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Comment by nuancebydefault | Hacker News Reader

I just read following are available throughout the entire USA so I guess there is some hope?

Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline. This hotline provides 24/7 support for children and adults concerned about child abuse.

National Runaway Safeline (1-800-RUNAWAY)

Boys Town National Hotline (1-800-448-3000).

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Oh, I didn't say we have nothing that we could call a system, just that there's nothing remotely similar. There are some people that some of those don't fail, and one on that list with so pervasive a documented history of child sexual abuse among its caretakers that I'm honestly shocked if they still answer the phone - although if I recall correctly, Boys Town also has a history for giving kickbacks to judges in exchange for remanding children whose unpaid labor the organization then can exploit, so I suppose it's worth some money to them to take the calls. I might misremember, though; there are so many such stories, it's hard to keep them straight without checking. Churches also answer much of what need anyone does, most places this being small, poorly resourced local evangelical congregations. These also, in the form of the revelations around the conduct of the Southern Baptist Convention, have this year seen the breaking of a major child sex abuse scandal which has not yet ceased to ramify. There is no general oversight or coordination anywhere, and for entry into "the system" to result even in safe, much less beneficial, placement, is much more than anything else a matter of chance. And you only hear about homeless poor as a city problem because those who can't make it to a city typically end up imprisoned or dead.

I was being a little hard on you earlier, maybe. If I'd lived a life in the environment of a northern/western-European style system of social welfare, it would also I think be easy for me to see something in America that looks vaguely similar and assume it must be much the same.

I took that as a rather arrogant sort of assumption, and might in that have earned the accusation of incharity that I earlier criticized. Specifically, I think I might have failed to account for how, to someone raised in a country that looks after its people, the situation in America might seem far too grim to easily credit. If I did make that error, I apologize.

On further reflection, I'm sure I did. It was unjust and I'm sorry.

It never occurred to me until a moment ago to wonder whether your question read to me like it did because it came from someone who maybe has never had to doubt that everyone can always know who to call to get out of a spot like that, on a number that will always be answered.

Even now I can't bring myself to call that a conclusion rather than a surmise. Oh, if you tell me it's true I won't doubt, or even be surprised. But the idea still feels far too utopian to really credit. Intellectually, sure. In my own early life, though?

You don't have to feel sorry. I feel sorry that the situation in the US is what it is. That said, there's a lot for me to learn so I think asking questions and getting (sometimes harsh) answers is a way of learning that _sticks_ so to say.

Grossmütterlichgefälligkeit, I believe the word to be. I've learned some of my own best lessons that way. Here I think has been the opportunity of another.

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