Don't be too surprised if in one or two days it'll turn out that this family wasn't as hidden or "off grid" as is being suggested, but that the organisations which are responsible from preventing this from happening were partly aware but poorly communicating with each other... so no-one actually took any action.
Being in the Netherlands this is just such an interesting story, there's so much going on.
The kids, if they actually went 'underground' 9 years ago would have been in the mandatory schooling age. Checks on this tend to be quite stringent and home schooling needs to be approved by the (I think) local authorities.
The Netherlands is quite densely populated and there is just no way if they weren't outside that they didn't notice any civilization existing. Airplanes, fireworks, things like that would have existed.
Then the fact that the home owner never once visited their renters in 9 years or apparently they didn't have to do taxes.
Aside from all that, I'm very amused by the fact that this 25 year old person went to a bar, was turned away, then the next time ordered 5 beers and got to talking with the bar owner and they were confused so they alerted the police. Imagine the confusion on the person that thought the world ended and ended up at a bar with people drinking beers!
Oh and the plot twists, the oldest person first being thought to be the father not actually being the father! And then being arrested for interfering in the investigation.
This is just so weird, how could 5 kids ages 16-25 (or 7-17 when it started) be kept inside for that long???
I thought the mayor did confirm that the children existed on paper [0] but even if not they claim to have been there for 9 years putting the youngest child at 7 years old. They'd have been at school and disappeared??
Re-reading the link it says that 'some' of the people were registered.
Did I miss it or did the article not say what they arrested the older man for. Living in a basement isn't illegal in and of itself but the only hint of wrong doing is that the guy at the bar wanted to end the way they were living. I wouldn't be surprised if the family had been held against their will or there was some kind of abuse but the article doesn't mention it.
You missed it, the reason the older was was arrested was because he was not cooperating with the police investigation. What it exactly means in this context is not completely clear though. But I can imagine the police went to have a look, and the man freaked out.
This is uncommon in the Netherlands, I know there are communities in the US with small communities that don't want anything to do with the government. Those people don't even have birth certificates or social security number. But I've never heard anything like that in the Netherlands.
Here in the US that means "lawyering up instead of being dumb and running his mouth", not sure if it's the same over there. If he was really not cooperative the police would be more than happy to say exactly what (they say) he did.
It's just the smallest, easiest to prove thing that allows them to lock him up for a short time while the investigation is getting started. When they know more about what actually happened they can file more detailed charges.
Strong privacy laws prevent them from doing that. I saw an interview with a police officer and they could basically not say anything at all. Most info comes from journalists.
Both of those would be considered extremely rare events. If you pull a gun on federal agents, you are likely to be shot. The Bundy case is an aberration.
That’s not true. Federal agents have numerous armed standoffs that don’t result in anyone getting shot. In the recent Oregon standoff, involving 26 armed militiamen, just one person was killed. When someone does get killed, there is often huge public backlash.
Consider Ruby Ridge, where a US militant family had an armed standoff with the US Marshall’s after the father missed a court date for an unrelated charge: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge. In an initial firefight, one member of the family and one federal agent were killed. Later, a federal sniper shot and killed the mother, and shot the father. After the incident ended, the father was acquitted of all charges except missing the original court date. One of the sons, who had killed the federal agent, was acquitted of all charges. The government settled wrongful death actions for over $3 million. Several years later, the state prosecutor indicted the federal agent who had killed the mother (though the charges were dismissed after a different prosecutor was elected).
How many people need to senselessly die before we realize that sometimes it's better to just let some lunatic hole up in his house for a few weeks while an FBI agent drinks coffee, reads the news, and waits for them to surrender. That agent was killed while sneaking up to the house like he was a member of Seal Team 6 and stumbled upon the kid out hunting, instead of just driving up to the house and saying "hey, you missed your court date - you're eventually going to need to see the doctor, dentist, or buy ice cream, so let's settle this like adults."
Ever since the government has taken a more "wait them out" approach which has worked better for everyone except arguably the government who's lost in court several times since.
In most cases where the "wait them out" strategy is abandoned, it's because their are children involved and there is legitimate reason to be concerned for their safety.
* The man wasn't cooperating with a police investigation as to whether or not people are being held there against their will (at least one person - the escaped 25 year old 'boy' - said he had been).
