The Failure of “Family Policy”
Welfare reform was supposed to discourage unmarried childbearing. However, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recently disclosed that out-of-wedlock births are at a record high. The Census Bureau also reports that, for the first time, married couples constitute less than half of the nation’s households. Thus, whatever the budgetary savings over the past ten years, from the standpoint of the family, welfare reform has failed.
The continued rise in out-of-wedlock births no longer proceeds from just low-income teenagers. In fact, the NCHS reports that the birthrate among girls 10 to 17 dropped to the lowest level on record. It is the sharp rise in births among unmarried mothers in their late 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s that accounts for the record levels. Inspired by such books as Rosanna Hertz’s Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice and Peggy Drexler’s Raising Boys Without Men, these women are moving beyond divorce to dispense with marriage altogether.
It would be a mistake to attribute this trend solely to cultural and lifestyle decadence. The ongoing sexual revolution is now codified in government policies that do more than discourage family formation: They empower officials to dissolve families and offer generous rewards for doing so. The growth of unwed childbearing in the middle class, like the older problem in low-income communities, grows directly out of welfare.
While the conservative focus on the broader cultural causes of illegitimacy is appropriate, neglecting the practical legal issues can hinder our ability to confront the problem. Political scientist James Q. Wilson epitomizes the conservative establishment’s paralysis when he throws up his hands: “If you believe, as I do, in the power of culture, you will realize that there is very little one can do.”
Many social conservatives have cast “family values” in terms of issues that, while undeniably important, are more consequences than causes of family breakdown. Today, the most direct threat to the family is not homosexuality, pornography, popular culture, euthanasia, cloning, or abortion. It is the elephant that barged into America’s living rooms almost four decades ago: As Michael McManus of Marriage Savers writes, “Divorce is a far more grievous blow to marriage than today’s challenge by gays.” While this, too, began as a lifestyle option, it quickly translated into highly destructive policies.
Beginning in the 1970’s, America quietly embarked on the boldest social experiment in her history. With no public discussion of the possible consequences, laws were enacted in virtually every jurisdiction that ended marriage as a legal contract and precluded couples from creating binding agreements to rear children. Regardless of the terms on which a marriage is entered, government officials can now, at the request of one spouse, simply dissolve it over the objection of the other and with no penalty to the moving party. As far as the federal and state governments are concerned, all couples are cohabiting.
The sexual revolution prepared the way for this massive change, but, as Melanie Phillips writes in The Sex-Change Society, “The divorce laws . . . were reformed by unrepresentative groups with very particular agendas of their own and which were not in step with public opinion.” Changes in the law preceded the cultural shift, as “Public attitudes were gradually dragged along behind laws that were generally understood at the time to mean something very different from what they subsequently came to represent.”
The National Association of Women Lawyers claims credit for pioneering no-fault divorce, which it describes as “the greatest project NAWL has ever undertaken.” As early as 1947, NAWL began promoting no-fault divorce to bar associations and state governments.
While the left was revolutionizing the legal structure of marriage, the conservative response was to lament and bemoan. “Republicans did not want to alienate their upscale constituents or their libertarian wing, both of whom tended to favor easy divorce,” writes Barbara Whitehead in The Divorce Culture, “nor did they want to call attention to the divorces among their own leadership.” When Vice President Dan Quayle famously denounced unwed motherhood, he was careful to add, “I am not talking about a situation where there is a divorce.” Maggie Gallagher’s complaint has become a prophecy for today’s politics: “Opposing gay marriage . . . is for Republicans an easy, juicy, risk-free issue. . . . The message [is] that at all costs we should keep divorce off the political agenda.”
The divorce revolution weakened marriage and fatherhood among members of the middle class in striking parallel to what welfare inflicted on the poor. In addition, the surge in divorce has expanded the welfare state itself to include the middle class, turning programs conceived to address the problems of low-income, single-parent homes into financial incentives for middle-class divorce.
The welfare reform of 1996 did not end the federal subsidy of single-mother homes; instead, it shifted it to mandatory child support—after all, fathers should be supporting their children. Like the original federalization of child-support enforcement back in 1975, the target was willfully absent fathers who had abandoned their children, leaving them on the dole.
In fact, no evidence has ever demonstrated that large numbers of fathers were or are deserting their families and not paying child support. Unchallenged research has long established that fathers are forcibly separated from their children by divorce courts and criminalized by child-support orders that are patently impossible to pay. The “deadbeat dad” is largely the creation of bureaucratic policies and of the feminist ideology that drives them.
Over the years, child support has increasingly functioned less as a way to reduce or recover welfare costs and more as a forced subsidy on middle-class divorce. States are paid by federal taxpayers based on the amount they collect. This encourages them to neglect welfare families, for whom the program was designed, because there is little money to be had. Instead, enforcement agencies have shifted their focus to middle-class families, for whom the program was never intended, because they can collect large sums and, with them, lucrative federal funds, which can then be spent for any purpose. Using child support, state governments found they could raise revenue through the growth of single-parent homes.
The perversity of the incentives is diabolical. States have a financial incentive to generate fatherless children in the middle class, which they procure by providing sweeteners for single motherhood—expedited divorce, automatic and exclusive mother custody (regardless of fault), minimal visitation by fathers—turning as many men as possible into payers (including some who are not even fathers) and setting child-support awards as high as possible. It is hardly surprising that the vast majority of divorces in which children are involved are now filed by women.
