Father’s Day – Money Is The Measure, Not Freedom

by J. Greene

Men have been honestly caring for their children from the beginnings of civilization. Some have not, including mothers. It has always been that way. We don’t live in a perfect world. Enter the modern state in all its’ wisdom, where all people are expected to tolerate a state-controlled legalized extortion racket because children are the future – but mostly for benefit of the state. The state even routinely combs through bank records in the eternal vanity of finding a few stray bucks from those that dare to evade child support collection. It’s an old game whose influence has steadily increased since the free love movement, when rancorous feminists began burning their bras and politicians saw the political cache they could achieve through social manipulation. As a result, the real role of fatherhood and the definition of a family has been continually cheapened.

In the corporation known as the United States, the system routinely oppresses fathers, while offering poverty support to single and divorced mothers (and some fathers). They have also been oppressing the taxpayer as well, hoping and pretending to bring in more than they spend, even as they send state corporations double their child support collections. Only the light-headed politicians of the United States would think to do such a thing. Of course, these are the same men and women that fund operations as the “policeman of world” while playing “Uncle Sugar” to the world. They even continue to send China a regular stipend because of its’ poverty, while running a burgeoning deficit that the children of the future are expected to pay. This is obviously unsustainable, despite the fact that they indirectly operate the printing presses that prop up the reserve currency of the world. In fact, this is the only reason that the lawmakers that rule “Uncle Sugar” can continue to operate as they have. The nation as it stands is living on borrowed time.

Since money is the measure in the propaganda that is cast about, you’ll find that fatherhood is measured the same way. This is no surprise in a nation mesmerized by the illusion of wealth. Social scientists at Johns Hopkins have decided that low income fathers purchase a relationship with their children.

“They want their kids to look down at their feet and say, ‘My dad cares about me because he bought me these shoes,’” says a co-author of the study in a press statement. “We need to respect what these guys are doing, linking love and provision in a way that’s meaningful to the child. The child support system weakens the child/father bond by separating the act of love from the act of providing.”

Yet, the child support system plugs along mercilessly despite a nation of earners that has not truly recovered from the economic debacle that eclipsed in 2008. Untold millions have been crushed, merely grist for the mill of poor governance. Republicans claim that we must find a way to be fiscally responsible, while supporting the current child support system that imprisons the nation. This is a lie pressed to ignorant people. They simply support the status quo with the illusion of conservative values. Their buddies are merely more “progressive.” Meanwhile, the men that give their blind consent can choose to pretend they are purchasing the adoration of their children, as these social scientists say, or they can realize the truth.

The family is only a family as long as the family unit is together. Once breached by rejection, separation and divorce, a family is not a family at all – especially outside of a committed relationship. That a single mother and her child is a real family is also debatable. The “wise men” of the nation have simply continued to revise the definition of the family to suit their needs. That is the deeper reality that the state would have you ignore to your continued peril. It benefits them for you to believe as you do.

It has been posited that the “Founding Fathers” would turn over in their graves if they were able to know about the ongoing debt slavery and legalized human trafficking that is the United States. I think not. These men were fully aware of the hypocrisy that “America” was built on. The governance of the nation has profited from the slavery and oppression of others from the very beginning with little apology, or admission of error. The lawgivers have even reconfigured the corporation to enslave for personal advantage. Robber barons everywhere continue the public plunder under the pretense of propriety and a kind face when it suits them. Your consent is your ignorance. Even governance is just another corporation. They seduce “the people” with infrastructure and social trinkets. The propaganda machine has continued to eject that notion that the nation is a democracy, the “land of the free.” Who the “free” truly are is for you to decide.

The Gift Transformed Into a Debt

by Dalrock

Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed. –  W.C. Bennett

Back in 1852 the troop ship HMS Birkenhead sank in shark infested waters off the coast of South Africa. There weren’t enough lifeboats to save everyone, and the captain made the extraordinary decision to reserve them for the women and children aboard. The crew followed the captain’s order even though it meant his and many of their own deaths. This incredible example of men sacrificing for others has made what otherwise would have been an obscure shipwreck a famous event in history.

Even a century and a half later, women still understand the meaning of the profound sacrifice made by those brave men:

Men owe us.

A similar event occurred in 1912 when RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. Well over a thousand men stood aside and died so that mostly women (and a lesser percentage of children) could survive. Women understood the meaning of that sacrifice as well:

You got off easy. The women who survived are the ones who had to suffer. We didn’t ask you to do this for us anyway.

And of course:

Men owe us.

One of the videos I saw after the sinking of the Costa Concordia had an overweight American woman with a short haircut complaining:

It certainly wasn’t women and children first!

She said this in the form of an indictment, with the obvious expectation that all listening would see it as proof of an outrageous dereliction by the men on the ship. She and countless other women believe that since some men have volunteered to die in shipwrecks in the past, all men will forever have an obligation to do so. What men in the past did was an incredible act of graciousness; it has been met with an equally incredible lack of grace in return.