* While the children are now adults, it appears as if they never went to school (illegal in NL, with some homeschooling exceptions, but this must be formerly arranged).
* It appears as if (at least some of) the kids were also never registered. This is also illegal in NL.
* The above two facts are probably considered to be child abuse and may be part of a larger pattern of abuse now that they are adults.
There's what they technically arrested him for, which was apparently not cooperating with a police investigation, and there's why they really arrested him, which is that there is a very strong possibility that he was instrumental in forcing several children to live in a basement for 9 years, but they don't have the evidence sorted out for that charge yet.
The article gave the age of the oldest one (apart from the older guy) as 25, and apparently they've lived like that for 9 years. That suggests they were all children when they went underground. There's almost certainly some sort of child welfare law violated when you force your kids to live in a basement for 9 years.
The article does mention that the man claimed to have "ran away" and requested help to enable his younger siblings to "end the way they were living", so that kind of does imply that at least some members of that family have been held there against their will.
arrested for "not cooperating". Perhaps that's against the law there and one can be compelled to cooperate in a general way.
I'm more curious about how they paid rent for a decade, without contact with the outside world (e.g. a job-->salary). And how did this man pay for his five beers?
There's an interesting story here, but to my American mind I don't see evidence of a crime unless some were being held against their will.
More details are coming out. The 58-year old renter who was arrested did have an income (from work as a carpenter), and he bought groceries. He was not the father of the kids / young adults, the father was also inside, bedridden as he suffered a stroke a number of years ago.
I'm assuming he didn't pay for his beers. In small pubs you only pay your bill when you leave. Not that he'd know.
It is required to let your child go to school and home-schooling does not satisfy that requirement so is in principle illegal. There are a few ways some people do manage to get it allowed (you have to argue that your way of life / religion is fundamentally incompatible with all schools in the region) but expect quite a few visits from suspicious civil cervants and lots of arguing.
That's the theory, anyway. How it was possible that these children were never checked on is still under investigation.
The current owner is a lady married to a local politician. She inherited the farm 4 years ago from her aunt. She visited the property a few times and never noticed something suspicious. The rent was paid for promptly every month.
Many questions remain unanswered.
The 58 year old was an excellent carpenter, specialized in ship interiors. He did not live at the farm, but visited it daily with food and stuff such as toilet paper. Towards the outside world he was just refurbishing the old farm. Very weird story.
The neighbors and locals assumed that the house was a weed farm, which strangely enough are illegal here. They are often found in farm houses like this or in cheap units on industry terrains. The guy who rented the house also had such a unit.
The papers are reporting that some of the children were not registered, but it's still crazy.
I'd speculate that this happened because the mother died young and the father basically lost it and was enabled by the renter.
The mayor confirmed in their press conference that all children were registered and noted that it was weird that they were never checked on their school attendance (mandatory at that age).
> The papers are reporting that some of the children were not registered, but it's still crazy.
Registered how? It's pretty obvious that these people were living off grid and didn't want to be registered with anyone in any way, and that (in and of itself) shouldn't be illegal.
It absolutely should be illegal, first and foremost because minor children "off the grid" is a massive risk for abuse. In any case, regardless of the rights and wrongs, one wouldn't expect the Netherlands to be tolerating anyone living fully out of the system.
That's an awfully one-sided "think of the children" you've got there. Requiring humans to be registered (ie insisting that we be legible to the State), is also a guaranteed path to some forms of lifelong exploitation. So like everything, it's a tradeoff.
The real question is why does the state have any say? There's no fundamental reason to trust the state over a child's parents; the reason the state has any say has more to do with might rather than right.
The reason is because the state has an obligation to take reasonable efforts to ensure the basic human rights of all people within its jurisdiction are protected. That is, the state has a duty towards the children that is independent of the state's relationship with the parents.
There also is a fundamental reason to trust the state over a child's parents: the state has considerably more transparency and oversight over its actions than the parents do.
There's no fundamental reason to trust the state over a child's parents.
Most people don't want to harm children and won't sit by when they see it happening. They want to help. That means it's better to get more people involved in the lives of children. "The state" is one way we codify that.
