“Animal Cops,” for those of you who are unaware, is a reality TV series that follows Humane Society staff around various cities (Detroit, Houston, Phoenix) as they rescue critters from various predicaments. Typically, the predicaments involve humans either neglecting animals under their control, or outright abusing them. One common story: some poverty stricken schmoe is unable to provide adequate food and veterinary care for his/her dog. Dog gets sick or injured, cops are called, an investigation is made and the Poverty Stricken Schmoe is legally obliged to sign over the dog to the Humane Society, who patches it up and adopts it out. Poverty Stricken Schmoe is warned that if they cannot afford a dog, they shouldn’t *have* a dog, and if the cops are called again for a dog being improperly cared for, poverty Stricken Schmoe is going to jail.

I’m a big fan of private property rights, such that if someone buys a Picasso for $50 million, it’s theirs to do with as they please. This includes hiding it, burying it in wet cement, neglecting it in a leaky attic, or taking it out back and setting fire to it. But if instead of an inert painting someone procures themselves a critter capable of feeling pain and fear, your rights to do with it as you please are reduced. You now have a definite responsibility.

And… if the transition from “painting” to “puppy” carries with it responsibilities, in my opinion the transition from “puppies” to “human babies” carries with it even *more* responsibilities.

So, imagine my chagrin while watching this:

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The short form: a woman has 15 children. Lives with 12 of them in a motel room. Uses the system to squeeze thousands of taxpayer dollars out of social workers. When she gets thrown into jail, her kids go to a shelter; when she gets out, her family won’t take her and her kids in because she refuses to help control them. So, back to the shelter the kids go… and back to jail she goes because she threatens violence on shelter workers.

Gah.

If you want to have 15 kids, go for it. But if you cannot provide for those kids… you shouldn’t have them. Consider: who can watch “Animal Cops” and argue with taking a house full of malnourished semi-feral cats from some old lady living on Social Security and who clearly cannot provide for them? It is better for the cats if they go somewhere where they *can* be properly cared for. So if it’s good enough for cats, why is that not good enough for children?

We recently had a commenter promote monarchy as the proper form of government. Fine. One of the first rulings of King Scott The First, God Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico, will be that if you are on taxpayer-funded welfare (for some specified period measured in months, not years)… you are by definition unfit to parent. If you cannot take care of yourself, clearly you cannot take care of someone else.

And then, following the “Animal Cops” teachings, come the spayings and neuterings.

The story seems to be that this woman is going to lose at least a number of her kids, who will be fostered out. While that’s obviously for the best for the kids – damn near any foster family will have better role models than this horrible, horrible excuse for a mother – the greater societal question is… how in the *hell* did a woman this incapable of raising kids wind up with 15 of ’em? It’s clear that society would have been better off, and the taxpayer would have been less oppressed, if 15-20 years ago someone would have offered her ten grand to have her tubes tied. The local vet clinic will run the occasional special where you can bring in a cat or dog to get spayed for something like forty bucks… so clearly the operation isn’t that big of a deal.

Grrrrr.

And it gets worse:

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80% of students want the US Government to give them *everything.*