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June 06, 2005
Amanda Prevailed
I'm listening to Glenn Sacks's "His Side" archive right now. Amanda is doing just fine. Barry from Alas also called in. Just as when Hugo was a guest, there are LOTS of commercials from lawyers seeking to fund their new BMWs and yachts by advertising on the show for customers. There's a sucker born every minute, and angry dads are a great source of income for savvy lawyers.
I also thought it was ironic that Sacks complained about feminists who rightly think that many men contest custody in order to lower their child support obligations (he says those dads just want more time with their children), and lo and behold, the first commercial after that segment was for a company that "helps" men who think they pay too much child support. Another commercial shortly after that one was also about helping men get out of their child support obligations.
Posted on June 6, 2005 at 08:23 AM | Permalink
Comments
and lo and behold, the first commercial after that segment was for a company that "helps" men who think they pay too much child support.<<<
Trish,
The first ad after that segment was for JobCouch and has nothing to do with CS.
>>Another commercial shortly after that one was also about helping men get out of their child support obligations.<<
That was for childsupportliberatio and they about helping men get out of paying TOO MUCH child support. Not getting out of their obligations completely.
Posted by: Beste at Jun 6, 2005 9:08:33 AM
*blush* Thanks for the compliment. I haven't gotten the expected flood of emails, thought I noticed that they are talking smack about me on boards that shall not be named.
Posted by: Amanda at Jun 6, 2005 10:06:31 AM
Beste, there were two commercials for companies that help men get out of paying child support. Of course, fathers' rights activists always say that child support is "hidden alimony" and they complain that they pay too much of it. It isn't "hidden alimony, and noncustodial parents contributed only 19 percent, on average, towards their children's household incomes. That's not "too much" child support. It isn't enough.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Jun 6, 2005 10:20:14 AM
I can bet which boards those are, Amanda, and I won't name them either.
I'm glad you did well. I knew you would. Congratulations.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Jun 6, 2005 10:21:00 AM
Beste, there were two commercials for companies that help men get out of paying child support.<<
Trish, during the first ad break there was only one ad for a group that specialized in reducing Child Support. That was the one for childsupportliberation. The other ads aired during that break were for ACF&C, Mens Centre LA, JobCoach and ourfamilywizard.com
Posted by: Beste at Jun 6, 2005 10:45:51 AM
I can bet which boards those are, Amanda, and I won't name them either.<<
There are several Mens boards that have topics on Amanda. You could at least give us a clue of which one u r talking about.
Posted by: Beste at Jun 6, 2005 10:50:17 AM
Hey Beste:
I'm sorry: "TOO MUCH child support"? I don't know many kids who are suffering from TOO MUCH child support. In fact when it comes to supporting a child financially, physically, emotionally and practically the concept of TOO MUCH just doesn't come into it.
Posted by: Cruella at Jun 6, 2005 10:50:36 AM
"...noncustodial parents contributed only 19 percent...It isn't enough."
What do you think is enough, Trish?
Posted by: Anne at Jun 6, 2005 11:48:43 AM
Cruella, he's just a men's rights activist from one of the men's boards forums. He wants Amanda to name and link to the board to drive up hits. Don't bother, Amanda. He's not worth the time and energy.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Jun 6, 2005 12:27:48 PM
Oh I know. He's proud of himself for starting up a worthless pissing and moaning contest.
Posted by: Amanda at Jun 6, 2005 12:32:02 PM
yeah i know. i get a few of them on my blog too. i figure that's what the delete button's for. although usually they make such pratts of themselves i can leave stuff up to give other readers a laugh.
Posted by: Cruella at Jun 6, 2005 1:19:42 PM
Amanda,
I was just asking you a questtion, no need to get stroppy.
Trish,
Do you really think we want hits from your site? There is no way I would even link any of our boards/groups to your site. I was just curious as to which board you were lurking at that’s all.