Federally regulated child support effectively transformed welfare from an issue involving public assistance into one of law enforcement, creating yet another federal police force without clear constitutional justification. The welfare state is employing the penal apparatus to ensure itself continued funding and growth, with methods far more draconian than those used (so far) to collect taxation.
These programs are virtually unassailable, not only because they balance state budgets, but because they play upon our natural sympathy for women and children. Anyone questioning child support incurs feminist charges of defending “deadbeat dads.” Further, by appealing to superficially conservative values, feminists have gained allies among centrist Democrats as well as the neoconservatives who dominate Republican family policy. Even family-values conservatives are reluctant to challenge policies they know to be driving single motherhood and criminalizing fatherhood.
This tacit left-right collusion has locked us into a tragic bureaucratic cycle in which the cures are causing the disease. And the malady of fatherlessness will continue to worsen as long as government officials have a free pass to socialize childrearing.
Whatever its intentions, the state can never create or restore family life. The best it can do is stop destroying it.
Stephen Baskerville, an assistant professor of government at Patrick Henry College, is the author of Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family (Cumberland House).
This article first appeared in the January 2008 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
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T. French asks: Denying middle class aspirations accomplishes what exactly?
The political elite (Republican and Democratic party politicians) don't care how much damage they cause. It's all about filling the pork-barrel. Billions upon billions upon tens of billions of dollars leaking out of the system for no good reason. Baskerville's analysis of these matters is spot on, in his book for example (Taken into Custody). The "divorce industry" is now a so-called public-private partnership. Federal law set-ups the most destructive family policy imaginable and pushes states to implement with huge amounts of pork-barrel funding. All the people in the divorce industry get rich while society crumbles.
JHL say I'm "mistaken," but about what? I was refering to Baskerville's article on the Duke rape hoax abomination and his aassociation with "masculists" and the "men's movement, not his views on divorce.
A few more comments on the former article in which he blames this outrage on "feminist justice" and denies or trivializes the role of blacks. 80-90% of Durham's blacks either believed the "white boys" were guilty or wanted to sentence them to 30-40 years in prison even if they were innocent. And likewise for blacks generally. Of what percentage of white women could one say this?
The players lived in fear of being assaulted or even murdered by blacks, not by white "radical feminists."Apparently, Bakersville must believe that the New Black Panthers -who came to Durham to cheer the prosecution and threaten the Lacrosse players with violence- were white "radical feminist" amazons in black face.
Moreover, the overwhelming proportion of feminists, "radical" and liberal, are anti-white, anti-American leftists. And the millions of white men and women who sided with blacks in trying to destory the lives of Seligman, Finnerty, and Evans were largely or exclusively driven by leftist hatred of white men rather than feminist hatred of men per se.
A few weeks or months(?) after the white players were charged with the "immaculate gang rape" of a black stripper, a black student was accused of raping a white coed at a Duke fraternity party. If Baskerville were right, feminists would have been just as outraged by this allegation -which, unlike the ludicrous charges against the transparently innocent "white boys," is probably true. But there were no protests, no marches, no manifestos, not pot-banging by white feminists.
And imagine if the accuser had been a white female and the accused black members of Duke's basketball team, all other facts being identical. If so, nobody would have even been arrested, so preposterous were the charges, and feminists would not have protested.
Only blacks and their white enablers and sycophants could have sustained this horrifying madness for over a year when the accused were demonstrably innocent to any minally honest and rational person. Baskerville has it exactly backwards. The role of feminism was of secondary importance.
I suggest that the palecons and others who visit this website look up "masculism" and the "men's movement" on the internet and prepare to be amused, repelled, stupified, and possibly frightened. You'll learn that "husband-battering" is a more serious problem than wife beating; that women are as violent as men and teenage males; that circumcision is as horrific and crippling an amputation as female genital mutiliation; that men are "oppressed" because they earn more money than women and control the upper levels of government and the economy; and sundry other absurdities.
And, of course, "masculists" support the ERA, women in combat, the absolute 50/50 integration of the military and all combat positions, police forces, fire departments, prison and jails, etc. With some exceptions, such men are Baskerville's cohorts in the father's rights movement.
It has amazed me the amount of energy the right has devoted to defended a bunch of losers. What happened to the LaCrosse players was wrong, but men of the right should still be able to call their behavior juvenile and reprehensible. An honest assessment would say men like the Duke LaCrosse players are a sure sign of the denigration of society and of the youth.
M.Z. Forrest: Of course what they did was reprehensible. Everyone agrees on that, and it does not require further comment. The gross injustice and false accusations levied against them, however, merit emphasizing, and one can only toil on for so long about sexual morality to a culture that, by and large, does not consider contraception, fornication or indulgence of any sexual perversion to be sinful--provided there is mutual consent--before everyone has left but the quite.
And speaking of fornication, I would like to comment that it is rare for a man of my age to be a virgin, and that as I have grown older and, if you'll forgive the graphic image, increasingly hormonal, my religious motivations for practicing chastity have been well buttressed by nightmares such as we read in this thread. I was a bastard myself, thankfully adopted by a stable and happy family. Many of our friends have not had such happy stories, and several close female friends have advised me not to trust women. I imagine I will eventually have a wife and a family, though I am often frustrated at the particularity required to ensure that that dream does not blow up in my face.