I think there's a good argument for enabling communities to assume that role rather than central government, but some group should be there to protect children from neglect.
Some parents clearly aren't fit to be parents at all, I trust our collective wisdom as embodied by our government a lot more. Even though child protection services are horribly underfunded and have also become quite bad.
Because Europeans believe more in collectivism, pushing for greater good together for the society. Also compared to Americans who tend you like individualism we are not paranoid of our government because they are part of us, even if we don't like the politicians. Two different mindsets, it's hard to argue with that libertarian lens with Europeans.
In Germany, I have to tell the state where I live and every time I move, I have to tell them again. I can't open a bank account, get health insurance, rent a proper place, I can't do anything, till the local council can be bothered staffing the registration office enough to see me. I certainly live at a certain place, but it's as if I'm staying at that address on holiday.
In Australia, I don't have to register with the state. If I move house, I have enough things on my mind. If a person is born, died, gets married or (sometimes) changes their name in Australia, someone has to report that fact to the government. But a person is a person, or dead, or married, or has a different name while they're waiting for the bureaucracy to do its thing.
In both cases, children have to go to school. Even in the absence of any registration or reporting, there's still an obligation. So what does the registration actually achieve?
The government has the power and ability to find out where a person lives. Why compel me to do something you can make obnoxiously difficult? - and which serves no apparent purpose?
Taxation is not theft. You either work in the country and make money, and use everything around you in that country that was provided by taxes (roads, sewer, fire, police, etc) or you don't work and don't pay taxes.
(If you click the <# time ago> link in the comment, you get taken to a page just for that comment tree. That page will always have a reply box, even if the main comments page hides it.)
It’s theft because you get thrown in prison if you don’t pay. It’s little better than the mafia, only we’ve been brainwashed to think it’s okay by being forced to attend public schools. I wouldn’t consider it theft if paying taxes was voluntary. Maybe the fire department and police shouldn’t show up if I don’t pay, maybe I can’t drive anywhere, but they shouldn’t show up and steal my home then imprison me. Prison for unpaid taxes is just modern day debtors prison.
It's not theft because you're free to leave any time. You stay, you agree to the social contract - otherwise you're the one stealing from everyone else.
While I 100% agree that "taxation is not theft" and I realize that they're necessary (and legal!) and I pay them....we're not really "free to leave at any time".
For one thing, the United States has a 30% expatriation tax. They will take 30% of your wealth just for leaving.
Your stuff (which was partially acquired via exploitation of the ecosystem that is the country that wants those taxes... Bet you drove on a public road) isn't.
Sure you can, you even get to keep 70% of the things you acquired while participating in the social contract! That's a pretty generous severance package.
But the GP poster is 100% correct that purposely not registering your children with the state in this day and age is hugely suspicious. You are giving up so many services and getting very little apparent benefit in return, there has to be some ulterior motive. It's not a good place to be where the least terrible answer is that you're a bit crazy in the head.
I would think the US takes more notice than most countries as all citizens regardless of where they live and if they've ever actually visited the US are required to pay US taxes.
You can argue whether it should or should not be illegal but in many countries of Europe (probably except the UK) not being registered with gov't in any way whatsoever is explicitly illegal.
I find it funny when you know it is Napoleon who forced every dutch to chose a surname in order to build up a registry (to tax them of course) . It is the source of the many funny names that the dutch have, as they thought they will have a laugh at the french :)
When a child is born it's generally common to register the birth. In many countries it's a legal requirement - which as a first step towards child protection probably isn't a bad thing.
Less Anglo Saxon and more very specifically American.
You'll find hardly anyone in the UK, except maybe extremists like Rees Mogg, who would object to registration of birth. Generally speaking, we quite like our government institutions and services. It's conservative politicians who are wedded to turning us into the 51st state. Even conservative voters often object to closure of services or attempts to to use a popular slogan and outright lie: "introduce the efficiency of the market" to the NHS.
In the UK there is no requirement for adults to possess any kind of ID, let alone carry it around. The mere introduction of optional ID cards caused a huge shitstorm.
There is no requirement for adults to register their whereabouts with the authorities.
And home schooling is explicitly legal, the authorities may or may not check on children who are home schooled.
In many western European countries these things would be radical. Both US and UK share a strong tradition of individual independence.