Posted by: Beste at Jun 6, 2005 1:35:47 PM
Hi Triss, I think I have just come of the site you may be refering to, the site has had a big problem with "trolls" in the past and they only want the site accessed by
people with simlar beliefs so they don't want the site promoted on some sections of the internet. I don't go there often (the forum scares me with its misogyny)
so I don't recognise your name on the forum. whats your username? I am PheonixUK there
Posted by: Alex at Jun 6, 2005 2:00:35 PM
Alex, I don't post there. I read it a couple of months back when Hugo Schwyzer was a guest on Glenn Sacks's show, but I haven't visited it since. You're right that it's very misogynistic. Stuff like that would just make me roll my eyes, so I don't bother with it.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Jun 6, 2005 2:11:37 PM
Don't get snappy with me, young lady! My god, the mouths on these broads these days.
Posted by: Amanda at Jun 6, 2005 3:37:45 PM
Just curious; when it comes to the livelihoods of your own children, how much is too much? Anyone care to throw out a figure? For God's sake, they're your own children. Lousy deadbeats.
Posted by: Dan Jacobson at Jun 6, 2005 5:48:10 PM
Too much child support? Have we all gone mad, man? I'm disgruntled with my ex, too, but I don't think my support payments are onerous. If FRAs, whom I acutally think have more of a point than feminists are willing to grant, were really that interested in their kids, they'd leave off the money banter and work on something they could do something about, eg, making move-away laws more reasonable. Face it, guys, you'll always have to fork it out and it may be distasteful, but until your kids can get food at the supermarket with their good looks, you have a duty to support them.
Now, on to Amanda: nice anecdote about your father, but I regret to say that it sounds like the same ol' song in a different key: Mom knows best and Dad should just pay up and be grateful he gets visitation. And I don't blame you; child-rearing is the last mostly-female locker room left in American life. Wouldn't want to lose that now, would you?
Posted by: DP in SF at Jun 6, 2005 6:49:35 PM
Cruella: you're right, there is no too much when it comes to financial/non-financial support of one's children. This is why some of us are desperate enough to contemplate what FRAs say. It does not one whit of good to tell us to keep a stiff upper lip when ex moves a thousand miles away and you know you can't afford to visit but every other year--if that--because of cost of living and your SOB of a boss who thinks kids are a four-letter word. It's cold comfort for those of us not in the managerial/professional class to be reminded that it probably is in the kids' best interest. We deserve remedies too.
Posted by: DP in SF at Jun 6, 2005 6:58:58 PM
"I also thought it was ironic that Sacks complained about feminists who rightly think that many men contest custody in order to lower their child support obligations (he says those dads just want more time with their children), and lo and behold, the first commercial after that segment was for a company that "helps" men who think they pay too much child support. Another commercial shortly after that one was also about helping men get out of their child support obligations."
Of course this is only "ironic" if getting custody actually lowers your child support obligations. If, for instance:
"noncustodial parents contributed only 19 percent, on average, towards their children's household incomes"
then getting custody, or even shared custody, would tend to increase the support they provide for their children.
I find it difficult to understand the idea that a father owes his children financial support, but must never, ever take on the lion's share of the work of raising children, and that if he wants to support the children in his own household rather than write a check and rarely see them, it's some sort of nefarious plot.
Posted by: Ken at Jun 6, 2005 7:05:59 PM
Ken,
You do point out one of the many interesting dichotomies of feminist dogma. These posts that dwell on the money indicate to me that there is considerable lack of understanding that a father's love for his children can be absolutely true and incorrupt. Whether this ilack of understanding is due to ignorance, their own particular biases, or some other cause, without such an understanding there can be almost no meeting of the minds with such folks and FRA's.
With respect to their indignation that some firms actually had the gall to advertise their LEGAL businesses on the Sacks show, they may be unaware that a father, when served with a divorce petition, is required by law to appear in a 'court of law' and present his case. The petition he received likely revokes his parenting rights, restricts his rights to use or convert marital property, requires payment of support (as calculated by the mother's attorney), among other things. It shouldn't be too hard to understand why he would NEED to seek out a lawyer. For every father with a lawyer there is likely a mother with a lawyer.