I’ve searched the web looking for a copy of the video to share, but unfortunately I couldn’t find it. What I found instead was even more powerful however.  Sheila Gregoire wrote a post/syndicated column shortly after the Costa Concordia went down titled:  Women and Children First? – A Feminist Tragedy :

In the comments I’ve been reading on the news reports, people seem to agree that children should be given priority, but there’s a heated debate about the women. We’re equal, so why should a man lose a place to a woman? Why should a man have to help a woman when he’s in danger, too?

And, as disgusting as I find that question, it makes sense. In 1912 it was a different world. Personal responsibility was still the main ethos of the day. People took care of their neighbours; they did not wait for government to do it for them. And people had a code of honour that included helping others when you could.

Somehow we have lost that. It is no longer about honour and what we should do for others; it has become what others should do for us.

I assume the irony is lost on her that her response to men having shown incredible selflessness is to be upset that men might at times elect to take care of themselves instead of focusing on people like her. As I have written before, making chivalry mandatory or expected destroys the very concept. It isn’t just feminists who destroyed chivalry, but feminist-lite women who view themselves as traditional.

Even so it wasn’t Sheila’s blog post which really startled me, it was the comments from many of the women who read her blog.  Several of the women understood the issue and why men made different choices on that wreck than on certain shipwrecks in the past. But others took an attitude of incredible entitlement, assuming that men in general exist to serve them. Commenter Rachel started by explaining that men owe this to women because women’s lives are worth more than men’s:

Women and children do not go first because they are weaker; they go first because lets face it, you need more women than men to keep the population going (men can make millions of babies in a day, women can only make 1-2 per year at best and our fertility is limited)and children are our future to continue the human race.

She then describes how she rudely bumped into a man recently in an elevator because she assumed he would understand that she has a special right to exit elevators first, even though of course she is his equal:

That being said, I was just thinking of this topic last night. I was sharing an elevator with a man about my age. When the elevator stopped, I automatically started to get off and he almost ran into me! I am so used to men letting me get off the elevator first, it hadn’t occurred to me that he wouldn’t. Once I righted myself, I got thinking about it and why would he let me off first? I am his equal. I started to think if there was a scientific reason, and I could not come up with one. In fact, I thought maybe the man should go first to let him see if it’s safe (I’ve watched too much late night drama and seen too many people get attacked getting off elevators).

Even though the uppity man in the elevator didn’t know his place, she graciously suggests that there are times when it is acceptable for a man to enter a lifeboat:

The thought process led to thinking about the “women and children first” policy and I do still think that applies, unless the child who is getting on the life boat is only accompanied by his/her father. I think then the dad should be able to get on the life boat with his child(ren).

I want to back up and remind you that before 1852 there was no such expectation that men should stand by and drown in order to save women who in most cases are strangers. The sense of entitlement so many women now have because of acts of incredible selflessness by men in the past is astonishing.

Another commenter named Britiney who writes a blog called Consider the Lillies read Sheila’s post and it reminded her of a time recently when men she didn’t know failed to snap-to and be her personal unpaid valet. It happened when she exercised poor planning while taking her computer in for repair:

Along the same lines and under the heading of “Chivalry is dead” I had to take my computer to the repair shop last week. I took it to the Apple store in our local mall and, not knowing that there was a “secret” entrance close to the store, I lugged it all the way through the parking lot, and then all the way through the mall and then BACK because I decided to take it somewhere else. I don’t know how much it weighs, but by the time I got all the way back to my car I was nearly in tears because it was SO heavy and I was SO frustrated. And here’s my point: I cannot even tell you how many able-bodied young men I passed while I was carrying something that was OBVIOUSLY too heavy for me. When I finally got to my car I called my husband and told him that my boys will NEVER pass someone who needs help and not offer to help them. I was so disgusted that not one single man offered to help me! So so so sad. I can’t influence any of the men who passed me by, but I can certainly influence the 3 young men God has entrusted to my care and if I have ANYTHING to do with it, they WILL put women and children first!!!

It reminded me of a comment Hestia made on a previous post on this topic about a woman who saw a group of servicemen returning from active duty, and was upset that they didn’t volunteer to carry her load for her:

Basically here is a group of largely men who have been sacrificing on behalf of the nation (or so the story goes) who haven’t done enough for this pampered princess. So it seems to go not only with soldiers in particular but men in general when it comes to chivalry.

One thing men need to understand is that in the event that they make the kind of sacrifice women are demanding, not only will it lead to even more entitlement, but many women will still detract from the noble nature of your choice.

Commenter Amanda wrote:

Not to undermine your point, but when the Titanic sank, women and children were NOT put first. Sure, they started the evacuations like that, and there were men of honor, but there were also the men who locked the doors to the third class section so that those people wouldn’t take up lifeboat space, and the coward who pushed women and children aside in their haste to get into a boat.

After Sheila challenged her on the historical accuracy of this claim, Amanda replied with:

Well, it’s been a few years since I did all the reading I did on the Titanic, but I was pretty interested as a youngling, and the picture I got from the books was one of polite, subversive cowardice slowly escalating to outright anarchy and panic.

Understand that if you sacrifice yourself for women you don’t know that most women will simply take your act of ultimate selflessness as proof that men owe them. A significant number will also deny the bravery of your dying act.