"before everyone has left but the quite"
Make that "before everyone has left but the CHOIR."
Rita,
Why don't you attack me? I think I have the world record for having been subjected to an incredible number of false allegations by my ex. We did a brief on it and I have yet to hear of anyone who has been subjected to the same sheer numbers. Early on I began to set up video and audio equipment in my car and on my person. After an untold number of false allegations were proven false, I was ordered to stop taping because I had been too successful at protecting myself and my child from many of these false allegations.
It is the basis for a complaint to the State Bar Associations if an attorney does not advise a divorcing woman to make false allegations for unfair advantage in disputes over children, property, child support, etc... It works. Perjury pays well for women, only.
Attorneys will readily admit to this facade of violence they create. Judges (off the record) will admit to playing to the PC crowd even when they know that the children will be in great danger with the mother. The U.S. Dept of H&HS website carries statistics on who abuses children the most. It is single mothers, both alone and in conjunction with their new squeeze. The numbers for fathers, in a hidden cornor of the website, is admitted to include 'father figures', so father does not always mean bio-father. A group called Media-Radar has documented this 'fudging' the numbers to make men look badly very thoroughly. At one time the H&HS website had the raw study data online and that was how that little lie was exposed. So, the numbers are even worse on single mothers and their new squeezes hurting the children while the father is not allowed to protect his own children.
The Justice Departments studies and the founder of the modern shelter movement, Erin Prizzy, both state that both genders instigate real violence (as opposed to the "who has the checkbook" false violence) about equally. Then when you look at the actual incidence of violent relationships in all marriages you begin to wonder, "Why all the hysteria?". If I were to put down in this missive, the actual incidence percentage in intact marriages, I would probably be dismissed outright. I will give a clue.
LOOK AT THE U.S. DEPT OF H&HS WEBSITE, TONTO.
Scott,
It is obvious you have not had your children stolen, murdered, abused, or molested with approval of the courts because Mommy approves or "Mommy does it.".
It is obvious you have not been told by a judge, having his abuses of a child and father described, "What has happened to Mr. Scott in this court is as un-Constitutional as all Hell, but since I am not an activist judge, I am not going to do anything about it." Then proceed to gag you, fine you, and sanction you for 'telling the truth'.
I have been in courts as a court watcher and have seen what can only be described as unbelievable, except in the context of a novel by Kafka or Dante's Inferno.
For a better view of this topic, why not buy a copy of Stephen's book, "Taken into Custody"? Then start chasing down the references and see how accurate his presentments are or aren't.
Then criticize with knowledge.
Great article. Our current corrupt system also creates and rewards female sexual predators (as in my case). Destitute females who have maxed out credit cards, have filed bankruptcy, problems paying bills/rent have a new source of income. Pump out illegitimate victims to use like prostitutes at the expense of multiple men. Once the courts steal one man's wealth and belongings, just rack up high arrearages and charge an outrageous service charge and have the slut just follow another male victim home a single night to become prego! So far 3 or more illegitimates by 3 or more male victims. I am for reform and or revolt- in the childrens best interest!
Stay the course!
http://www.RonPaul2008.com
For Clive Boustred of "Life For liberty"
73,000 dead Gulf War vets? A million disabled?
3 million dead Vietnamese?
1 million dead Iraqis?
You tarnish an otherwise admirable organization with your insane exaggerations.
I can give you all three stories of aquaintences who have been divorced.
Friend "N" whom I will call "N". N_ was happily married, his wife met a man at a lake with N and decided that she found him so attractive, she made a play for him right in front of N. They began an affair, and pursued it openly. She'd literally come home and announce she was going out on a date with him. Two months later N gave up and got a divorce. Even though N has joint custody, he still has to pay her child support. She was allowed to keep the house (she didn't work), and he had to pay off her car. They had two young kids.
Why is it that N has to pay her 20-something percent of his before-tax income (which is probably over 30 percent of his after tax income)? SHE LEFT HIM for another man, not the other way around. He was devastated. He told her he would go to any kind of counciling or whatnot to keep the marriage together, but no............................this other guy was such a hunk she just couldn't control herself.
Well, its been a few years. N, through working 50-60 hour weeks, has gotten fairly successful. He has remarried a nice school teacher (wonderful Christian woman, and cute on top of all that), and they are happy. His ex-wife and her paramour are also married, and struggling. Neither make very much money (neither could get a job where drug testing is implemented because both are users, so they are in "secretarial" work now). She looks for every way in the world to get more money out of N. N still pays a substantial portion of her mortgage, but that car he paid off for her is now old, and the money is running out. She and her paramour are so pathetic, they are literally waiting on their parents to die (both will inherit pretty good sums of money) and have openly discussed the windfall of their own parents demise IN FRONT OF THE KIDS. They have an "open" marriage now and sleep with other couples.
Meanwhile my friend and his wife attend church, have bought a nice house, bought some land, are responsible with money, save, are active in the community, excercise, etc.
Its a tale of two different cities, but only a few miles apart. His kids used to favor their mom when they were young (natural), but now favor their dad. Their dad, N, always gives them the "good" advice, insists that they do their homework, helps them with that homework, insists they learn about the economy, watches their sporting events, and in general is a good parent. Their mom is sleeping with umpteen men (and women), is going to drug parties (well into her thirties), doesnt make the kids do their homework or help them in any way, never cooks (they eat takeout at her place), and pretty much doesnt mind to them at all.
