While reading Roissy’s blog comments, Bhetti Ameen, a young Arab medical student in the UK (read her blog), asked a question that made me stop and think. After reading about the case of Frank Hatley, a South Georgia man who was ordered to pay years of child support for a child that was not his, was subsequently impoverished and jailed multiple times, and then, once freed from jail after it had been proven the child was not his, was still ordered to pay $16,000 of child support arrears, Ms. Ameen asked “Isn’t this some sort of human rights violation?”
Why yes, I believe it is a human rights violation. Here in America, we men are so accustomed to seeing human rights as an issue that solely concerns women and children that we forget that men have them as well. We send troops halfway around the world, justifying our intervention as a mission to pluck burqas off of Afghan women, so that they may wear makeup and participate in fashion shows. Yet here at home we impoverish, imprison and shoot men whose most heinous crime appears to have been getting married and/or becoming fathers (or, as is the case with Hatley, putative fathers).
There is no other country in the world that jails and oppresses men for having children to the extent that the US does. In fact, I don’t think this barbaric practice even exists outside of the Anglosphere. Yet even as we hear American politicians and human rights groups hammering away at different countries for alleged rights violations, we almost never hear foreign criticism of American family law and all of the abuses it entails. Why not?
I think the reason opposition to our abusive family law system has not gone international is that the extent of the problem is not well-known outside of the Anglosphere, and given our own cultural imperialism, plenty of foreigners don’t really care what happens to American men. In fact, the plight of divorced and non-custodial fathers is not particularly well-known in America by people who have not been exposed to its ravages, despite the efforts of a few brave souls to bring it to attention.
What I would suggest is that international groups that are concerned about human rights should bring this matter to the attention of the international community. If America can justify her policies and military interventionism by appealing to human rights, shouldn’t she face some similar scrutiny for how she treats her men? Taking up this issue would be far more politically advantageous to foreign countries with qualms about American human rights abuses than, say, throwing a tantrum over the execution of murderers such as Tookie Williams.
Taking up the plight of American men as an international human rights issue would be a wise and righteous thing to do, because the treatment of American men is a true injustice keenly felt by millions of men, including a disproportionate number of American servicemen. If America cannot afford justice to her own fathers, husbands and and sons, what right does she have to preach human rights to the rest of the world?
10 responses so far ↓
1 Puma // Jul 16, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Welmer this is a brilliant idea. Nothing would be more embarassing to our elite Social Engineers in power than to have the International Human Rights Commission (or The Hague) issue such a report.
2 novaseeker // Jul 16, 2009 at 2:28 pm
The entire system is a legal farce.
The federal courts refuse to enforce the constitution in family courts due to issues of “comity”, believing that in most cases (exceptions are the miscegenation cases, for example), family law is a state law issue, with no federal constitutional implications (!). And the state courts often hide behind this silly idea that because family courts are courts that sit in “equity”, rather than “law”, they are not subject to constitutional restrictions (!).
Both ideas are legally bullshit. The courts don’t want to constitutionalize family law because it would seriously change how the whole system works .. and they can’t have that. So instead they create legal fictions to pretend that the constitution does not apply to the state (1) taking away your house, (2) taking away your children, (3) confiscating your income, (4) jailing you peremptorily without hearing and so on. The most basic and fundamental areas of your life are subject to being substantially screwed with by the state and its courts WITH NO CONSTITUTIONAL RECOURSE. Why the hell do we need a bloody constitution if the state can take my house, my kids, my income and my freedom without worrying about the constitution? What more important things are there than these?
In fact, in the United States, you have more rights under the constitution as an accused rapist than you do as a father. I’ll say that again: the constitution protects you more if you are accused of a crime than if you are simply a father fighting for custody, or income, or home. Simply put, men, unless acting as criminals, have *no* rights in our courts when acting in their normal capacities as husbands and fathers. No rights at all.
And, in fact, the family law gurus — feminists one and all — are moving the state of the law to a place that is even more explicitly dismissive of the idea that parents have any rights at all in court, and towards the idea that the almighty child wins the day — as determined by the court, of course, which means the state, which, as a practical matter, means the mother almost all the time. They are now drafting papers and so on to develop model laws that will explicitly exclude any consideration of the “rights” of either parent, and simply have the state decide what is in the best interests of the child (which means mother most of the time).