Make Fatherhood a Man’s Choice!

The burden of pregnancy will never be fair. Child support can be — but men need to have a chance to opt out

by Anna March

MY MOTHER WAS unable to obtain an illegal abortion, though she tried, in 1967 when she learned she was pregnant with me.  Instead, she attempted paternity fraud—passing me off to her boyfriend as his child though I was actually fathered by another man.  Her boyfriend, who became my putative father, married her and then clued in when I was born, totally healthy, three months “prematurely.”  He went along with it, though. They divorced when I was six years old, but he paid child support until I was eighteen, $270 a month.  I’m a product of child support, and it was a necessary part of the financial picture for me and my Mom, who did not have a college education and often worked two jobs during my childhood.  My mother would race home from work, check the mail, and, when the check was there, we would go to the drive-in window, open until 7 pm, at the local branch of the Union Trust bank to deposit the check. Then she would get $20 cash back (this was the days before ATMs) and we would splurge on a pizza at the neighborhood Italian place next door.  On the way home we’d swing by the post office and she’d mail the envelopes with checks she’d been holding in her purse for days to C & P Telephone and to PEPCO for the electric and to Washington Gas. The next day came the grocery store. The connection was very clear: the bills didn’t get paid without the child support. The food didn’t get put on the table without the check from “dad.”

Despite all of this and in complete keeping with my deep-seated feminism, I believe that making fatherhood optional—as motherhood is—and revamping the child support system to stop requiring financial support from noncustodial parents (usually men) who want to opt out early is good for women, men, and the kids in question. In addition, we should further our support of women who choose to opt out of motherhood via abortion or adoption as well.  It’s time to make parenthood a true choice, on every level.

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Over the past fifteen years, some feminists have argued that ending the current child support system is an important social issue. In the October 19, 2000 issue of Salon,Cathy Young argued that women’s freedom to choose parenthood is a reproductive right men do not have but should. Her article, “A Man’s Right to Choose,” identifies abortion rights and adoption as options that allow women greater sexual freedom than men when a sexual encounter results in conception.  While there are alternatives to parental responsibility for women, for men, “in the eyes of the law, it seems that virtually no circumstances, however bizarre or outrageous, can mitigate the biological father’s liability for child support.” Kerrie Thornhill’s article “A Feminist Argument Against Child Support” in the July 18, 2011 issue of Partisans picks up this point, arguing that where birth control and safe abortion are legally available, choosing a sexual encounter should be a different choice than choosing to be a parent. She offers a three-step replacement for the current child support system. First, Thornhill writes that “when informed of a partner’s pregnancy, a man should get a single, time-sensitive opportunity to choose fatherhood.” Second, by accepting, a man would assume all the responsibilities of fatherhood, but by declining he would legally be no different than a sperm donor. Finally, she suggests that for low-income families, state-funded child support should exist. In her article “Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?” for the June 12, 2013 edition of the New York Times, Laurie Shrage echoes Kerrie Thornhill’s sentiment when she opines, “In consenting to sex, neither a man nor a woman gives consent to become a parent.” She argues that if one believes that women shouldn’t be penalized for sexual activity by limiting options such as birth control, abortion, adoption, and safe haven laws (laws that provide a safe space for parents to give up babies), then men’s options shouldn’t be limited either. These writers all point out that motherhood should be a voluntary condition. Shrage and Thornhill agree that the construct that fatherhood after birth is mandatory needs to change.

Feminist response in opposition to the idea of giving men an opt-out of child support has been swift and passionate, including from many writers and publications I deeply respect. Pieces like Mary Elizabeth Williams’ “There Is No ‘Forced Fatherhood’ Crisis,” June 13, 2013, in Salon; Jill Filipovic’s June 17, 2013 blog post at Feministe titled “Is It Unfair to Force Men to Support Their Children?” ; and Meher Ahmad’s“’Forced Fatherhood’?  Yeah, Okay, Whatever” in Jezebel from June 13, 2013  all followed quickly on the heels of Laurie Shrage’s New York Times appearance. I have a deep admiration for all three of these writers and publications, yet take strong issues with each piece. Mary Elizabeth Williams tells a personal and compelling anecdote about how her father abandoned her family before she was born. She points out that this occurred before Roe v. Wade. Her story is a poignant example of why abortion and adoption need to be legal and available options, but it is a straw man as an argument against Laurie Shrage’s position. Shrage, along with Thornhill and Young, explicitly states that legal and available abortion is a necessary component of a woman’s reproductive autonomy and only suggests changing child support laws as a means to bring to men a similar reproductive autonomy to what women enjoy.  Filipovic wonders at what point a man should no longer be able to sever his parental rights. She doesn’t have to wonder, however, since Shrage both indicates that she is talking about obtaining informed consent at the time of assigning paternity but also states that child support makes sense in the case of divorce because a man already accepted the responsibility of fatherhood.  Ahmad goes so far as to acknowledge that the system is unfair to men, but argues that women face so much more unfairness that we shouldn’t care. Her claim that forced motherhood is more difficult than forced fatherhood is certainly true, given the burdens of pregnancy and childbirth. However, that inequity is not a reason to enact policy that forces fatherhood.