Guess who is the "bad guy" in their emails when they have to arrange vacations and in infequent contacts with the state for whatever reason? He is .......................................its amazing. He has about eight years to go and he will be free of payments to her. She literally tries to cause friction in his marriage as much as she can be attempting to get his kids to be caustic to their mother-in-law (whom they now are quite fond of) by telling them (she's not your mom, you dont have to mind her, etc.).
If you talk to any of his ex's aquaintances, they fully believe he is _somehow_ responsible for her unhappiness. Its amazing. He was crazy in love with her. Her new man, now fat, is kind of an old -hippy, sports fanatic kinda guy.
I have two other aquaintences whose story kinda mirrors this one. Woman left to be with another man she met for purely physical reasons. Dads were devastated, but finally went on with their lives. They have to work alot, have a business at home besides their regular job to get by. Both have remarried and are pretty happy. Ex -wives are BOTH now divorced and miserable and WHO DO THEY BLAME???????????????????????///why you know who they blame, their ex. Guys both have to pay child support even though both have joint custody. Kids all prefer to be with dad and his wife rather than mom and whatever guy is banging mom this month. Feminism rules huh? Breaking up once-happy families everywhere.
Irony of ironies.......................both of these women's new husbands were cheating after a while. That is why they are both divorced. The new guy that was willing to have an affair with them, was also willing to have another affair later on with someone else. One of these children in particular, R's daughter, has told him (against his wishes, she's a teenager) that when she is an adult, she is through with her mom. She literally plans to never see her mother after her eighteenth birthday. She has grown to hate her mother that much.
Yeah, that feminism has caused so much happiness in families.
If you leave your spouse for another woman or she leaves you for another man..................................this should be taken into consideration by the law. These families are breaking up for good old selfishness by one party. The kids suffer.
One more thing.......................unmarried women know what the pill is, know what condoms are, know what withdrawl is, and (wrong as it its) know what abortions are. Unmarried women should not get as much child support as married women do, in fact Pat Buchanan's old orphanage idea might have been a good one for unmarried women. Their kids are on the planet because the had unproteceted sex while not married, the ultimate in irresponsiblility. WE should not have to pay for their carelessness.
@62: A relative of mine was also married to a woman who seemed perfectly sane to our family, and when their marriage collapsed, we assumed that our relative's irresponsible past and alcoholic tendencies were to blame. The illusion continued until they agreed to have joint custody of their son (she had two children from two previous marriages, which should have tipped us off that something was wrong with her) when he was about eleven: six months at his place in Florida and then six at hers in Virginia. By now he was remarried to a lovely woman and they were just having a child, shortly before his older son was to return, when his ex-wife's daughter called his wife and announced that her brother was going to stay with his mother for the next six months. In the background she could hear the boy crying, "You said I could go live with my dad and you lied!"
"So are we going to have to pay you child support while he's there?"
"Well, of course!"
"Then you're going to pay us child support when he finally comes down here."
"No."
These two got lucky: the kid turned twelve shortly thereafter and testified against his mother in court. He spent most of the rest of his young life with his father and stepmother, and his mother--who works in the military--had her wages garnished for child support.
It's a true story, and it was badly needed to brighten up a really depressing thread. Obviously it was definitely the exception, not the rule. So many people in my family (myself not excepted) can count many such narrow and fortunate escapes and I cannot help but wonder how or why. Most of my father's family (the side on which this occurred) is not particularly religious, even.
"One more thing…………………..unmarried women know what the pill is, know what condoms are, know what withdrawl is, and (wrong as it its) know what abortions are."
All three of those must be wrong, or it is difficult to understand why ANY deviant sexual behavior is wrong.
Stephen Baskerville is a genious and has uncovered the injustice of a system that is far from preserving family rights.
Please read his book "Taken into Custody."
Male suicide rates for the U.S. in the adult ranges are 4 times higher than for females in the same age range. Initial studies showed this higher rate was due to "relational difficulties" and then all studies stopped. There are grants to study why women and children commit suicide, but nothing for the men.
This is an example of ignoring the elephant in the Living Room.
You can find these figures at http://www.suicidology.org . You can also see the information on grants available. Nothing is there for men.
Stephen covers this in his book "Taken Into Custody".
The next time some politician raises the question of education for our children think of the *mind-boggling* fortune being wasted on people claiming to be operating in a child’s “best interests”.
If the money being allocated to courts, lawyers, psychologists, collection agents and all the other associated people making their living in the “best interests” of children; plus State and Local Governments that are using these “matching federal dollars” however they choose, (also under the umbrella of the “best interests” of children) it doesn’t take long to realize why we can’t afford to educate our children, because all the money is being spent to pay the horde of parasites claiming to act in their “best interests”.
If the money wasted on these parasites was spent educating our children, and paying teachers a decent wage, we would be the best educated country in the world without exception.
There is no person in this world more disgusting than those who steal from every man, woman, and child in this country, in the supposed “best interests of children”. If you really care about anything, or anyone besides yourself, it’s way past time to stand up to these criminals and demand justice.
These words are not in anger, merely in the interest of stating the truth, and encouraging people to act.
Kevin Merck
"If the money wasted on these parasites was spent educating our children, and paying teachers a decent wage, we would be the best educated country in the world without exception."