There is no justice in this system. It is a jury-rigged mess, operating largely in secret, which keeps no transcripts, silences parents with gag orders, suppresses who the judges are in individual cases, and systematically prevents the constitution from protecting people against the power of the state to invade the most meaningful areas of their lives: home, children, livelihood. The current system is straight out of 1984, full stop. With it in place, one can honestly say that the regime which adheres to such a systematic oppression of the rights of men is frankly no longer due any meaningful support from men — financially, patriotically or otherwise.
3 Miss Bhetti // Jul 16, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Precisely.
Calling Amnesty International, something has gone wrong here.
Isn’t there a higher court this can go to in similar cases? Beyond the constitution but international law?
4 Puma // Jul 16, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Nice suggestion Bhetti.
Shukran!
5 miles // Jul 16, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Amen Welmer. DNA tests should be performed at birth. No man should have to pay for a kid who is not his own. There is a -real- biological father out there somewhere.
Post scriptum: Child support should be “capped” at no more than $500 a month per child. We need to end this “lottery mentality” some women have by trying to get pregnant by athletes and wealthy businessmen. It does not take $10K a month to take care of a child, and women shouldn’t be getting paid that much for it. The percentage deduction is grossly unfair.
6 Justin // Jul 16, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Why should women get anything for child support? If a parent can’t support her own child, the child should be taken away and given to the parent who is capable of supporting it. Providing support on the basis of income on encourages a “race to the bottom” and a lot of lying when it comes to money, esp. support by family members and new boyfriends.
7 Lukobe // Jul 17, 2009 at 8:49 am
Welmer, thanks for the link to Bhetti.
Bhetti, great blog. All I’ve seen so far is that you like Robert Heinlein, but that’s enough to make me want to go back!
Justin: Child support is supposedly for the benefit of the child. Consider a situation in which the parents are unmarried and the father doesn’t want custody. You don’t think he owes any money in that case? Or a situation in which the family has broken up because of the father’s infidelity, and he’s a surgeon and she’s a secretary. I’m not saying this is usually how things are, I’m just saying there are some cases in which child support should make sense even to you.
Actually, even in cases in which the mother has quite a bit of money, I think the law still requires child support for the benefit of the child. Perhaps in such cases, *if it would not constitute an undue hardship to the father*, such child support could be paid into a trust for the child when he turns 18, or a college fund.
All: Amnesty International will totally report on the U.S. if it’s about the death penalty or the actions of the U.S. abroad, but don’t hold your breath waiting for them to start going after human-rights violations in this country unless it’s strictly a minority or women’s issue. Sad, but true.
8 Justin // Jul 17, 2009 at 9:10 am
If the parents are unmarried and the father doesn’t want custody, why should he have to provide support? A woman has the options of abortion or adoption to escape child support, why should a man have less?
If a woman chooses to have a child out of wedlock, without the consent or support of the father, that is HER CHOICE. He should not be enslaved to her choice.
In the case of marriage, that is a different ball of wax, because it involves choice and consent. But it also, traditionally, involved the element of responsibility, embodied in FAULT.
Your situation, the rich cheating doctor abandoning his children, is almost implausible in today’s world. The overwhelming reality is the faithless mom leaving because she is “no longer happy” knowing she can get 1/2 the assets, allimony, and child support, EVEN IF her husband has done nothing wrong. She can even quit her job and live with her new boyfriend for free, and the father’s obligation actually goes up.
Do your reasearch: which is more prevalent: a rich cheating dad who refuses to support his children, or a poor unsatisfied mother who leaves on no-fault grounds? Dude, its not even close.
Using that scenario as an example is submitting to the mental worldview of the feminist: the woman gets all the power but none of the responsibility.
9 Lukobe // Jul 17, 2009 at 11:52 am
I don’t need to do research for a comment to a post in which I was giving out hypotheticals, Justin.
“If a woman chooses to have a child out of wedlock, without the consent or support of the father, that is HER CHOICE.”
Yes. That is true. But I wasn’t talking about her having given birth without the father’s consent. What about this?
“If a woman chooses to have a child out of wedlock, without the support of the father, that is HER CHOICE.”
Does that still make sense to you?
What if the couple were in a committed relationship at the time of the birth? You still think the father owes nothing toward the child’s upkeep?
10 Lukobe // Jul 17, 2009 at 12:40 pm
BTW, I should clarify my second quote. Change it to “If a woman chooses to have a child out of wedlock, and then the couple breaks up, and the father doesn’t want to provide support, that is HER CHOICE.”
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