So? There's no compulsory ID in Denmark either. Wikipedia says France made it optional about the same time the UK abolished wartime IDs. Quite a few of the European countries have IDs but don't require you to carry it or register whereabouts. With mention in the Queen's speech of compulsory voter ID, looks like compulsory de facto ID is now Tory election policy. ID or disenfranchised.
The Education Act simply requires full time education without explicit mention of home. Home schooling in Europe isn't exactly rare, though I know many do rule it out - perhaps around half - Germany for instance. Perfectly OK in France, Italy, Belgium and plenty of others.
You seem to be making a distinction without a difference.
One of my coworkers doesn't know his date of birth. In fact, my father in law is pretty sure his official birth date is wrong.
As for voting, I think it's the better plan to give everyone the vote unless you can prove they're tourists. In NZ, permanent residents get the right to vote, so it's not such a stretch. The person is, after all, subject to the laws. (Rights should be afforded to subjects, as a rule, not citizens. The change of language in the 20th century was probably not a good thing. Roman citizenship law is not actually something to emulate.) Prove they're deportable and deport them, or let them vote.
I used to live in a house the government didn't really know existed. (I think the state government was happy to believe me, but the federal government and local council struggled.) Someone would come over, verify that it was indeed a residence, and move on. This lasted a few years until I think they were all happy to acknowledge it. I think it's at least that easy to prove a person exists. (I was the first local citizen to live there in many years; the rest were generally international students.)
In the Netherlands, "coffee shops" are more or less allowed to sell weed, but they are absolutely not allowed to buy it. Weirdness is everywhere in the Dutch weed regulations.
No, it's only weed that has this "tolerated" status, where personal use and sales to individuals by coffee shops are not prosecuted (but everything else still is).
As far as I know in the Netherlands drug use in never prosecuted (maybe possession and buying), I remember they made a point that if you are in need of medical assistance due to drugs use you cannot be arrested just for that.
While I agree with the sentiment feel the urge to note that where I live but you will face punishment for having blackberries growing on your property similar to what you would for selling marijuana.
Blackberries are a national pest, and yet sell for $80/kg in supermarkets. The average person could collect over $50 worth from the side of the road in under an hour.
Australia is not known for its efficiency nor logic.
It is illogical, but allows policing when things are perceived to "get out of hand" which is an interesting way to have things both ways (both as citizens, and as law enforcement). It's a delicate balance that could be easily thrown-over, but so far has managed to last. We'll see how long it can continue though given a lot of boundary-testing.
Big questions here about how they managed to stay off the radar for such a long time given that we have mandatory education and a pretty good system to collect taxes.
I wonder how they ate. 7 adults are a lot to feed. It says they had a vegetable plot and a goat. I don't suspect that would be enough to feed everyone. Someone must have been making trips to town (other than the guy that went to the pub).
It says they lived on a farm, not a house in town. From the pictures I think you could grow enough food for 7 people to live on. Pretty normal up until the last 100 years or so to live on that much land.
I don't find it that surprising, if the children were never registered as living at that address, why would there be any reason for the authorities to take an interest? It doesn't sound like any of them worked, so they didn't owe any taxes. What is more surprising is how the father managed to support them for so many years.
Curious what particular eschatology drove them to do this, the article doesn't mention any. Now I'm imagining that it wasn't tied to any specific religion or prophecy, but just the concept of time somehow coming to a stop.
"Waiting for the end of time" could mean a lot of things to a lot of people and there could be a translation issue as well. I can see what would motivate someone to withdrawal like that with religious views or not. If someone finds a way to live without the world and builds their own, I'm not sure it's a huge issue and is potentially rational. Obviously I think the morality breaks down with the agency and societal obligation to the children. Especially if they aren't being educated, fed, and kept clean which TFA doesn't give specifics on.
Hell, as a 10 year veteran remote software developer it some days I feel like I'm already there. One time I spent a year where I didn't say anything out loud to anyone. I got a cat and switched jobs and now I make sure to have more pointless conversations when I get the opportunity with coworkers so I don't go full hermit accidentally.
<i>Hell, as a 10 year veteran remote software developer it some days I feel like I'm already there. One time I spent a year where I didn't say anything out loud to anyone.</i>
How did you get food?