No one needs to make me understand how important child support is. I understand firsthand from my own childhood that child support is often a critical part of a child’s economic well-being or lack of same. The thing that keeps kids out of poverty keeps the food on the table. And beyond my own experience, the statistics on the importance of child support are unimpeachable—the money matters. However, I agree with the bulk of the points made in the pieces cited above that suggest we need to allow men an option out of fatherhood.  (To be clear, like these authors, I am not talking about cases in which people have decided to have a child together and then one person wants to opt out. I’m talking about a short window during pregnancy—so that women have enough time to make their own decision about which reproductive choice they are going to make in light of the man’s decision, in case that is a factor for them.) As Thornhill argues, men should have a window of time to decide whether or not they are going to sign up for fatherhood, and after that they will either be treated like a sperm donor or be held financially liable.  It’s close to parity with the choice women have—and fairness is a basic feminist value. Further, this system allows for women’s total reproductive autonomy and by doing so, we inherently advance women’s sexual and economic autonomy as well as strengthen feminism itself.   Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we improve the economic safety and well-being of any resultant children by ensuring adequate state support when necessary.

This system would forward the arguments for women’s reproductive autonomy by making women entirely responsible for the outcome of their choices. Of course, for this to work, we must encourage and enable women to make thoughtful choices about motherhood and reinforce abortion and adoption as available, valid choices. Currently, we tend to treat abortion with a literal whisper and adoption as an outlier. We shouldn’t automatically make the jump that a woman who is unable or unwilling to have an abortion for whatever reason will then have a baby who needs to be supported by her and a father—of course adoption remains a valid choice, even if we tend to dismiss it or ignore it in our rhetoric. We should reinforce our support for and demand for abortion rights—safe, affordable, accessible abortion on demand for all.

However, in the meantime, we should not use problems of access to and affordability of abortion as a reason that men must pay child support (i.e., that women can’t access abortion so they have to have and raise children and men therefore shouldn’t get off the “hook “either). Those women can utilize adoption.  It has always confused me that those who are in favor of holding men financially responsible for a child that results from a pregnancy do not attempt to hold men legally responsible for sharing the cost of abortion with a woman who decides to terminate her pregnancy.  I think men have a right to opt out of both, but if one argues that men are responsible for the outcome of a pregnancy they created, and abortion is the outcome, why don’t we pursue men for abortion costs?  Especially when, according to the National Network of Abortion Funds, more than 200,000 women a year in the U.S seek assistance with paying for their abortions.  The Network also points out that 4,000 women a year in the U.S. are denied abortions because they pass the legal gestational limit while trying to raise the funds. Why do we put men on the “hook” for children but not on the “hook” for abortions?

Additionally, lack of access to abortion doesn’t mean we should be unfair to men.  We need to stand by women’s reproductive freedom, no matter what choice a woman makes. And a woman who wants a child needs to be prepared to support that child even if the biological father is not willing.  I don’t believe that we will ever have true reproductive autonomy until men are offered the option, as women are, to opt out. We will never have full reproductive autonomy if we continue to put an asterisk next to “my body, my choice” and add the footnote “but if I decide to have a baby, pal, you have to pay.”

In the above mentioned Salon piece by Williams, she says, “I would love to live in a world in which no one is ever dragged kicking and screaming into parenthood. But that’s never going to happen.” Why not?  Women can opt out now—men should be able to as well.  Then we would live in a world where no one is dragged into parenthood.  Let us come to focus on that goal and not, as political philosopher Elizabeth Brake says on this issue, “fixate punitively” on getting men to pay.

And, as part of expanding our support of adoption as an option, we should expand our support of women utilizing safe haven laws.  Sometimes people say “outside of infant safe haven laws,” like Feministe did in the piece cited above, but let’s stop that. Let’s consider them a reasonable method of relinquishing parental rights, not merely a measure for the desperate.  As it stands, in most states, if a woman gives a child up for adoption via other methods, she and the father are still responsible for financial support until the child is adopted. (Safe haven laws vary state by state, but can typically be invoked for three to ninety days, with the average being about forty-five days. North Dakota allows up to one year.)

Perhaps consideration of the fact that it is a choice a woman makes to have a child rather than opting for abortion or adoption, not something beyond her control, will help us move our support of adoption past the wink-wink-nudge-nudge stage.  If a woman finds herself in need of economic assistance to raise her child, let us return that obligation fully to the state where it belongs, and was, until the conservative state decided to shift the burden to women’s sexual partners to reduce the welfare burden on government. Children’s economic welfare should not be tied to maternity or paternity.  The state needs to stop shirking its responsibility for its most vulnerable citizens—including kids.  Further, the one group of “fathers” the state is willing to exempt from child support are sperm donors, sending the message that it’s okay to have a kid and not support it if there was no sex, but if you get some pussy, you are going to pay. Let’s not support that model.

