry, child custody is turning into a business. | ||
Jrvass Member Username: Jrvass Post Number: 639 Registered: 01-2007 |
Ray, I have no answer for you. Both seem like an over-extension of the government into simple affairs. In both cases, lack of common sense and growth of the "nanny state" are the problem. | ||
Dan Member Username: Dan Post Number: 1536 Registered: 10-2003 |
Ray, That was a great post. | ||
Vandykenjefferson Member Username: Vandykenjefferson Post Number: 49 Registered: 06-2006 |
The boy's mother is Clair Zimmermann, the mother of the boy and my professor last semester. During the last week classes, she mysteriously disappeared, and instead an old Dutch woman showed us a slide show of her travels in Holland. We got an email from Professor Zimmermann that said she was sorry to miss class but was having an "unsettling family crisis." I was clueless about it all, until now. What a laugh. I feel bad for the woman. | ||
Savannah Member Username: Savannah Post Number: 43 Registered: 02-2008 |
Fear and Loathing in Detroit | ||
Viziondetroit Member Username: Viziondetroit Post Number: 1648 Registered: 11-2003 |
...did anyone see on the news that this was NOT the first time the dad gave his son alcohol? They said he gave his son a long island ice tea and didn't know it contained alcohol. If I can find a link I will post it, it was on channel 4 at 5 yesterday. Sounds like dad is a lil slow. | ||
Wash_man Member Username: Wash_man Post Number: 750 Registered: 05-2006 |
"They said he gave his son a long island ice tea and didn't know it contained alcohol. If I can find a link I will post it, it was on channel 4 at 5 yesterday." I think you are thinking of the Free Press comment section. Someone there said they gave their kid a Long Island Ice Tea, not knowing it had alcohol. Maybe the TV news you refer to quoted it. |