I'm married nowadays, but my mental health used to suffer after a long weekend when there was usually a day or two when I didn't speak to anyone. Before that, when I was living overseas and had ptsd and depression, I think I would go a week without meaningful conversation (on occasion two weeks, if a certain event was cancelled), but I would buy food or something most days that would at least involve a half comprehended exchange "(hi) hi (some amount of money please) thanks (receipt?) no thanks (nice day)". These were at least useful since my tone of voice varied - sometimes I sounded happier.
Do you cope a lot better through that than me, or was your mental health in decline at the time?
>> One time I spent a year where I didn't say anything out loud to anyone.
> How did you get food?
Not the parent, but this isn't hard: self-checkouts are common these days, and even if you take food deliveries, you don't pay the delivery person directly, you pay through the app.
>Curious what particular eschatology drove them to do this, the article doesn't mention any. Now I'm imagining that it wasn't tied to any specific religion or prophecy, but just the concept of time somehow coming to a stop.
New reports[0] are saying the father used to be a member of the Unification Church:
>Local television station RTV Drenthe earlier said the Austrian man, identified only as Josef B, the father and the captive family were all part of South Korea’s controversial Unification Church, dubbed “Moonies” after their late founder Sun Myung Moon.
On a lark, I went to try and find this house on Google's satellite view. The article says that the "farm is outside the village of Ruinerwold and is accessible by a bridge over a canal." I discovered that there are lots of bridges, lots of canals, thousands of farms within a 20km radius of the town. We need an aerial image search tool that figures out where you took that snapshot.
Drenthe has a reputation in the Netherlands as being a somewhat backwards region in the middle of nowhere. This isn't really helping the reputation. :)
A common "meme" is to claim Drenthe doesn't exist.
LOL, that's actually somewhat plausible considering how many nuts there were back then believing the world would end.
"Plausible" in the context of TFA, of course, if we're gonna go ahead and believe it, for the sake of argument.
I mean, there's not a lot of information to go off, either. The article adds zero additional information (relevant information, I don't care how many beers he drank) over the first paragraph, so all we know is contained in that one sentence. Since the family seems to have been liberated, it would have been interesting to know what actually happened there and how they were convinced not to leave the farm. Shouldn't have been to hard to ask, right?
The media probably isn't being given access to the victims to ask those questions. The police are certainly asking such questions, but I assume they are not allowed to talk (in the US they are not allowed to talk for various good reasons, I don't know the specific situation there)
That reminds me of a certain older movie (Underground, by Kusturica) where the main characters live for decades underground hiding from Nazi Germany not realizing the war was over long ago on the surface).
I googled it and it was 2012 I was thinking about. Multiple planets aligned in 2010 (just as they did in 2000) but the real conspiracy stuff was 2012, which has it's own Wikipedia page:
> Bar owner Chris Westerbeek described how a man had come in, ordered five beers and drunk them. "Then I had a chat with him and he revealed he had run away and needed help... "
The only issue I have is that headline is very click-baity, making you think this is some crazy family cult or something. Its weird, but not Texas Chainsaw Massacre / Heaven's Gate weird.
The article doesn't detail anything other than they lived "underground". A child moving into the basement of their house lives "underground". You can design homes that go underground.
Furthermore, the 25-year-old went to the pub, not to the police or anywhere. If he was being held against his will, I doubt the pubs the first place you go.
The father and six kids hadn't been allowed out for nine years. If this isn't a cult, it's a huge abduction story.
The 25 year old was amazed at the sight of a pub and told them that daylight was very bad for him, that he was only able to get out that night and that he couldn't go back anymore. Apparently he was astonished that there were still any other people in the world.
I think the idea of going to the police was completely alien to him.
>The father and six kids hadn't been allowed out for nine years. If this isn't a cult, it's a huge abduction story.
It's now been reported[0] that the father was an ex-member of the Unification Church[1]:
>Local television station RTV Drenthe earlier said the Austrian man, identified only as Josef B, the father and the captive family were all part of South Korea’s controversial Unification Church, dubbed “Moonies” after their late founder Sun Myung Moon.
