Jeb goes postal

The closest thing we have in Florida to Hitler's Gestapo is the Department against Children and Families (DCF). Among other things, this agency maintains secret non-reviewable lists of people against whom secret allegations have been made, much in the style of the local official thugs in Kafka's The Trial. DCF officials have also been implicated on numerous occasions in neglect of those unfortunate to be put in their charge; a level of negligence that would surely lead to criminal charges against normal civilians.

So what use would a self-styled conservative governor like Jeb Bush have with an agency with the frightening track record of DCF? Well, it turns out that having a bunch of thugs on the payroll is just fine for a governor who has designs on dictatorial (as opposed to gubenatorial) power.

Perhaps Jeb doesn't realize that each attempt that he makes to go outside and above the law makes him appear smaller and vindictive. Maybe this will please the small mob of rabble-rousers who are willing to throw out all of the laws and rules that govern society in order to achieve their ends but it scares the vast majority of thinking people who don't want government thugs interfering with the most personal of decisions.

"Maintaining there is new evidence suggesting Schiavo ``may have been misdiagnosed,'' Bush and the Department of Children & Families invoked a statutory process that typically allows DCF to intervene in abuse cases."