Bias Against Fathers in U.S. Custody & Child Support

Unconstitutional Criminalization Oppresses Parents

One of the most oppressive and downright illegal developments in modern society is the criminalization of parents for debt. In many cases, this debt cannot be legally substantiated, especially considering that the Bradley Amendment is unconstitutional on multiple counts. Compare this to the reaction of the Federal government against the State of Arizona with illegal immigration law, an attempt to remedy a blight on the nation. Clearly, the schizophrenic Feds do not see the reality of situation as they demand complete control over States and States Rights for their own distorted agenda.

It is noted by the media that parents who can’t afford to pay arrears are not charged with a crime. How this criteria is actually met remains a mystery since the debt continues to skyrocket, regardless of the physical condition of the NCP. In the case that the hapless soul actually recovers from life threatening disability or accident, he or she is due to be criminalized if they don’t move fast enough to satisfy “authorities.”

The NCP is unable to change the debt amount when recession or job loss hits, resulting in unavoidable debt because of an unresponsive court system that could care less. The nation is full of parents that face chronic unemployment. Who can afford legal services when they are living on unemployment benefits or on the street? Scarcely one, most would know. Most non-custodial parents have been reduced to slave labor and the wages that go along with it. They are beggars reduced to pawns of society.

The damage inflicted on the American family is impossible to calculate.  Meanwhile, Obama and the Federal government continued to advertise this “Father’s Day” that dads must give their due; that this is only the human thing to do. They completely discount the insurmountable oppression and the specter of a new type of debtors’ prison, bringing back an immoral and condemned European commodity of the past. What is worse is that this “child debt” cannot be eradicated by legitimate bankruptcy.  Despite the latest “Father’s Day” propaganda, most unemployed divorced dads have been reduced to little or nothing, with the same support orders and a never-ending “can-do” attitude required.

To make matters worse in support of Federal Bradley Law, many states and municipalities make a charge of criminal nonsupport. In  Ohio, the perception of non-support is a fifth-degree felony with a maximum sentence of a year in prison. Many custodial parent sociopaths and cooperative community leaders angrily and eagerly ply their vengeance as they parade mug shots and seek to hunt down divorced parents, usually men, in the style of 1984 or Farenheit 451. Yes, America is now the stuff of science fiction authors. America has become a truly lawless nation, with laws that don’t even support the humanism that “we” claim to proclaim. America has become a land of oppression that violates the Constitution, while the Feds go after States that attempt to follow the nation’s founding documents as they seek to solve problems that the Feds won’t deal with.

“Lack of financial support from absent parents can be devastating to the health and well-being of these children,” says prosecutor Bill Mason. He doesn’t consider that men cannot see their children, much less support them. Because of this financial and spiritual blight cast upon the nation by a mindlessly hateful and feminist court system, mothers have been encouraged to dump fathers when the going gets tough so that they can depend on “Uncle Sam.” Custodial parents are then imprisoned by the same problems in raising children that non-custodial parents have: the lack of finances. The reality is that nothing has changed except that a whole segment of America now depends on government to survive. Meanwhile, parents still struggle to raise decent “law-abiding” children in a land of the ruling hand that lacks any semblance of love or decency. The nation of politics has all these matters summed up in one nice ball of responsibility focused on fathers. You don’t hear any sage advice about responsibility being dispensed to mothers. This is assumed even though mothers are not always “all that.”

Slavery, in itself is nothing new. In fact, this nation was founded on it. We still seek slaves to command. If not illegals to serve our needs, then non-custodial parents. The nation would rather look the other way. This evil against American citizens continues unabated during the worst “recession” of decades, while untold millions continue to bite the dust, impoverished by crushing and immoral debt.

 

Divorce: End of the American Dream

Anti-father and feminist sources indicate that in a nationally representative sample of 11-to-16-year-old children living with their mothers, almost half had not seen fathers in the last 12 months. Protagonists of the nation’s fathers indicate that the nation (United States) has seen an increased refusal of fathers to provide for their children, leading to high levels of poverty among single-mother families.

When a couple breaks up, the standard of living of both mother and father declines. Why? Incomes that once supported a single home are now supporting two. The drop in living standards has been mistakenly blamed on fathers when it has nothing to do with them.

Based on U.S. Census data, non-custodial mothers are 20% more likely to default on their child support obligations than non-custodial fathers. This is despite the fact that non-custodial mothers are less likely to be required to pay child support. Non-custodial mothers with support obligations are asked to pay a smaller percentage of their income in child support than noncustodial fathers.

The vast majority of divorces are initiated by women. Research shows that most divorces do not involve a serious transgression by fathers. Data backs up the fact that the majority of fathers are not guilty of violence or adultery, but divorce is a result of  the mother feeling unappreciated or emotionally unfulfilled for other reasons unrelated to the marriage directly.

From a man’s perspective, his wife ended the marriage against his will, removing his children from his daily life. He sees the children as harmed through the destruction of what was a stable, two-parent home and a shared  prosperity that all had enjoyed together. From the male viewpoint, the decision of the wife mandates that he dramatically lower his standard of living in order to finance the decision to end the marriage.

While there are women that are mistreated in marriage and for whom divorce is a liberation, most divorced women aren’t victims. As a result, the facts reveal why men that once worked hard to support and prosper their families become disheartened and refuse to make the same or more sacrifices under new conditions foisted on them.