Posted by: david at Jun 6, 2005 8:12:05 PM
Now why don't you guys go back to the men's forums where you came from? You aren't going to get your way on my blog.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Jun 6, 2005 8:21:13 PM
Trish whines, "Now why don't you guys go back to the men's forums where you came from? You aren't going to get your way on my blog."
And so we find the thought control police asserting their power to censor men's issues and silence them.
Funny how feminists so hate MRA's that they will censor them even when it is because of these same men that they have their right to free speech.
When a few million women die on behalf of men to protect their rights then they can have the right to censor and hate men.
Warble
Posted by: Warble at Jun 6, 2005 8:37:33 PM
Interesting - this is not a zero-sum game as you seem to think it is, Amanda. Fathers have just as much right to spend time with their children as mothers do, and children have just as much right to relationships with their fathers as they do with their mothers. Which part of that is difficult to understand ?
As a divorced man who has been systematically denied access to my young daughter for 3 years (the court refuses to enforce visitation), I resent the implication that I am trying to control my ex. I don't care about my ex, but I DO care about my little daughter a great deal. If my wanting to see her means to you that I am being controlling, then you and I probably live on different planets, or you have seriously impaired reality-testing.
Believe it or not, fathers and children also have rights - they are not exclusively the privilege of mothers, even though people like you seem to think they are. I am not a wallet, and my daughter is not property; we are both human beings, and we are entitled to a relationship.
Posted by: Michael at Jun 6, 2005 8:37:34 PM
Michael rightly points out, "…Believe it or not, fathers and children also have rights - they are not exclusively the privilege of mothers, even though people like you seem to think they are. I am not a wallet, and my daughter is not property; we are both human beings, and we are entitled to a relationship."
Unfortunately, Amanda is the epitome of what happens with liberal divorce laws where a woman can unilaterally destroy a family. I will remind Amanda that women have done more to initiate and destroy the family then males ever could This is demonstrated in the fact that over 80% of divorces are initiated by women who are brainwashed with failed socialist ideologies.
Sadly, Amanda will never know the love of a father and how her life would have been so much better if there were an elimination of the "popularized" no-fault divorce laws that originated in the Soviet Union under the direction of the Marxist-Feminist groups and Carl Marx.
Amanda is a tragic example of how feminists borrow all of the power and control arguments from Carl Marx to explain differences between the genders. Those arguments were long ago discredited and yet the feminists continue to promote them.
What is worse is that she most likely has never read the Communist Manifesto or Engle’s to understand where her evil arguments originate. She doesn’t know that she is promoting what is well documented to be the most evil ideology ever to enter the world.
Warble
Posted by: Warble at Jun 6, 2005 8:47:39 PM
Warble, I'm not so sure it's Marxist in nature - I could easily make it fit into several fascist ideologies
as well. What I DO know is that it's evil as hell, political ideology aside.
Evil is manifested in myriad ways and has many faces; what we see here is just another aspect of evil. We need to remove
the financial incentive for women (or men, for that matter) to initiate divorce, we need to promote reproductive rights for men, and we need to implement default shared parenting so as not to victimize innocent children.
I just told my ex's attorney that I will keep on litigating until my daughter turns 18 if I have to - she is now 6, and I am NOT stopping.
No justice - no peace.
Michael
Posted by: at Jun 6, 2005 8:59:46 PM
Jesus, could anyone possibly do more to prove Amanda and Trish right? And dudes, seriously, you do not have the "right" to a relationship with your children, any more than any mother does. There are decades of Parens Patriae precedent that quite handily dictate otherwise. If parents had a right to their children, there would be no foster system (for better or worse). If a relationship with one's child were a right, then the State could not legally prevent anyone from seeing them. But it can, ergo, no right. A relationship with a child is entirely a responsibility, not that it isn't rewarding. If the custodial parent and the courts don't want you around your children, there's probably a reason, and it's really, really, not about you.
Posted by: Dan Jacobson at Jun 6, 2005 9:01:50 PM
Trish, come on now and play nice. Are you going to take your blog and go home if we don't let you win?