It's a lot weirder than you're making it out to be:
> "Officers visited the remote farmhouse and carried out a search. They discovered a hidden staircase behind a cupboard in the living room that led down to a basement room where the family were housed."
My parents have a fully furnished basement. That's not weird. Even having a bedroom in a basement is slightly weird but not terribly so. But when you throw in the context of the hidden staircase it all becomes much much weirder.
Don't be too surprised if in one or two days it'll turn out that this family wasn't as hidden or "off grid" as is being suggested, but that the organisations which are responsible from preventing this from happening were partly aware but poorly communicating with each other... so no-one actually took any action.
The kids, if they actually went 'underground' 9 years ago would have been in the mandatory schooling age. Checks on this tend to be quite stringent and home schooling needs to be approved by the (I think) local authorities.
The Netherlands is quite densely populated and there is just no way if they weren't outside that they didn't notice any civilization existing. Airplanes, fireworks, things like that would have existed.
Then the fact that the home owner never once visited their renters in 9 years or apparently they didn't have to do taxes.
Aside from all that, I'm very amused by the fact that this 25 year old person went to a bar, was turned away, then the next time ordered 5 beers and got to talking with the bar owner and they were confused so they alerted the police. Imagine the confusion on the person that thought the world ended and ended up at a bar with people drinking beers!
Oh and the plot twists, the oldest person first being thought to be the father not actually being the father! And then being arrested for interfering in the investigation.
This is just so weird, how could 5 kids ages 16-25 (or 7-17 when it started) be kept inside for that long???
The article never says they thought civilization didn't exist. They were waiting for civilization to end, they didn't think it already ended.
But there is still a huge amount of speculation going on, the whole story could be completely different in a few days.
Re-reading the link it says that 'some' of the people were registered.
https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/6004310/gezin-uit-ruinerwold-ko...
This is uncommon in the Netherlands, I know there are communities in the US with small communities that don't want anything to do with the government. Those people don't even have birth certificates or social security number. But I've never heard anything like that in the Netherlands.
Here in the US that means "lawyering up instead of being dumb and running his mouth", not sure if it's the same over there. If he was really not cooperative the police would be more than happy to say exactly what (they say) he did.
They must be really good at hiding themselves. /s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff
They're really lucky they didn't send Texas cops up to deal with that. They'll shoot you in your own home just because you forgot to close your door.
Consider Ruby Ridge, where a US militant family had an armed standoff with the US Marshall’s after the father missed a court date for an unrelated charge: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge. In an initial firefight, one member of the family and one federal agent were killed. Later, a federal sniper shot and killed the mother, and shot the father. After the incident ended, the father was acquitted of all charges except missing the original court date. One of the sons, who had killed the federal agent, was acquitted of all charges. The government settled wrongful death actions for over $3 million. Several years later, the state prosecutor indicted the federal agent who had killed the mother (though the charges were dismissed after a different prosecutor was elected).
Exactly 76, seasoned with CX to taste and baked at 350 for 30min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g74LpP80w4w
Ever since the government has taken a more "wait them out" approach which has worked better for everyone except arguably the government who's lost in court several times since.
Their parents would have to be much crazier than normal for that to be in their best interests.
Sometimes that lunatic is a threat to others, not just themselves.
I don't think this is a good idea, as in the whole history of the world only one of these lunatics has turned out to be the unabomber.
This, BTW, was not even how Kaczynski was found. Which is why I find it rather odd that you'd bring him up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_Nati...
* The man wasn't cooperating with a police investigation as to whether or not people are being held there against their will (at least one person - the escaped 25 year old 'boy' - said he had been).
* While the children are now adults, it appears as if they never went to school (illegal in NL, with some homeschooling exceptions, but this must be formerly arranged).
* It appears as if (at least some of) the kids were also never registered. This is also illegal in NL.
* The above two facts are probably considered to be child abuse and may be part of a larger pattern of abuse now that they are adults.
I'm more curious about how they paid rent for a decade, without contact with the outside world (e.g. a job-->salary). And how did this man pay for his five beers?
There's an interesting story here, but to my American mind I don't see evidence of a crime unless some were being held against their will.
I'm assuming he didn't pay for his beers. In small pubs you only pay your bill when you leave. Not that he'd know.
