About 8 grand. I wish it were more.

Are you serious? The government saves us all time and money? Wow…do you know how much your state government spends on education per child? Look into it – it will amaze you. And you say if parents had to do their own research into who was caring for their children, nothing would get done? I can’t even imagine that. I guess that means that you would just randomly go to a childcare agency and drop off your kid without asking friends about its reputation, doing a visit, getting references? Do you trust just any doctor or driver just because they have a license? I sure don’t. I think for myself and do my own research.

There are many ways to view personal and societal problems – and many ways to solve them. That is all I’m trying to point out in my response. Even if we all pay higher taxes to create a licensing program, responsible parents still have to go through the work of finding reputable childcare for our children. So how much is the license really worth? Probably not what we pay for it.

If you want what’s best for children, find out who is working at your daycare before you use it. How old are they? Are they responsible? What are they teaching your children? Will they provide a background check to you? References?

That’s what a state license does, Mary. That big, bad, mean ol’ mister Gubmint is just us individuals working together to save us all time and money. If every parent had to do their own detailed background check for every daycare, nothing else would get done. Instead, all the parents (and the non-parents, too) pool together some of their money (taxes) and pay someone to check up on daycares, and keep records of which ones are good enough and which ones will kill your children.

Same goes for roads, and food safety, and fire departments, and snow plows, and the safety net for when the banks destroy America from the inside and you lose your job.

And with all the claims of moral superiority we hear from the religious crowd are true, why would they be so upset about having a criminal background check? Wouldn’t that just be a way to weed out all the damn atheists and gays, since we’re all just a bunch of godless child rapists and serial killers, by their own claim? I get pretty tired of the religious carte blanche “I’m religious and morally superior to you, but I don’t have to account for it and you should be ashamed of even asking me that.”

Makes me think of that thing in Losing Faith with Faith by Dan Barker, where he was describing the heavy accounting they have to do as a non-profit, but that churches generally don’t account for a cent and are just assumed to be morally superior and therefore trustworthy.

Well, faith is about the virtue of denying reality. With all the evidence that faith doesn’t increase morality, it would take a hefty buttload of faith to continue believing that the simple act of believing in a cosmic sky fairy makes you a good and trustworthy person by default.

Um… really?!! Like, for example, if you were to decide not to school them, or take them to the doctor?

Are children property to you?

So many absolutist statements, which make me think we’be been inundated with some extreme libertarians.

“and even fine parents who watch their friend’s kids ”

Cite source please. I’m calling bullshit on that claim.

“It is overreaching and not the responsibility of government to involve itself in how parents choose to care for their children.”

At ALL?!?!? Who’s over-reaching here?

I just can’t wrap my mind around being pissed off that the day care you entrust your offspring with has to meet certain minimal standards.

But then I love my daughter and my grandson.

And the suggestion that we shouOhld shrug and say oh, well, let’s gamble because there’s no 100% fool proof way of screening out people who hurt kids?

And did someone actually suggest it’s smart to drop out of high school? Hon, frankly, your parents should have been taken to task for putting so damned much on your too young shoulders. I feel sorry for you.