Since I am in the process of trying to get more time with my children, I have seen her financials, and what I am currently paying her comes in at around 33% of her household income. That puts her monthly income on a par with mine IF you neglect to consider the fact that she gets it tax free. I am not privy to her taxes, but she claims all the children, and I do know that with just the amount she gets from me she would have as much spendable income as I do.
Maybe we should all admit that their are injustices on both sides, and focus on what is best for the children. And since we are now, hopefully, focusing on what is best for the children, explain to me how decreasing, or minimizing the childrens time with their father is in their best interest.
I personally think that the practice of tieing support levels to time with the children is morally reprehensable. Have you/will you ever advocated divorcing the link between time with the children and support. Just think all those dead-beat dads who just want to get out of their support would then have no incentive to go after shared custody in order to pay less.
I apologize for the lead-in dig, but you were seeming a bit petulant, AND I think BOTH sides would do better to focus on the children rather than the financials. Can we agree on that?
Posted by: ped M.D. at Jun 6, 2005 9:08:47 PM
Well, Dan, sadly the US Supreme Court and other courts seem not to agree with you on this issue; see:
http://www.liftingtheveil.org/supreme-court.htm
for a partial list of relevant cases. There are many more.
You are right about one thing - it's not about me personally. It's because I have the misfortune
to be male.
Posted by: Michael at Jun 6, 2005 9:13:30 PM
Ped, I agree with you - we need to remove the link between time with children and support payments, because it
drives an entire system in which people try to maximize their time in order to minimize support. Of course, Trish
will tell you that only men are guilty of this; everyone knows that women have no interest in money at all.
Since we are both doctors, you will understand what I mean when I say that more time with my daughter equals less income for me, since I am only paid when I see patients. Why then would I want more time with her when it is financially disadvantageous to me ? Perhaps because I love her ? Can't be - I'm male, so all I care about is money, according to the prevailing logic.
Posted by: Michael at Jun 6, 2005 9:21:56 PM
Mr. Jacobson,
Since you brought Jesus into the argument, please take the time to present the rest of us with what you think he would have to say on the issue given his number one rule.
While you are doing that, I'm going to take issue with your statement, "A relationship with a child is entirely a responsibility, not that it isn't rewarding." I sincerely believe that American society ignores a key element in their understanding of the origin of Rights. Even the most basic of those Rights enumerated in the declaration of Independence are not truly "inalienable". As in, if you chose to ignore your responsibility to respect others right to life, society then has the right to remove your right to life. Along these lines of reasoning, perhaps you will see that rights can be removed, and that the reason for doing so is SUPPOSED to be because the parent has failed dramatically in their RESPONSIBILITY to the child. (And not to be trite, but if that is the reason, it really, really is about you).
The only other comment about your argument I want to make is: To ask if you have never known of an instance where the "reason" a custodial parent used time with the children in order to hurt the other parent.
Posted by: ped M.D. at Jun 6, 2005 10:19:09 PM
"Carl Marx"
"Engle’s"
No comment; really, no comment.
Posted by: Sheena at Jun 6, 2005 11:00:37 PM
Congratulations Amanda.
I haven't listened to the show yet, but I heard you did fine...
It took a LOT of guts for you to go on that show after the way some people on other sites were treated AFTER they went on it; and I just want to let you know many appreciate you taking that risk for an issue you believe in...
Thank you for doing it.
Posted by: NYMOM at Jun 6, 2005 11:00:42 PM
Yes, Sheena, you should definitely resort to pointing out spelling errors when you cannot otherwise formulate any decent counter - argument.
Brilliant.
Posted by: Michael at Jun 6, 2005 11:05:20 PM
If warble can't even be bothered to spell the names correctly, that's what one would call A Clue that he hasn't read the source material which he is trying to use as back-up.
Posted by: Sheena at Jun 6, 2005 11:13:22 PM
So Dan, you're saying that the state can deny me "the responsibility" of being a father to my children? It would be interesting to hear your definition of "responsibility" in this context and under what constitutional principle the state derives the power to direct the "responsibility" of fatherhood/motherhood.
