Ineffective and inconsistent leadership only served to magnify the problem. Civil war thrust the Empire into chaos and more than 20 men took the throne in the span of only 75 years, usually after the murder of their predecessor. The Praetorian Guard – the emperor’s personal bodyguards – assassinated and installed new sovereigns at will, and once even auctioned the spot off to the highest bidder. The political rot also extended to the Roman Senate, which failed to temper the excesses of the Emperors due to its own widespread corruption and incompetence.

As the situation worsened, civic pride waned and many Roman citizens lost trust in their leadership. According to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman officials even forced the starving Goths to trade their children into slavery in exchange for dog meat. In brutalizing the Goths, the Romans created a dangerous enemy within their own borders. When the oppression became too much to bear, the Goths rose up in revolt and eventually routed a Roman army and killed the Eastern Emperor Valens during the Battle of Adrianople in AD 378. The shocked Romans negotiated a flimsy peace with the barbarians, but the truce unraveled in 410, when the Goth King Alaric moved west and sacked Rome. History has a bad habit of repeating itself.

Patsy’s story

With that in mind, this is Patsy’s Child Services horror story. On March 22nd 2012, four of Patsy’s children were removed from their loving family by Lucas County Children Services. Patsy was in the hospital at the time and her very capable mother took care of her children temporarily while Patsy was there. Due to her mother having a diagnosis of “anxiety” that is under control and has been for many years, LCCS took it upon themselves to declare the children to be unsafe and worthy of removal.

Since Patsy’s children have been in custody, she has only been allowed to have supervised visits with them, even though she has not been accused of being unfit, abusing them, or neglecting them. LCCS alleged that Patsy spoke in an abusive manner about her children’s father and the foster family. This was a dishonest statement on the social worker’s part and became regularly repeated to the judge. Patsy’s attorney advised her to record the visits with her children to prove her innocence. The building that held her supervised visits however, has a policy against recording devices. She was caught with it and not allowed to use it. Therefore, their lies were protected.

No evidence needed

They even used her attempt at trying to record the visits against her in court, while at the same time, Patsy was not allowed to defend herself. The social worker made it a habit to say untruths about Patsy to the judge, leaving Patsy powerless to prove her innocence because they did not have to prove her guilt. The social worker is just taken at her word. This became a deciding factor on terminating her parental rights.

During the court case and trial, the judge decided there was a conflict of interest in regards to her attorney. The new attorney came on only 14 days prior to the closing arguments and had understandably asked for a continuance due to the obvious need to properly prepare for the fair defense of her new client. The judge denied the continuance and went solely on the false statements made by the LCCS. And if the case was not completed in a two-year time span, they would lose jurisdiction.

This was decided by the court to be more important than her Constitutional right to a fair trial and due process of law. The case proceeded and resulted in her losing her parental rights that are God-given. Patsy entrusted her children to be well cared for by her mother while in the hospital temporarily. She stands by that decision, as would any parent. What Patsy questioned was her children’s well being in the home of a complete stranger.

1 out of every 17 cases is an actual case of abuse. This statistic is nationwide. So, in the name of protecting children from abuse, 16 out of every 17 victimized families are completely innocent and have their lives destroyed for no other reason but money. Does this sit well with anyone? If so, please feel free to contact me and explain to me how it’s okay to turn your head and stay silent and allow thousands of families to have their human rights violated and their lives destroyed.

To say that we cannot have and raise our own children on the basis that we dared to disagree with another human being is wrong, unfair, and borderline Nazi, Germany behavior towards our nation’s families. This should not be tolerated. The abuse that Patsy’s family, my family and countless other families globally have endured at the hands of an almighty social worker, whose words seem to be scripted into law. This is unconscionable.

No parental rights, no recourse, no redress

The tears and mental anguish my children, my family, Patsy’s family and the thousands of other families have endured is something that could happen to any parent, including those reading this. No family is immune. So if someone chooses to dislike you, or makes an anonymous phone call, your rights are taken from you. It is also worrisome that the poor are targeted because they, more than likely, do not have the money it takes to get their children home.

It is written in the Child Services handbooks nationwide, that every “reasonable effort” to reunify the children to their family must be made before termination of parental rights can be considered. This was not done in Patsy’s case, or my case, or any of the cases I have been involved in. I believe to terminate any parent’s rights, that some sort of abuse or neglect must have taken place, and there should be clear and convincing evidence to prove the abuse or neglect.

There should also be every effort made to rehabilitate the parent and reunify the family. This was not done in Patsy’s case because there were no claims of abuse or neglect. Patsy completed every task asked of her. If she is then not worthy of raising the children that God blessed her with, the children that she dressed, fed, loved, nursed and provided for, then what must she do to be worthy, in the courts eyes, of parenting her own children?

It’s all about the money

I hope that you, the reader, will look at Patsy’s case and see the incredible injustices that have been served upon not only her as a parent, but on her children as innocent victims of this financially motivated organization. Title IV-V funding are the federal incentives that drive the system. The more divorces, and the higher the child support guidelines are set and enforced (no matter how unreasonable), the more money the state bureaucracy collects from the federal government. Follow the money.

The less time that non-custodial parents are permitted to be with their children, the more child support they must pay into the state fund and the higher the federal bonus to the states for collecting the money. They collected grants and monetary gain for every evaluation the wrongly victimized parent completed, every class she completed, every foster home her children lived in. And finally, if her child is adopted out, they will collect another grant for her adoption.

Real families, real victims

Patsy’s daughter has a very loving home awaiting her with her mother. Her daughter is very loved and missed desperately. Without her, their home is empty and quiet. In place of the laughter and the playful sound of children filling the air, there is now a clock that ticks painfully loud as the time just passes without them. Memories fill her head as she passes her pictures on the walls and her daughter’s room filled with all of her favorite toys and blankets. An empty space fills Patsy’s chest where the love and fulfillment of being a mother to her children used to be.

I hope you can see that this case was not handled properly and needs to be reversed. We are parents begging for the lives of our children. I believe that writing all of our stories one at a time is our last hope to make this right. A lot of damage has been done to our children already. But as American citizens, we have the power to rise up and demand the return of our children to their loving families, and allow us all to begin healing from these traumatic criminal acts being practiced by the people that are paid to uphold the laws.

Parents fighting back

We must have Child Protective Services shut down nationwide and our children returned home. As a nation, we must have this systemic problem investigated, with the guilty held accountable and tried in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Our Nation’s leaders are turning a blind eye, a deaf ear, and there are cash registers where their hearts should be. Or we can repeat history and America will fall just as Rome did. It’s already at the brink, unless we as Americans get off of our couches and stop expecting someone else to do something in order to take action.

Do you want to be responsible for your Nation’s demise because you do not have the courage to do something? Time to WAKE UP America! We are over-due for non-violent direct action. Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and when this fails, it becomes the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. The present tension in our nation is a necessary phase of transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where we as parents and families passively accept our unjust plights, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all citizens will respect the dignity and value of human personality.

We who engage in non-violent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with. Injustice must be exposed with all of the tension its exposing creates, to light the human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. Good government founded and implemented consistent with Constitutional tenets is not only a blessing, but essential to the functionality and preservation of a free society. I am a private citizen, and on behalf of myself, Patsy and all the other victimized families, we’re tired of giving in.

Readers can contact Patsy at [email protected] or author Wendy Greene at the email address below.