Politics pretends that simply not seeing one’s children is the same as paternal abandonment or irresponsibility. The politics of the broken family created by government is contradicted by a wealth of research combined with millions of personal experiences of divorced and separated fathers. There are fathers that voluntarily withdraw from the lives of their children for good reasons. There is more evidence that many fathers are driven out of the lives of their children by maternal sociopathic behavior sanctioned by the system. Linking  reality to male irresponsibility is ridiculous, if not patently absurd.

Fresh data from the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement shows that the overwhelming majority of so-called “deadbeat dads” earn poverty level wages. Most dads that are able to pay their child support do so despite often being unfairly cut off from their children. The fact is that because of the system, they have little choice anyway as they have become an undertrodden subclass of Americans, part of a machine that destroys and humiliates. Fathers with divorced families receive no positive credit for what “they must do”, even when they do so with love and care.

Even worse, the multi-billion dollar divorce industry is heavily funded by custody battles and government itself. Arguments over division of assets are a significant part of lawsuits. Lawsuits are also driven by fathers that insist on the right to see their kids while mothers try to limit the role of the father. Declining incomes of both mothers and fathers makes decent legal remedies more remote since the system by nature feeds on any residual incomes, further hurting children in a negative atmosphere of temporary insanity. In this economy, a large cross-section of Americans don’t have the income to fight much of anything, let alone deal with the basics. Those are the facts and resulting blight of the American Dream: court politics sustained by a broken system of misguided politics and government exploitation.

Is the Bradley Amendment Legal?

L. Taylor writes: “HOW in the world can this be legal? My husband was laid off and the AG’s office is taking HALF of his unemployment and when questioned, their answer is “we are the government, we can do whatever we want.” No wonder men are so bitter and don’t want to have anything to do with the ex or their child, the AG’s office is doing their level best to drive a MONEY wedge in between family. What a bunch of a**holes.”

Based on Constitutional Law and its succeeding Amendments, the Bradley Amendment is illegal on multiple grounds that this website discusses in detail. Based on what politicians have passed for law via legal precedence and legislative creativity, the Bradley Amendment in all its ramifications, legal or otherwise, is actively enforced law for better or worse. The fact is that the people have allowed government, whether it be the fault of feminists, socialists, fascists or renegade judges and lawmakers, to enact law that is not “in the best interest” of the American people. This is the reality that we live in today.

What you choose to do  is up to you. Doing nothing will get exactly what you have today: more of the same. Americans have become apathetic and divided in purpose and cause. This is what special interests and opportunistic politics uses to the disadvantage and oppression of the people. Simply giving in without so much as a public wimper is a guarantee that nothing will change. You need to make a public statement and raise public awareness.

What will you do? Calling the miscreants a ‘bunch of  a**holes’ won’t get you where you need to go, but in a sense is a start. Look at this website and the information that is available and make your personal decision about what you will and won’t do based on what you face.  Undoubtedly, some of this depends on what you have to lose. Therein lies the main issue Americans have. Until it hurts enough, they will do nothing. You can make it easy for others, even government, to abuse and exploit you. You DO have a choice, even if those choices may be limited in the short term. Knowing or learning the truth is just the beginning. What will you stand for? Make your choice and live by it. Know that you are not alone. ~ E. Manning

The Reality of Parental Alienation Blight

by E. Manning, senior writer, family rights advocate and retired economist

“I don’t care if the judges and the lawyers die of heart attacks in the process of getting their job done. They are corrupt, inefficient, lazy, stupid — they’re the most God-awful people.” These are the words of popular actor Alec Baldwin after a minefield experience in the U.S. family courts. Regardless of how many men have felt the same way, Alec Baldwin finally lends a voice to abused men in the court system.

According to ABC News, Baldwin believes that many family court lawyers and their manipulations and delays make the child custody duel much worse than it needs to be. “The judges are like pit bosses in Vegas casinos. Their job is to make sure everybody stays at the table and keeps gambling.”

The casino reference is based on the fact that the family court debacle is neverending: a heartrending, expensive and impossible situation for most men, particularly when the “little ex” proves to be vindictive and abusive, even turning children against fathers.

Most divorced dads have become strangely familiar with a national disease referred to as parental alienation syndome. In most cases, nothing could have prepared newly divorced dads for what they would face in the land of the free and home of the brave.

Yet, neither freedom or bravery come to mind as men are continually beat down by a system that dispassionately disregards men as nothing more than beasts of burden. Thoughts of leaving the country, sinking into the mires of endless depression or ending life are common responses to the negative reenforcement that the federal government and judges across the board show divorced men. Baldwin was so distraught that he lashed out hysterically at his daughter in a famous phone call promoted by the national media. While Baldwin might have been a little over the top, he creates a national identity for abused dads in a system that favors only women and children coupled with the political expedience that continues to destroy the family long after the family is dissolved.