Your statement, "If the custodial parent and the courts don't want you around your children, there's probably a reason, and it's really, really, not about you" is fallacious in a few ways. Most notably, the result acts as justification for itself which could hide any number of injustices. For example, "If Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust there's probably a reason for it" or "if poor children die of malnutrition there's probably a reason for it." Likewise, routine and systematic relegate of fathers to 'visitors' of their children a few days a week cannot be justifed by saying "well it happens so it must be right."
Being smacked over the head by such institutionalized pre-conceived notions about fatherhood are precisely what sends decent, loving fathers to the fathers movement, not misogyny.
And BTW it is about me and at the end of the day I'm confident that any reasonable person would, upon a review of my custody case, conclude that the sole reason my children spend less time with me than they do with mom is that I was the father not the mother. Demanding that the state be accountable for that result is a legitimate political cause my friends, like it or not.
Posted by: david at Jun 6, 2005 11:20:49 PM
No Sheena, it's A CLUE that you haven't a decent argument in rebuttal. I don't necessarily agree with Warble,
but for god's sake try responding to his content instead of his spelling. Unless, of course, you haven't read the
material either.
David, my reading of the cases I cited previously is that the State can deprive you of your rights to your children only in cases where there is a clear and compelling argument that to not do so would endanger the children; in other words, you would need to be a child molester, drug addict, child abuser, etc., to be legitimately deprived of your rights.
Since I know that that you are none of these things, nor am I, I can only conclude that the sole reason our children spend less time with us than they do with mom is that we are the fathers and not the mothers.
This policy in and of itself constitutes judicially sanctioned child abuse in my opinion, since depriving a child of a parent is demonstrably harmful (yeah, I have the data on this too). It is even more pernicious when it is done of the sole purpose of putting more (unearned) money in Mom's pockets.
Michael
Posted by: Michael at Jun 6, 2005 11:49:57 PM
Micheal,
Understood and agreed on the rights. I was simply amused at Dan's quip that "a relationship with a child is entirely a responsibility" not a right.
In the meantime I listened to Sacks' show. He does a good show. So Amanda won? What did she win? Let me go back to the top for this quote:
"... there are LOTS of commercials from lawyers seeking to fund their new BMWs and yachts by advertising on the show for customers. There's a sucker born every minute, and angry dads are a great source of income for savvy lawyers."
My attorney was a women (imagine that) and I would have had no need for her "savvy" to comply with my wife's wishes to end our marriage. The only thing I wanted in the divorce was time with my children, so had my wife agreed to a reasonable custody arrangement we could have been done in a day. That "angry mom" got soaked by her attorney for about $25,000.
Posted by: david at Jun 7, 2005 12:37:23 AM
OK people, (please notice that I didn't say "Guys"). Who is up for starting a ballot initiative for the purposes of 1) removing any financial incentive to restrict either parents time with the children. 2) Officially, set forth in law that the baseline from which custody determinations are made in disputed cases is equal time with both parents.
Posted by: ped M.D. at Jun 7, 2005 1:21:54 AM
I like Dan's implication:
"If the custodial parent and the courts don't want you around your children, there's probably a reason, and it's really, really, not about you."
Dan implies that there is some other driving force behind the separation of parent and child when domestic/family problems are brought to the state (ie. family court) to fix.
And he's right...
This is not about feuding genders, feminism, FRA's, fathers, mothers, etc... Hell, this isn't even about children. It's strictly about MONEY. That's all - nothing else.
Some say it's about getting out of paying money (child support); some say it's about not getting enough money (child support). Whatever the argument - it's all under the guise of what's "best for the child." The bottom line is that it's ONLY about money.
Let me sum it up: The reason why we have state (family) courts that produce single-parent households by removing one parent from the equation (whether the case deals with divorce/custody, paternity, foster care, or whatever) stems from the federal dollars given to the states under the Social Security Act (you know, that money that you college-aged bloggers will most likely never see) and WELFARE. In order for any state to receive the SUBSTANTIAL amounts of federal dollars that they receive (as non-tax revenue) every year - they have to collect child support. Child support cannot be collected unless there is a NON-CUSTODIAL PARENT (aka- a welfare environment); and a non-custodial parent can only be legally created by a court (duh).
