There are about 400,000 kids in foster care in the United States. Many of them are subject to being moved around arbitrarily to different foster homes and have already suffered from parental drug abuse, domestic and sexual abuse, and poverty. In Los Angeles, for instance, there are only about 3,000 foster homes. About five years ago, there were twice as many homes. The children have no place to go when they come into the care of the government or courts. The conditions in many group homes can be just as bleak. With overcrowding, kids end up sleeping in cots in adoption agencies; essentially office buildings become home. (Adapted from an NPR report, 9/22/2013)

Money cannot be the only answer. Love, care, and better parenting have to be the ultimate (maybe unachievable?) answer. But you do not have to be a genius to recognise that every un-socialized, traumatized child can be tomorrow’s drug addict or petty criminal. Saving children is preventing social problems in the future. This is the approach I believe Epicurus would take, since he was an intelligent, pragmatic man and treated everyone equally.

Tax us then! Build decent homes for the children and pay the staff who look after them well, for they are (would be) modern saints, who in the long run save the tax-payer much bigger money. This is the Epicurean way. Skin color should be irrelevant.