Well, I'm a big believer in the importance of principles and the danger of the slippery slope. Hence I oppose the move to longer periods of detention without charge, the removal of the automatic right to trial by jury, the imposition of identity cards etc, although I can perfectly well understand why people are in favour of such things.
So the things I would mainly consider dangerous that you suggest are:
Tougher rules for parents whose children are tearaways. (I'd consider this unfair and unworkable in the current state of the nation).
I know it's unfair (my mum tried with me and I was a 'orrible f*cker lol) but sacrifices have to be made to sweep up after the junkie/alcoholic parents who care more about themselves than their children.
Greater powers to seize and hold or destroy proceeds of crime - even suspected in the case of persistent offenders or those with track records. I can see this being a very slippery slope, an attack on the concept of private property, and also on the principle of the presumption of innocence.
Again, agreed and maybe a bit too sweeping but I also propose that career criminals and persistent offenders should be stripped of most legislative civic benefits so it wouldn't be an issue that affected wider society.
More investment in government subsidised day care for working parents. I think the increasing role of the state as a surrogate parent is a very worrying development and an assault on the concept of the family.
Doesn't have to be the state directly it could be through incentives and grants to any number of community or commercial enterprises. My philosophy is that there's always a taker as long as there is +ve NPV
Compulsory education until 18. This I think would just make things worse, and would extend the disruption and ruination of the education of many children past the age of 16, which is often largely due to the compulsory attendance of pupils who really shouldn't be there. I'd actually advocate lowering the school leaving age if anything.
I'd have to overhaul the education system and syllabus delivery too. Why did the school down the road teach different things to my school? Why was I not allowed to sit higher level papers for some of my subjects at GCSE level? F*cking box ticking and teachers/governers/committee members afraid to risk their own skin is the reason that schools are sh*t. Example, I was speaking to my brother the other week and talking to him about negative skewness in a log-normal distribution P chart (of my trading results lol!) and he didn't know what I was talking about. He's studying maths and further maths at A level at a local community college? WTF is that about? How can a maths syllabus change so much in 8 years?
As for the little horrible little f*ckers I'd have them out of the main classrooms and into places that are more tailed to their needs. I've seen it work sometimes at my school and any success rate at all with kids like those is an unforeseen win. the rest I'm afraid would have to be another set of victims of the initial culling unless they were willing to get their act together.