So courts do whatever they can first to create the non-custodial parent, then to award as much child support as possible to the custodial parent. This keeps billions of federal (Social Security) dollars rolling in for the states, keeps the local constituency mostly happy, and keeps a LOT of state employees employed. All this, under the facade of helping families with the epidemic of fathers that are abandoning them... Give me a break.
The reality is that the welfare system that funds the states was created 30 years ago, and it hasn't changed to adapt to the current society of more father involvement. In order for the system to work, the powers-that-be have to perpetuate a 3-decade-old society - and they have done so by dragging divorce/custody situations into the Welfare mix.
It just amazes me how lazy and ignorant todays generation of academics and scholars really is. Doesn't anybody ask how or why anymore??? Is this what too many Cliff's Notes does to scholastics? My daughter is 7, and I swear to God - by the time she's going through college, she'll never own or even know about Cliff's Notes - she's doing the work herself... and WE'LL be working TOGETHER to help her understand how and why if she doesn't understand how something works. That's what part of being a responsible parent is about - custodial or non-custodial.
All I am really trying to say is this: The answers to "how" and "why" can all be answered by digging deeper into United States Code; the Social Security Act (Title IV-D); and the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement. Google that... Just a warning though: Research does take time - and Cliff hasn't written the "Dummies Guide To How The Feds Are F**KING Todays Youth Out Of Their Social Security By Spending It On Welfare and Child Support Enforcement Incentive and Reimbursement Programs and Destroying Families In The Process" just yet...
Follow the money, people. See through the smoke that is being blown into all of your asses and which then gets pushed back out to create the screen that pushes you all into argument over something that affects every US Taxpayer EQUALLY. Stop letting others capitalize on your misfortune and wake up to what's really going on.
Posted by: Jason at Jun 7, 2005 1:49:18 AM
but must never, ever take on the lion's share of the work of raising children
The time to take on "the lion's share of the work" is not when your wife changes the locks. It's from birth. You want to be the primary caretaker? Find a woman who agrees with that goal. And then stick to it. Remember the pediatrician appointments, sort the clothes, keep a mental tally of who needs what school clothes, and let your wife bring home the paycheck. Don't whine that such women are rare--men who are genuinely OK with being the at-home parent are also rare, and there's one of you, right?
(This benefits women, too, since women who aren't shouldering the lion's share of the childcare have (as Michael points out) more opportunity to make money and greater financial independence.)
liberal divorce laws where a woman can unilaterally destroy a family
I do not at all understand the opposition to no-fault divorce, which incidentally allows men to unilaterally destroy families--would you guys all rather your psycho exes not only divorced you, but tried to get a court to rule you an abuser or adulterer first?
Posted by: mythago at Jun 7, 2005 1:58:12 AM
But don't you know? Men never ever destroy families, because no families are bad. Unless they want to get out of them, that is. Then she's a manipulative bitch who won't let them go.
Posted by: ginmar at Jun 7, 2005 9:40:47 AM
"If warble can't even be bothered to spell the names correctly, that's what one would call A Clue that he hasn't read the source material which he is trying to use as back-up."
That's the least of the issues Warble has...he comes from a site where no one EVER reads ANY source material...they just churn back at you what someone else TOLD them the source material saids...
