Not long ago I was speaking with an 18-year-old man who described himself as a conservative thinker who wishes to start his own electrical contracting business. Wanting to know what this 18-year-old unicorn had between his ears, I picked a liberal subject, in hopes of finding out where a person of that age, who has just graduated at the top of his class, thinks of State intrusion in family affairs, I told him the following story and asked for his opinion.

This young, aspiring business man said, “The answer is simple. You get on the phone and call child social services. This option is taught in middle school. That way you don’t have to fight the spanker or the thug boyfriend and the situation gets addressed by the authorities.”

I offered no opinion, simply wanted to see how a self-described conservative 18-year-old thinks of such things in The People’s Republic of Maryland.

Last night I had the opportunity to see where this kind of philosophy gets those low income people who have spent their life under the thumb of Child Protective Services and other such busybody entities.

Grant and Tanya are a young couple in their late twenties who have just begun renting and working out in Baltimore County, having escaped the ghetto. They were “joking around" in the living room when Grant bumped into Tanya playfully and she pushed him with one hand in the same playful manner. Unfortunately, he was off balance already from bumping his narrow ass into her considerable hips, and fell. He put out his hand to break his fall on the wall, and it went through the window instead.

I looked at the picture of Grant’s arm before surgery and it looked like he had been mauled by a tiger, his forearm open almost to the bone. Tanya wrapped the wound, applied pressure, got Grant to keep the arm elevated and under pressure, and then drove him to the emergency room.

All Tanya could think about was nerve damage, arterial bleeding, a severed muscle. “Oh God,” she said, “What if he can’t work because of this—he’s supposed to start a new job tomorrow!”

Grant had other things on his mind. How was he going to lie about this? From his experience, being taken to hospitals as a child for injuries stemming from accidents incurred while riding skateboards, climbing vacant houses, riding on bus bumpers, and other stupid shit that boys do, he was worried about Tanya getting locked up. Everyone who grows up in Baltimore City knows that an injury that might have been accused by foul play, spousal abuse, or child abuse, will be investigated and the police notified.

In Grant’s mind, if he admitted to staff that Tanya had pushed him, he would not be able to spin it as an accident, with the authority to make that judgment residing with law enforcement personnel. Any act of violence is not a crime against the injured person, but against the State. Grant’s fears ranged from having Tanya spend the weekend in jail and losing three shifts worth of pay, to Child Protective Services being called in to investigating their parenting.

While I am of the opinion that Tanya would not be in deep legal trouble for this, since Grant would insist that his injury was the result of an accident, they were both terrified of State intervention in their life, as they had been subjected to government counseling, foster care and family court as children.

So, Grant lied, and told the person investigating his injury at the hospital that he was injured while removing an air conditioner from the living room window.