I know this is kind of a random topic.

When I was first interested in Ron Paul, it shifted my political worldview. I learned about libertarianism.

I began to look up all sorts of libertarian views on different issues and was generally impressed with their solutions - typically less government, more liberty and more personal responsibility.

One view I looked up and was unable to find a specifically libertarian view on was in regards to Child Protective Services/DHS and specifically child abuse. Other than those agencies being eliminated, I couldn't ever find an article regarding the libertarian solution to abusive parents.

Obviously, child abuse from a libertarian perspective is unacceptable. My guess is that it would be pursued criminally by the police. Next, I guess that the parents would get to choose where there children will go. Perhaps with a family member or close friend.

Any perspectives on the degree to which government should be involved in something like this (from a libertarian perspective)?

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I lean libertarian on a lot of issues. When it comes to things like education and children, however, I think government is the only answer, so long as the government is accountable in some way to the people.

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Child abuse is a crime, we don't need DHS/CPS or any of those organizations to protect children.

The only thing DHS should be doing is trying to find homes for children that have nowhere to go after the criminal system sends their parents to prison.

The DHS approach is stupid and doesn't work. An abusive parent is not going to stop being abusive because they took 8 classes on parenting techniques. The only way to get an abusive parent to stop is to lock them up.

Part of being a libertarian is respecting the rights of others, including children. Liberty should give a lot of freedom to do what you want and a lot of freedom not to be hurt by other people, especially your parents :P

Imagine all the money taxpayers would save if we didn't have to foot the bill for a ridiculously slow and ineffecient bureaucracy. It's just one among many we need to get rid of.

Once the government claims territory it will be near impossible for them to give it up.

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Bravisimo!

I consider myself a fairly staunch libertarian and think a prerequisite for any gov't agency to exist should be that the agency is extremely effective. The OKDHS ain't, and therefore I am for a major, major overhaul or the dismantling of it.

I would agree.

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The "Great Debacle" (some call it the great society) was supposed to eliminate
poverty, not reduce it! Thanks to this socialistic insecurity (some call it social
security) ravaging monster the problem as been augmented exponentially into
government funded poverty.

The transference of wealth, since the late sixties, has proven to be a total failure
except it one category, votes for the left.

See, I can live with SS if it were well-managed and extremely effective. It clearly isn't, and is completely against tenets of our (mostly) free capitalism. You can't make competition and personal wealth building a pillar then give portions of your population incentives to not compete or build wealth.

Truly, the answer is everything in moderation. I am glad there are people out tehre to balance me out.

Socialistic Insecurity is a great idea but a terrible plan. A better plan would be
to put the money, that's been taken from us involuntarily, into a private account
that the government can never touch. The owner of the account would then have
the opportunity to put their money into the same funds the government uses for it's
retirement plans. If anybody thinks the government is only getting 2%, they're
nuts. There would be no day trading or anything of the like. When the owner of
the account dies all the money would go to his beneficiaries and not the government.

Our CPA did a report on Dad's SS. He showed us that if the money had been
put into an interest bearing account since 1940 that he would have retired a
millionaire (1.5m) and could have lived off the interest, which would have been
considerably more than the $840 per month he was receiving in 1990.

BTW Dad was very middle class.