There’s probably also a case of negligence to be made. Keeping children in basements for a long time is likely to impede their development.
Do they require that you educate your child via the state or (not so) equivalent home-schooling?
That's the theory, anyway. How it was possible that these children were never checked on is still under investigation.
Its an annoying needle to thread
article in Dutch: https://www.rtvdrenthe.nl/nieuws/153066/Eigenaresse-boerderi...
The papers are reporting that some of the children were not registered, but it's still crazy.
I'd speculate that this happened because the mother died young and the father basically lost it and was enabled by the renter.
Registered how? It's pretty obvious that these people were living off grid and didn't want to be registered with anyone in any way, and that (in and of itself) shouldn't be illegal.
Or are you suggesting it is okay to have children and never educate at all?
There also is a fundamental reason to trust the state over a child's parents: the state has considerably more transparency and oversight over its actions than the parents do.
Most people don't want to harm children and won't sit by when they see it happening. They want to help. That means it's better to get more people involved in the lives of children. "The state" is one way we codify that.
I think there's a good argument for enabling communities to assume that role rather than central government, but some group should be there to protect children from neglect.
In Germany, I have to tell the state where I live and every time I move, I have to tell them again. I can't open a bank account, get health insurance, rent a proper place, I can't do anything, till the local council can be bothered staffing the registration office enough to see me. I certainly live at a certain place, but it's as if I'm staying at that address on holiday.
In Australia, I don't have to register with the state. If I move house, I have enough things on my mind. If a person is born, died, gets married or (sometimes) changes their name in Australia, someone has to report that fact to the government. But a person is a person, or dead, or married, or has a different name while they're waiting for the bureaucracy to do its thing.
In both cases, children have to go to school. Even in the absence of any registration or reporting, there's still an obligation. So what does the registration actually achieve?
The government has the power and ability to find out where a person lives. Why compel me to do something you can make obnoxiously difficult? - and which serves no apparent purpose?
This is the real child abuse here.
Like what? Because most states have had registration of births for about a century.
Taxation is not theft. You either work in the country and make money, and use everything around you in that country that was provided by taxes (roads, sewer, fire, police, etc) or you don't work and don't pay taxes.
That would be a hazard for your neighbours though. Like it or not, living in a society also means you have duties towards your fellow citizens.
For one thing, the United States has a 30% expatriation tax. They will take 30% of your wealth just for leaving.
Your stuff (which was partially acquired via exploitation of the ecosystem that is the country that wants those taxes... Bet you drove on a public road) isn't.
Now all hail his highness, the holy Herman Hollerith!
Also, possible military service maybe?
But the GP poster is 100% correct that purposely not registering your children with the state in this day and age is hugely suspicious. You are giving up so many services and getting very little apparent benefit in return, there has to be some ulterior motive. It's not a good place to be where the least terrible answer is that you're a bit crazy in the head.
You'll find hardly anyone in the UK, except maybe extremists like Rees Mogg, who would object to registration of birth. Generally speaking, we quite like our government institutions and services. It's conservative politicians who are wedded to turning us into the 51st state. Even conservative voters often object to closure of services or attempts to to use a popular slogan and outright lie: "introduce the efficiency of the market" to the NHS.
There is no requirement for adults to register their whereabouts with the authorities.
And home schooling is explicitly legal, the authorities may or may not check on children who are home schooled.
In many western European countries these things would be radical. Both US and UK share a strong tradition of individual independence.
The Education Act simply requires full time education without explicit mention of home. Home schooling in Europe isn't exactly rare, though I know many do rule it out - perhaps around half - Germany for instance. Perfectly OK in France, Italy, Belgium and plenty of others.
You seem to be making a distinction without a difference.
Up until 1979 they were a mostly traditionalist and small c conservative party. Since then they have been steadily getting more radical and extreme.
How do you enfranchise people who have no paperwork, no id, who you don't know exist.
How do you decide whether to give someone a pension, if you don't know how old they are.
As for voting, I think it's the better plan to give everyone the vote unless you can prove they're tourists. In NZ, permanent residents get the right to vote, so it's not such a stretch. The person is, after all, subject to the laws. (Rights should be afforded to subjects, as a rule, not citizens. The change of language in the 20th century was probably not a good thing. Roman citizenship law is not actually something to emulate.) Prove they're deportable and deport them, or let them vote.