I know this is sidetracking, but while I strongly support higher salaries for primary and secondary teachers and do not oppose the concept of public education per se, pumping more money into the schools at this point would not be a wise decision any way you slice it. Until the NEA cohort's progressive psychobabble "expiriments" (as though the children of America were their own personal lab rats, so little does the left regard human life) are ended, facilities are streamlined and a solid, rigorous and classical curriculum replaces the present study guides for standardized tests that masquerade as "education," decent people should do everything they can to starve off public education in America, which is every bit as parasitic as these anti-family societies of which we now speak.
Also, to give just one example of how this relates to our discussion, left-wing activists actually believe it is necessary to have a well-funded and nutritious hot lunch program in every public schools so that single mothers can be reassured that their child will have at least one hot meal during the day--in other words, so that a woman who mothers a bastard child will not feel so guilty about her stupid decision. I wonder if these morons support year-round schooling (which I do) or compulsory attendance on weekends and holidays so that these kids won't miss a day. Actually, given how much they hate anything holy (especially Christmas), they might just well.
I am not fully convinced that there has been a shift from welfare to mandatory child support. It appears that the shift is for more participation in government programs as a form of unhealthy co-dependence between citizen and state instead of healthy inter-depedence between citizens.
In fact, some states are instituting pass-through waivers inappropriately under the Title IV-D federal program, so that a welfare recipient can also receive full child support benefits, regardless if the other parent is willing and able to directly raise the child but is limited by court order in doing so. Additionally many child support obligors are being forced to enter onto Food Assistance programs because of the overwhelming percentage of their income is being taken away from them before they receive their check, despite their willingness and ability to actually partake in raising their mutual child and properly controlling their own finances.
The propaganda machine is turning folks, you will see articles that say things like Federal Government targets single parents to pay back for Title IV-D enforcement, Federal Government puts its bills onto custodial parents, etc. etc. The point is, we have to limit participation of these free for all welfare programs and reduce government expansion for both welfare and child support otherwise, EVERY person will be forced onto the federal government nipple, mostly against their will just because one parent wants to have unilateral control of a child. Involuntary forced participation in these government programs is obviously wrong.
We need to focus on reducing caseloads, and only reward states for producing a positive result instead of a negative outcome. Make it more expensive for single parents than it is for parents that work together so that people don't get rewarded for bad behavior. Punish parents equally for conflict, teach healthy behavior and specifically don't reward our courts and one party for actively and effectively RESTRICTING the other parent from equally participating.
Child support is more than a checkbook or paycheck, it's the legacy that is passed through to our progeny. Child Support is reading a story to your child, playing with them, teaching them, and most importantly protecting them.
Lary Holland
http://www.familycourtreports.com/serendipity
I agree with Lary Holland's comment.
The way I see it with the child support and social services laws as they are, is that they are repugnant to the United States Constitution and should therefore be unenforceable.
Class Action should and will be taken.
Mike Russo
http://www.f4j.us
http://www.getyourjusticelive.com
It's ALL "In The Best Interest Of The Child"! Who came up with this? Hitler! It's Hitler's State Of The Child right here in America!
Why?
It's very profitable for Lawyers, Judges, psycologist, GALs, mediators, Child Services and the States
Just follow the money!
I could'nt agree with lary more. I am a fit parent that has been fighting for equal custody of my two kids now for two and a half years. Why did I lose them? The ex decided she did'nt want to be married anymore. Why am I still fighting for them? Because they just gave them to her. The corrupt court system and the lawyers involved Know that I will keep shelling out the dollars to get them back. Not to mention the Huge Dollars they get from Title IV funding.
It just does'nt pay to keep families together.
You would think that our Government and the Judiciary in County and City jurisdictions would want strong families in their communities but unfortunately they dont. With the overwhelming
evidence showing the problems of children in Fatherless homes,
"The best interest of the children" is just a phrase that portray's the Government's caring concern for children. Ha! Anyone that has been through the Divorce Industry knows the truth.
Keep it up Steven. Bring the system into the light.
Dr. Baskerville’s article cuts through the mire in revealing the, all too often, hidden presumptions underlying legislative intent. In disclosing the states’ money grubbing for Federal Title IV-D welfare funds, Dr. Baskerville exposes states’ establishing post hoc a new hypothesis in their claims for Federal funds.
The new hypothesis is directed towards the middle class. Its fundamental is children of divorce with a necessity of a sole custody mother; aligned with legislative intent to collect child support dollars from the so called, codified created, dead-beat dad.
The new welfare state is the former middle class family, now fractured through divorce into a sole custody mom; designed to exclude dad from the children’s lives, while extorting, under law, exorbitant amounts of money from dad, for the sole purpose of what- Funding mom and the kids? No! Rather it is for the funding of the states through Federal Title IV-D welfare funds! Unimpeded divorce becomes the states' vehicle to accomplish its own self-funding!
The states' premise in divorce, through its own codification is the "best interest of the child(ren)." In accomplishing the "best interest test," the states continue to biasly rule towards one end- Sole custody mothers. Split custody is a facade. Sole custody for fathers is an impossibility. States' legislatures refuse to enact presumption of joint custody legislation. Why so? The Federal government refuses to mandate states to enact presumption of joint custody as a requisite for collecting Title IV-D funds. Again, Why So?