This tale is not one of complaint, but one of real hope and change. Men are not debris in a maternally-ordered society. America has built itself up as a champion of freedom. Recent years of corruptive politics and negative press have turned politics and family courts into a socialist regime, undermining the freedom and civil beauty that made the idea of the United States great. Society has corrupted itself, fashioning the tools of order into weapons of abusive emotion and policy grounded in nothing more than entitlement attitudes. Feminists and other socially-oriented individuals and corporate bodies have promoted children’s rights over any other in the vain attempt for power and influence to radicalize the political scene in their favor.

Insane jealousy and hatred always need vindication. For the last thirty years, America has become a hotbed of everything it used to hate: unconstitutional laws and hurtful abusive policy that eliminate human and civil rights instead of promoting them. Until America resolves these laws and works to reverse the blight of parental alienation, the nation has no right to promote itself as a lover of freedom and human rights to the world regarding the lack of freedom and oppression that it actively promotes. Until this blight of parental alienation is reversed and the Bradley Amendment is repealed, we are a nation of hypocrites. ~ E. Manning

Read an excerpt from Alec Baldwin’s new book.

Where is the Family Rights Agenda in Politics?

by E. Manning, senior writer, family rights advocate and retired economist

If you are an independent thinker that wants change, you might just want to love Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the Democratic party platform that he stands on is not a platform that is good for the family or its continued cohesion in any way. His experience with his own father blends with that of the Democratic platform. The platform deals with the profound legend of “mommyhood”: where any mom can and should do it all. Further, if mommy can’t manage for any reason, Uncle Sammy is right there with cash and assistance. After all, it takes a village to raise a child, does it not? If you don’t have a village to support you, Uncle Sammy certainly will. No effort is made at the promotion of the tired subject of “Republican” family values or the rights of the American family as a whole. The platform is all about the promotion of children’s rights and the rights of single parents, which usually happens to be the mother.

where are family rights?

The reality is that this circumstance is more by design than by circumstance. When unhappy women, feminists and complicit Democratic politicians brought the initial round of federal welfare reform into play in the 1980’s, men were generally promoted as the bane and single cause of conflict and pain in the American family. Anyone that has a lick of sense in their head certainly knows that a women has a significant responsibility for the plight of her family along with the success of that family. This wasn’t on the minds of most women thirty years ago and most of America was conned into believing the clever lie along with the solution that never had a hope to work beyond empowering politicians and big government.

Now the Democratic National Convention is ready with a fine program for economic and social renewal. Unfortunately, men have been left out of the mix or at least in a positive sense. The platform’s agenda puts all blame for father absence squarely on men, while promising to “crack down” on fathers who are behind on their child support. It also promises to ratchet up draconian domestic violence laws which often victimize innocent men and separate them from their children. Nothing has changed from thirty years ago, much less since the Clinton Administration, which forced much of the Bradley Amendment upon the nation.

not a mention about family values on the religious front.

Research proves that the vast majority of divorces, as well as many break-ups of unmarried couples, are initiated by women, not by men, and that most of these do not involve serious male conduct of any kind. When a married or cohabiting couple splits up, the father is generally relegated to guest visitor status, participating in his children’s lives only if mommy allows it. Courts tilt heavily towards mothers in awarding custody, while enforcing fathers’ visitation rights indifferently.

Democrats claim that we will gain billions of dollars in revenue by taxing the “windfall profits” of oil companies just like Ronald Reagan did back in the 1980s. That debacle didn’t work causing the loss of revenue rather than revenue gains. Similarly, the DNC promotes the illusion that cracking down on child support will create a windfall for single mothers and the ever-needy children of America. That myth hasn’t worked since this inception of Democratic legislation that Senator Bradley and his cohorts initiated so long ago, supposedly without any hope of success.

66 percent of parents behind on child support nationwide earn poverty-level wages. Less than four percent of the national child support debt is owed by parents earning $40,000 or more a year. Starry-eyed politicians eye big income earners with the idea of promoting their cause as payback for rich, snotty and abusive fathers that could care less about their poor children. The promotion is all about inciting prejudice against fathers and men in general to promote a political cause and a monetary system.

domestic violence emphasis

The Democratic National Convention platform pledges to “strengthen domestic violence laws,” support the Violence Against Women Act, and increase funding for domestic violence programs. This writer says that this is a pander to the increasing number of single women with children, an act that is wholly unnecessary.

Society justly despises a wife-beater and child-abuser. This family policy scenario has been used to justify many destructive policies regarding the family as well as civil liberties violations like the Bradley Amendment. The system has provided easy ways for disgruntled women to kick decent, loving fathers out of their homes, exclude them from their children’s lives and work them over financially in the name of just law and individual rights for children and single parents.

The American family is in real danger from the very politics that claim to protect the rights of the individual. Unfortunately, men are not protected by federal law and are seen only as surrogate money bags for the system. Moms often design to milk the system for everything it is worth because they are entitled to it. The world owes the disgruntled for their displeasure. The rights of the family to exist or the promotion of the simple act to simply get along in harmony isn’t discussed or encouraged. Morality isn’t the job of the State and yet politicians claim higher moral ground. The Democratic Party line has obligated itself to family policies that don’t work and never did in the name of “feel-good individual rights” that violate Constitutional rights for millions of hard-working and now disadvantaged Americans. This is troubling. Republicans have simply stood by or endorsed the same politics. In the land of family law, politicians have generally proved themselves to be the of the same stripe. This is no less troubling.

right with a wrong

You can’t make a right with a wrong and certainly few politicians have taken anti-family policies to task. The crisis in the family is the perfect opportunity for an election issue, but perhaps an issue that politicians feel is too hot to handle on the front lines. Republicans continue to address the same old family values politics without addressing the damage done by unconstitutional and abusive political policy and law. Politicians would do well to figure out that righting a wrong with a wrong is worse than bad politics before summarily promoting the same old policies that dismantle the American family in favor of political empowerment. Somewhere, somehow, a day of reckoning is in the mix.

