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Pretty sure you were a victim of a criminal nexus that formed to take advantage of the laws, the machinery of the state, and private providers. Just like the (juvie) court-to-prison-pipelines that we hear about every once in a while.

What state was this in?

Western Europe, sorry didn't mean to make it sound like I was in the U.S.

Had a terrible problem in the UK with my grandmother, we never got a lasting power of attorney for health, and by the time she needed it it was of course too late. Figured next of kin would be reasonable.

She's been incarcerated in a care home since the start of covid, although rather than one near to where family lived they refused to let us move her. Took 18 months of going through court to get her moved, she has degraded so far she barely remembers me now.

(And of course despite legally being kept in the car home she has to pay for it. Had she broken the law and gone to prison she'd have more freedom and wouldn't have to pay!)

We now have power of attorneys for our parents.

If she'd gone to prison in America she'd probably still have to pay :/ [0]

[0]: https://apnews.com/article/crime-prisons-lawsuits-connecticu...

This kind of predatory guardianship is what "I Care a Lot" was based on (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Care_a_Lot). It's disturbingly frequent in a few states, I forget which, that have the right combination of laws and (lack of) oversight.

Friend of mine from Bari had the same problem with their old grandma. She (my friend, not the grandma) showed up with a bunch of male friends and told the fake caretaker "Leave by the door or you'll be leaving by the window, either way do not come back". The scammer left by the door and that was the end of it. The grandma died 18 months later in her bed surrounded by her family.

> who received a percentage of his pension as payment

You should watch the movie "I care a lot" with Rosamund Pike - it's terrifying how believable it is.

John Oliver covered this, "Guardianship" scam, theft enabled by the government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG2pEffLEJo

It is similar to the PACE scam, where government lets a company steal someone's house with a fake "energy credit" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv8ZPFOxJEc https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-do-i-avoid-risk...

Stuff like this turns me Anarchist in the "Government can't work" sense. The criminals are always 10 steps ahead of (or in cahoots with) the government, turning every attempt at "promoting the general welfare" into highway robbery, and no one in government is willing to prosecute and convict these criminals, because white collar crime gets the "it's too complicated to explain" Get Out of Jail Free card.

I would be lying if I said the situation didn't inspire urges of vigilantism in me at the time.

The government is a very, very scary thing. Because I'm disabled, I've had many encounters with the faceless and all powerful hand of the government, sometimes it feels like they'd want a medical certificate just to allow people like me to keep breathing. But paradoxically, I believe in a fairly strong government, I think it's best to have an organization at the top which is explicitly defined to serve the need of the people, rather than whatever would rise to the top in its stead. As long as one remains aware of how terrifying the government can be and is willing to go out and throw a few bricks at government buildings. I think it's served us well, comparing my country to the rest of the word.

Yeah, agreed. The mistake a lot of individuals make when they fall in the intellectual trap of Libertarianism is that power doesn't care about labels. Sure the state "has a monopoly on violence" but that is not an intrinsic thing. A weak state quickly finds violence being adopted by other centers of power within a society (just look at Haiti). We attempt to concentrate certain powers in government because it's the easiest way to keep those powers in check. In the end you don't want any center of power to get too powerful as it makes systems overall less stable. The best counter for a strong government is strong civic engagement and democratic norms as government is need to act as a counter to private centralized power (both legal and extralegal).

Sometimes the easiest way to keep the powers and check are to simply not grant them to the state. Some problems are better solved by decentralized power, even if it is imperfect and has collateral damage.

Sometimes is a real weasel word here. The unfortunate truth is we can’t trust government, but every other option tends to be vastly worse.

Government contractors introduce horrible conflicts of interest at every level. The US used to get projects done early and under budget before contracting took over, but that doesn’t make anyone wealthy.

Private individuals run into the tragedy of the commons.

etc etc

I dont think it is clear at all that every option in worse.

You might make a case that federal employees would do better than 3rd parties, but this beside the point I am trying to make.

You cant have abusive legal guardianships without state involvement, contractors or not.

Abusive legal guardianships demonstrate we can’t trust individuals not just the government.

So, my point is if you can’t trust people, companies, or the government then what’s left? IMO, the best option is to simply limit the number of things we need to trust. You don’t need to trust news organizations for them to act as a balance on government corruption. That only goes so far, but it’s still useful.

I also agree with limiting the number of individuals or institutions you have to rely on and Trust.

In this case, if durable legal guardianship against the wishes of the ward did not exist, there would be no need to trust anyone, the government or otherwise.

To be clear, what I'm proposing in this case is that nobody can have their assets seized without their permission.

Similarly, I don't have to invest trust in my underwear stain inspector, governmental or otherwise because nobody has the right to stop me inspect my underwear.

There isn’t a trust nobody solution to the guardianship issue. Your solution just means trusting the individual. That seems reasonable on the surface, but results in unpleasantness due to degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's etc. It’s an extremely vulnerable population that constantly get targeted by scammers who prey a people with diminished mental capacity.

To be clear I am not saying government is the right solution, just that the problem does exist. Not just because people get taken advantage of but because taxpayers gets stuck taking care of people who have lost everything.

PS: Being able to trust children is one solution that works at the individual level, but it unfortunately doesn’t scale.

In my example I'm not trusting the individual but individual may be trusting themselves.

I think that is a crucial difference morally, legally, and politically.

It is one thing to give up your own autonomy because you don't trust yourself, which is entirely reasonable.

It is another thing to give up everybody's personal autonomy because you don't trust yourself.

Giving the government the power to strip someone's rights and place them in guardianship I'm sure avoid some elder abuse and suffering.

My point is that I don't think it is ethical for those who want this protection to make that decision for everyone.

Arguing about the ethics is one way to shape policy, but it doesn’t make problems disappear.

Every day people do lose the ability to make informed decisions without preparing for that change. How and why we respond to that doesn’t change the underlying biology.

100% agree it doesn't change the biology. Ethics just determines the acceptable collateral damage from our policy solution.

How many beneficial guardianships are an acceptable trade for one abusive guardianship?

Maybe the answer is absolutely 0 and this should be off limits for policy.

In my province, rooms in long term care homes are (apparently) on some level, legally like a place of residence. Even though they exist in a public or private facility. Some families have caught on to this fact and installed cameras and audio recording equipment in their elderly parent's rooms. The staff don't like it but there isn't a whole lot they can do about it since it's the private property of the residents, in their residence.

Which province?

What a terrifying experience. This goes into my growing list of reasons why it pays to just take note of negative people's behavior, and quietly terminate their contract without ever discussing anything with them.

Businesses learned this a long time ago, which is why they never tell you why they get rid of you. They just say your services are no longer required.

This is horrific and is caused by the pride of those who are too lazy to lift a finger. Just know that bitterness will only poison you from the inside out. Don't allow this to fester or it will make you like them. I have seen the effects of this in my own family and it ends in evil.

I'm sorry about the effect it's had on your family, these are hard things to bear. I've started praying again last year, and generally trying to live according to the kinder values of Catholicism but it's a work in progress.

The person who doesn't properly care for your dad, complains that he's not properly cared for, and thereby ensures that he gets worse care? That is backwards in every possible way. How is any of that shit legal?