Joint custody, low support Orders and collective parenting are the devices of evil for states attached to the "Federal Nipple." Easy divorce laws, unlimited Federal funding under welfare laws (now called child support collection), neo-best interest of the child(ren), and collective daddy bashing are the employed tactics of corruption for the states' own pocket.
The states' repeated behavior in its Court Orders for: Sole custody moms, huge child support due from fathers, and exclusion of dads from children's lives, is all done under the guise of the states' claimed "best interest of the child;" proves nothing could be farther from the truth. Dr. Baskerville book has publicly exposed the states’ corruption with the truth!
The Title IV program for fiscal year 2007 totaled one-half of the Federal budgets 1.2 Trillion dollars in payouts. That is 600 Billion dollars in payouts called entitlements. Take that information to your prefered candidate for president in the 2008 election. The next time you hear taxes need to be raised to pay our national debt and the exorbitant accruing interest on that debt, ask yourself- Where is all the money going? It is not to the Defense budget, rather it is to the Title IV program!
The states' corruption in Title IV-D is stealing your Federal tax dollars, while you thought the divorce industry was not affecting you! The stolen Title IV-D funds do not go to the children of divorce, rather the funds go directly to states, to pay for: Judges, FOC workers, legislatures, senators, and whatever the states deem neccesary in how they desire to spend the money on themselves. The states do all this with your expressed approval!
We, as a people, have been robbed when we were dupped into believing the legislative proclamation, "that citizens are entitled to an easy, no restriction, divorce law called- No fault divorce!"
Slavery dismantled the African American family because there was a financial gain for the slave master in seperating the children and the father from the mother in sale. The African American culture struggled up the 1970's to put itself back together post slavery, reinventing the black family. Making up the majority of the problems with poverty in America and monopolizing the prisons with single parented children, we have paved the way for understanding where white America is willingly going.
Now the slave master has been replaced by the state in its function of profiting from family destruction, the selling off of family members has gone mainstream. We all look at the status of the African American poor with heavy eyes but failed to realized its the future of America for all races.
Ever soiling Nike's phrase "If I could be like Mike". Consider the displaced anger required from white children to adopt the most violent form of music ever created, Gangster Rap. Heavy metal not addressing verbally and violently enough thier anger, Rap album sales are now dominated by white youth by over 70%.
In the olden times miners toted canaries in the mines as an early warning system to deadly levels of toxic gases. When the canary died the miners brething the same gases fled knowing they would be next. African American's are the canary in the cave that have been dieing for a hundred years now to be aimlessly followed by the rest of America forcibly through Title IVD and other legislation profitizing carving up the family.
Well said Kenyatte post 75. Now the feds, consorting with the several states, have taken control of the family, in the name of "women and children first", whether feminist or Titanic-conservative inspired. Baskerville's book is the first to bridge both inspirations of government do-gooders.
George Mason, Dad to Luke and Cassie
of Massachusetts, Patriot of Massacres, TeaParties, and 'Shot Heard Round the World"
508.735.6615
74Randall Scotti said:
---“The Title IV program for fiscal year 2007 totaled one-half of the Federal budgets 1.2 Trillion dollars in payouts. That is 600 Billion dollars in payouts called entitlements. Take that information to your preferred candidate for president in the 2008 election. The next time you hear taxes need to be raised to pay our national debt and the exorbitant accruing interest on that debt, ask yourself- Where is all the money going? It’s not to the Defense budget; rather it’s to the Title IV program!”
That’s a great point Randall, and I think it’s what we really need to focus on. These people are claiming to operating in the “child’s best interest”, but that’s a heinous lie, which is costing these very children their heritage.
I can’t think of a more abhorrent group of individuals, than those who make their living stealing from every man, woman and child in this country, using the nauseating pretense of “the best interests of children”.
Kevin Merck
First off, children need to maintain a relationship with both parents, not just one parent. There's too much risk - drugs, alcohol, delinquency, suicide, etc. for kids solely raised by one parent.
If there was 50/50 custody, the relationship would be maintained, but then the state wouldn't receive the money they want - for every dollar collected, each state receives a percentage of federal incentive money.
For those parents that file false charges against the other, the liar should be put in jail. Enough is enough already. Too many lives have been ruined because of such lies. If there were actual consequences, this would occur less often.
Child support - why is it based on gross income? When the parents were married, they lived off of their combined net income. When child support is necessary, it should be based on net income, and there should be enough money for the non-custodial parent to live on. What good is there if the child can't visit the non-custodial parent if this parent is living on the street, because he/she can't afford to live on what's left over after child support is deducted.
When there is 50/50 custody, there is no custodial or non-custodial parent. The child spends equal time with both parents, and each parent is responsible for their own finances, which eliminates the need for child support altogether.
The courts presently force one parent to be the “non-custodial parent” for the sole purpose of extorting so-called “child support”.
Child support should only be paid by mothers/fathers who don’t take an equal role in raising their children. If the mother/father would rather pay child support, than have equal custody of the child/children, then there isn’t much anyone can do about that. The issue is when one parent is denied custody of their children, through no fault of their own, and then forced to pay child support.
When a child is born out of wedlock, the father needs to be afforded the equal protection of our laws which is currently not happening. The father needs to be able to give the child up for adoption, the same as the mother has that choice. If the man wants to father the child, then he should get 50/50 custody of his child, with no child support ordered, unless agreed to by the mother and father.