I used to live in a house the government didn't really know existed. (I think the state government was happy to believe me, but the federal government and local council struggled.) Someone would come over, verify that it was indeed a residence, and move on. This lasted a few years until I think they were all happy to acknowledge it. I think it's at least that easy to prove a person exists. (I was the first local citizen to live there in many years; the rest were generally international students.)
Has the world changed so much that this is weird now? Weed is still illegal in 90% of the entire world.
Blackberries are a national pest, and yet sell for $80/kg in supermarkets. The average person could collect over $50 worth from the side of the road in under an hour.
Australia is not known for its efficiency nor logic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case
Hell, as a 10 year veteran remote software developer it some days I feel like I'm already there. One time I spent a year where I didn't say anything out loud to anyone. I got a cat and switched jobs and now I make sure to have more pointless conversations when I get the opportunity with coworkers so I don't go full hermit accidentally.
How did you get food?
I'm married nowadays, but my mental health used to suffer after a long weekend when there was usually a day or two when I didn't speak to anyone. Before that, when I was living overseas and had ptsd and depression, I think I would go a week without meaningful conversation (on occasion two weeks, if a certain event was cancelled), but I would buy food or something most days that would at least involve a half comprehended exchange "(hi) hi (some amount of money please) thanks (receipt?) no thanks (nice day)". These were at least useful since my tone of voice varied - sometimes I sounded happier.
Do you cope a lot better through that than me, or was your mental health in decline at the time?
> How did you get food?
Not the parent, but this isn't hard: self-checkouts are common these days, and even if you take food deliveries, you don't pay the delivery person directly, you pay through the app.
New reports[0] are saying the father used to be a member of the Unification Church:
>Local television station RTV Drenthe earlier said the Austrian man, identified only as Josef B, the father and the captive family were all part of South Korea’s controversial Unification Church, dubbed “Moonies” after their late founder Sun Myung Moon.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/17/dutch-police-a...
A common "meme" is to claim Drenthe doesn't exist.
I love how in The Netherlands the "middle of nowhere" is a 90 minute drive from the capital :)
Lol. The capital is in the middle of nowhere, that's why. You need to drive a few hours northeast of the capital to get to somewhere (i.e. Sydney).
The farm looks nice and abundant though, I'd love to live self-sufficiently à la Rob Greenfield, aside from my main remote job
"Plausible" in the context of TFA, of course, if we're gonna go ahead and believe it, for the sake of argument.
I mean, there's not a lot of information to go off, either. The article adds zero additional information (relevant information, I don't care how many beers he drank) over the first paragraph, so all we know is contained in that one sentence. Since the family seems to have been liberated, it would have been interesting to know what actually happened there and how they were convinced not to leave the farm. Shouldn't have been to hard to ask, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon
Unfortunately the math no longer works out but those crazies love clean decade numbers like 2010, so I'm sticking by it.
Man has got his priorities straight.
The article doesn't detail anything other than they lived "underground". A child moving into the basement of their house lives "underground". You can design homes that go underground.
Furthermore, the 25-year-old went to the pub, not to the police or anywhere. If he was being held against his will, I doubt the pubs the first place you go.
The 25 year old was amazed at the sight of a pub and told them that daylight was very bad for him, that he was only able to get out that night and that he couldn't go back anymore. Apparently he was astonished that there were still any other people in the world.
I think the idea of going to the police was completely alien to him.
It's now been reported[0] that the father was an ex-member of the Unification Church[1]:
>Local television station RTV Drenthe earlier said the Austrian man, identified only as Josef B, the father and the captive family were all part of South Korea’s controversial Unification Church, dubbed “Moonies” after their late founder Sun Myung Moon.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/17/dutch-police-a...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_movement
> "Officers visited the remote farmhouse and carried out a search. They discovered a hidden staircase behind a cupboard in the living room that led down to a basement room where the family were housed."
My parents have a fully furnished basement. That's not weird. Even having a bedroom in a basement is slightly weird but not terribly so. But when you throw in the context of the hidden staircase it all becomes much much weirder.
I dunno - 9 years without a beer and I might have different priorities...