~ E. Manning

Barack Obama Attacks Non-Custodial Parents

Senators say men must take responsibility for raising their children.

Back on Father’s Day, Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama made what was supposed to be inflammatory comments against absentee fathers, notably African-American ones. Barack Obama, like many Democrats, seems to have plenty on his mind that he isn’t saying clearly.

Democrats are sponsoring an effort through Senators Barack Obama and Evan Bayh to intensify child support enforcement. On the surface, this appears to be a good idea. However, what is not said is that major areas of child support law are absolutely unconstitutional, sponsored by Democrats and others as far back as the Bradley Amendment in the 1980s. None of the federal law has been repealed.

The country has a national epidemic of absentee fathers. This much may be true as statistics reveal, but Senators are looking at a symptom rather than a cause. However, creative Democrats have designed “The Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007 as their latest social engineering effort.

The legislation claims to offer support for fathers trying to do the right thing while cracking down on men that avoid “parental responsibility”. The bill is designed to provide fathers with “innovative job training” and other nameless economic opportunities while using a typical social engineering tool called the “Earned Income Tax Credit.” Hillary Clinton favored the same kind of tactics. The idea is to “help” non-custodial parents to support their families.

Combined with the unconstitutional Bradley Amendment and other similarly-styled state laws, the idea is designed to encourage the idea of outright slavery to government authority in the name of doing the right thing because, after all, the government is always there to help honest men. The track record of politicians since the Clinton presidential daze has proved otherwise as feminists took advantage of opportunities to oppress men in the name of child law, welfare reform and rightful propriety.

The “Bayh-Obama legislation” is designed to strengthen violence prevention services, once again looking at symptoms rather than causes. The proposed law is supposed to ensure that money paid for child support goes “directly to children and their mothers”, without loss of food assistance for eligible families. The same old stinking thinking that mothers are without cause in the whole process of divorce and child-rearing is offensive. The fact that politicians want to green-stamp domestic violence by supporting negative parental attitudes, including sexual immorality is even more reprehensible. Women and men are not saints and law needs to stop treating them like saints.

Senator Evan Bayh stated, “Fatherlessness is an issue many politicians would prefer to avoid, but elected officials have a moral obligation not to sit idly by while communities crumble because of the epidemic of absentee fathers. I am not naïve enough to believe that government alone can solve this problem, but together we can play a constructive role in crafting policies that attack the root causes of this epidemic.” Unfortunately, government tactics of the past have not and do not encourage family-building, but rather societal destruction.

It can be argued that the welfare system and even child support measures are a wonderful thing for many. However, the cost to the country cannot be unconstitutional state and federal laws that are supported by politicians. For example, the federal Bradley Amendment along with a flotilla of state laws that support the violation of a number of Constitutional Rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Currently these Constitutional Rights are actively violated as well as other civil rights:

1. violation of due process under the 4^th, 5th and 14^th Amendments
2. deprives equal protection under the law
3. violation of state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment
4. violation of natural human rights under the 9th Amendment

In a typical multi-pronged attack, the U.S. House of Representatives has companion legislation that is being introduced by Democrats Julia Carson and Danny Davis. Earmark spending is certain to follow as the legislation is crafted and agreed upon between the two legislative bodies.

Last year, Congress passed legislation based on a proposal introduced by Senator Bayh that provided up to $50 million each year for the next five years in funding for responsible fatherhood programs nationwide as part of a spending reconciliation bill to prepare for future legislation that is on the board now.

Does this political scene sound like the new politics of hope to you?

The Road to Good Intentions: Free Attorneys

Democrat Senator Joe Biden is working to employ new domestic violence legislation which portends to cost state and federal government millions and further prejudice the law against honest fathers. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and Senator Biden is no exception.

Biden’s latest domestic violence bill is the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act, which amends Biden’s Violence Against Women Act to create an extensive network of volunteer attorneys to help abused women. The attorneys would provide free legal help in forging divorce or separation agreements and in winning child custody.

S.1515 will do some good in aiding abused low-income women. The problem is that the bill will also greatly exacerbate the already widespread problem of false domestic violence claims being used to strip decent, loving fathers of custody of their children. Bill S1515 has a price tag of 55.5 million over 5 years. When Senator Biden was confronted with the cost of the bill, he said that he had not considered the cost. Mothers and teary-eyed feminist programmers would have you believe that no cost is too great for justice.

Naturally, there is no mechanism within the bill to distinguish between false accusations and legitimate ones. This remains the achilles heel of the entire system that continues to be ignored.