We need to get the government out of the “child support racket” altogether. Every parent has a constitutionally guaranteed right to the care and custody of their children and “must” be afforded the equal protection of our laws. This isn’t just a good idea that would be nice if it were enforced; this is the law of the land and must be enforced.
Anyone who stands in the way of the equal protection of our citizens is a “domestic enemy” and should be dealt with accordingly.
Kevin Merck
With reguards to Kenyatte Hay rap music is mostly dead...call up a record company and ask how bad their sales are the past five years.
The sexual revolution boils down to many things and it gets beyond just sex...here's a few things to start
1) the social barriers against marriage/relationships are gone. It's ok if it's a different skin color, religion, creed, significantly older/younger (provided it's legal) etc
2) Labor saving devices eliminated what was mostly womens work 100 years ago...washing dishes, washing clothing, drying clothing, microwave ovens.
3) Birth control...condoms, abortion, "the pill" and technically viagra. So then we have the concept also of "the pill" for men in the future
4) laws are now going BACK towards some responsibility. In massachusetts of all states they are considering a law that if it's discovered that a person is NOT found to be a biological parent that they no longer have to pay child support
5) economically to some it might just make sense not to have kids. If college = debt and debt = quite a long time to pay off then it might just fit.
Mr. Baskerville touched on part of this, but it goes further. First there is no-fault divorce. There is no such thing. Try getting divorced, or sit in on some divorce hearings (though most of them are in judges chambers with no court reporters and only a judge and a sheriff's deputy present to referee). Rarely are any decisions that come out of these hearings equitable. No matter which parent gets custody of the children, the other parent automatically becomes a victim.
Then you get to support enforcement. If a decree for child support were rendered and sent to support enforcement and enforced from the day it arrives, there would be no arrearages (some states are collecting money from 20 years back. One can't help but wonder why, or who was at fault, or how this could happen). Ideally, to make things right, no support issue should be dealt with in a divorce hearing. The custodial parent should have to apply for support the same way they apply for welfare. Their income, assets, etc., should be looked at and they should have to first be found eligible to receive support based on the same standards they would have to meet to get AFDC. Then, if they are found eligible to receive child support, the absent parent should be called in and his/her financial picture looked at. At that point a decision should be made on what the absent parent can afford to pay. Also should be taken into account where the children are each day (a simple calendar with X's would work) provided each month by each parent. Who had to feed them what dates should also be taken into account. This should have to be on mandatory monthly reporting just like foodstamps. That way you might come up with something fair where child support is concerned.
As to all this back support that's being collected for 20 years back, or ten years or four or whatever, where did the fault lie for NOT collecting it if it was court ordered all those years. It all comes back to the idea that if a person is the custodial parent and they want child support it should start with them. THEY should have to get off their dead butts and go apply to get it and then next, support enforcement should have to try to collect. If neither of these things happened then anything in those vacant months should be a moot issue. Period. I think they call that "laches" (sitting on your hands). There may be more, but I can only think off hand of two states that apply this and in FL it depends on whether the support worker likes you whether they will even consider it. If someone really dug into it most of the back support owed in this country is not because there was a deadbeat dad or mom (incidentally, that's profiling) but because either the custodial parent didn't want the money for whatever reason or because support enforcement had orders and failed to collect. So either the custodial parent should have to forget about it if they didn't TRY to collect, or support enforcement should have to pay them out of their pocket if there was a court order in existence that they didn't enforce. At 18, or when a leaves home (whichever comes first) that should be the end of it. Whatever wasn't taken care of by then should be water under the bridge.
Just my thoughts......................
Trish, above, makes an excellent point. When we read stories about huge amounts of child support owed-- $25,000 and up, does anyone ask how did it get to be this much? All payments started at a smaller amount and if the monthly amount had been collected, it never would have soared to this amounts, making it nearly impossible for most non-custodial parents to pay and probably impossible for the custodial parent to collect.
Therein, lies the problem, that without a well-compensated attorney, something most single parents cannot afford when they, like me, are trying to pay the rent and put food on the table, the small amounts of support go uncollected. The time most likely the support will be collected and paid.
The government child support enforcement system is a pathetic fiefdom that most often does not act in the best interest of the child. No wonder father's rights groups are up in arms! I wish the moms were as well organized and as well financed. They could join together to actually get something done instead of sniping at each other.
I have been in the Florida system for over a year and my case has yet to go before legal review to establish a court order. My file has been bounced among staff more times than a basketball. So, that when I do get into court, hopefully before the little tyke turns 18, there will already be a sizable arrearage which, I predict will never be collected.
Now, in a perfect world, the dad (or mom) would be contributing to the support the genetic material he or she donated and we wouldn't need lawyers, courts, useless government employees and sad professors.
Yawn, Mr. Baskerville makes the same tired comments about greedy custodial parents trying to take the poor non-custodial parent to court to gain extraordinary judgments so they can live the lavish lifestyle.
What really needs to be addressed is the incompetence of the system on behalf of all parties.
The Judge did not ask my son for a financial statement nor did she review documentation. He makes minimum wage at 28 hrs per week, and she passed a motion for 800.00 a month wreaking havoc on my son, his children, refusing to rework the order when it has been brought to the courts attention every month since April of 2007, we are 20,000 in debt, his wife is mentally ill and abusive and just gave birth to another kid, thank goodness not our son's, prior to this they had shared custody and the mother had them with my son and us better than 90% of the time, she is a narcissist and the Florida Family Court Systen is allowing my family and our grandchildren to be victims of legal abuse syndrome, while they threaten to throw our son in jail left and right for a bogus financial amount, and the judge does not take any accountability, when the custody issue is resolved my husband and I plan to take legal action and hold all those accountable who knowingly caused harm to our grandchildren and financially raped us for an entire year. Child support enforcement is also shocked and appalled asking our son, what are you related to the rockefellers? They apathy, level of incompetence is both shocking and disturbing, gender bias is ruining families, children need both parents and this is a violation of human rights
Amen, Susan In FL!!!! I was in a FL support enforcement office last week. A friend of mine has two children, her husband is in jail and on a WORK RELEASE (receives MONEY!!!!) program. Her case has been there for six months and the jail (and MONEY!!!!) are one mile away. The worker told her that they hadn't done anything because they needed an address to serve papers (she told him he was in jail the day she applied, these are all gov't agencies - you can't tell me the worker couldn't get or didn't already have the address for the jail - she could probably just look in one of her other clients files or something). Anyway, they made the mother leave, go to the jail, and then call back with the jail's address. NOW, the worker said, she could do something!!!. So what you have here is a situation where because A WORKER FAILED TO ACT, the children were deprived of their child support, the guy in jail was starting out six months (or more) in arrears before he even got any kind of order to pay (another DEADBEAT DAD has been CREATED!!!). They will be adding interest to the uncollected debt so it will be growing at an alarming rate. All this could have been alleviated had the worker made one call the day the original case came in, typed her paperwork that day (twenty minutes), got the papers served (maybe two days, but in jail should be able to be done on a moment's notice - we're talking getting something to a "captive audience") and then the jail start taking his payment out of the very next paycheck he got. There would be no arrearage and there'd be no deadbeat dad - I think the deadbeat is the support enforcement system, and I think that anytime they fail to get money that's AVAILABLE in a timely manner, they should have to pay it themselves out of their own pocket - As in my case, there was a court order in place, they were collecting monthly, then stopped and CLOSED the case (I got a letter from them saying so) and then ten years later informed me I owed them $52000. I had worked all the time, they knew where I was, and there was no reason for them not to collect in ten years. They bypassed my children completely in this (they were both grown when they reopened the case) and at 60 years old I'm actually not supporting my children, I'm supporting my ex husband whom I despise and from whom I've been divorced for 21 years. I say if they WANT him to have all this money, since it was available and they didn't collect it - why don't THEY pay it to him and leave me alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Accents on Cooking:
Two cooks meet, meats to cook too
Cooking the meat to make ready to eat let this meat bring out the accent of cooking the meet.
Turn the heet on on the way to heat the meat for a taste with the accent on the meet.
Getting ready the accent to put on the meat, for the meet, there’s meat that’s meet to be cooked as others meet in the way to weigh their meat for the wait to be cooked, by weight.
Now, whose meat is meet to get cooked first are whose meat gets cooked for the accent on the meet, for the flavour of the meat.
That is, how do you say, “Whose accent on the accent to accent whose meet to cook for those waiting to accent on the accent of the accent of the meet where there’s meat to be cooked?”
(i.e., First to court the meet, Too court the meat first.)
© 2006 greg m james
To 82 Susan In Fla,
Susan, perhaps in some cases uncollected funds have been uncollected by the state, but non-collection is a dis-incentive to the state in its receipt of Title IV-D. Most often and quite contrary to your belief, the uncollected funds which amass to these exorbatant arrearages accrue from Family Courts which refuse to make child support awards commensurate with the income of the non-custodial parent. What do you think about a father (true story!) who makes $35,000/ year and has a child support payment of $4,800/ month? How is he suppose to pay it? He has 71% of his check garnished weekly and he has amassed over $60,000 in arrearages in a little over two years of divorce.
My second point to you goes to your conclusion that moms and dads cannot get justice because the courts are incompetent. Your statement is half true on half the point! When one parent gets the kids and the other is removed from the life of the kids, but is required to remain as a funding agent, half the parties in court got justice, some might say; while the other half got no justice at all! But, you ignored Dr. Baskerville's entire point (Try reading the book). What about the kids? Or, do you believe that children's best interest is served with only one parent actively involved in their lives?
Susan, get a clue! This is not about Dads not wanting to pay child support. Nor, is it about moms not being able to collect child support! Both propositions are the collective states' straw horses to keep both sides- moms and dads from uniting against a corrupt governmental system which uses children as its tool! This is about parents- both moms and dads, who both want to be actively involved in their childrens' lives!
To further the point, do some research on Foster Care and Title IV-E, which strips both parents of custody so that the state can collect Federal monies after it has kidnapped children from both of the parents. Title IV-D and E are money pools for all states and the states are tapping into this annual trillion dollar pile through the kidnapping of all of our children, either in divorce or in terminating both parent's rights through child protective services!
Do the research! Google Child Protective Services abuses! Google Title IV-D abuses! Visit some of the many websites and groups on the net. The stories you'll hear are both astounding and too numerous to be false! After you have done your research; After you have read Dr. Baskerville's book; Then please post AN INFORMED comment to this blog!