Posted by: NYMOM at Jun 7, 2005 11:34:51 AM
I've been falsely accused to prevent me from getting to my house and seeing my son. I've never missed child support. Mom quit the home business she made to maximize support. 5 years after divorce Mom lied again and accused me of child abuse to get more control. DCFS found the charge unfounded but Mom was rewarded restrictions that I had to fight in court to change. Guilty until proven innocent has been my experience with family law, not all men have the time and resources to fight. Glen Sacks was one of the only places I saw on the web that offered free information. I checked out the breakthrough parenting link and found it help me improve my parenting and understand the court system better. Having my family and my access to my son limited has been horrible for us. My son has missed out on many trips with family because Mom needs to keep my visitation to 30%. I don't think all women are abusing the system like my sons mom and I don't think all men are as the feminist say. Many men were cheering as their sisters and cousins broke through the traditional boundaries. My son's Mom, who is on her forth marriage, can be extremly violent and vindictive I am sure their are other men dealing with the same. I've spent so much money to protect my rights with my son. I'm so happy that I was able to meet a wonderful woman who is great with kids and helped change my opinion of marriage and women. In the Breakthrough Parenting class I saw both men and women dealing with abusive slandering spouses. "Catch them being good!"
Best,
Steve
Posted by: Steve Whiteley at Jun 7, 2005 1:44:21 PM
I just popped over here via a link from Glen Sacks. What I see is disappointing, though not really surprising. First there is self-congratulating and expressions of smug superiority, and then general agreement that FRAs are bad and don't care about their kids and if they did they would pay any amount they were told to pay and smile as they did...
But then - some actual flesh and blood FRAs show up, probably also via Glen. They begin raising genuine issues, possibly the first some regulars here have ever seen. Suddenly, the strawman opponents that are the normal fodder here are not available. The sneering and ridiculing mode no longer functions. Respectful discussion of issues? Whoa! That's not what we come to the Trish blog for! Let's just be quiet until they go away. Then we can stroke each other and laugh at the strawmen again.
That is honestly the impression I get. Trish actually sounded flustered as she protested about these posters trying to "have their way". You're an attorney, Trish, so why does a genuine discussion scare you? It shouldn't, unless you know that you don't have a winning case. You could jump to the defense of feminist apologist Dan, who is certain that parental rights do not exist. The feminists here must bear their Dan's, we MRAs our Warbles. That's just how it works. At least Dan was brave enough to try to engage. Then there is ginmar, who kept to form with the normal sarcasm, but without any content. And Sheena is correct, of course, that Mr. Warble was not contributing anything intelligent to the consideration, but she also avoided the issues.
I had hoped for better, since Amanda was brave enough to show up on the radio, and I hear it went well for her. I have not heard the show yet, but I know that Glen always is a gentleman, courteous to every guest. The silence here speaks volumes.
Hello mythago! Fancy seeing you here! Are you a regular?
Posted by: stanton at Jun 7, 2005 3:05:31 PM
Translation of all the whining: Nice anecdote about your dad, Amanda. Unfortunately, we can't be expected to be mature enough to put our children before ourselves.
Posted by: Amanda at Jun 7, 2005 3:18:07 PM
For Dan and Cruella: How much is too much? How about when the amount you have left barely covers the rent in the cheapest efficiency apartment you can find in the worst part of town? How about when it's 75% of your take-home pay? Or when you get laid off and it's 120% of your unemployment check, and you get a court date six months from now to consider a modification, and you probably won't get it even then? How about when you take the best job you can find and the court imputes your former income to you and bases the award on that? How about when you don't have enough left to pay for gas to get to work, let alone take your kids out somewhere on your bi-weekly weekend visit? Or maybe when you pay twice the amount your ex gets in welfare for herself, her boyfriend and their two kids, but your own kids still wear ragged clothes and live like welfare kids? How about when you have been paying on your own without an order, but when the court makes a judgement of two times what you and your wife had agreed upon and adds on three years of arrearages plus interest, and suddenly you are a deadbeat Dad to the tune of $50,000 and growing at $500 per month in interest? Does that answer your question?
The above examples are all real. Some happened to me, some to co-workers of mine. None came from google searches or MRA web sites.
Posted by: stanton at Jun 7, 2005 3:40:37 PM
Amanda, would you care to respond to what someone actually said, instead of to your own story about what they meant?
Posted by: stanton at Jun 7, 2005 3:44:08 PM
Would you like to respond to reality the way it exists instead of the way you think it is?
Posted by: ginmar at Jun 7, 2005 3:59:23 PM
Ginmar, I believe you are addressing me with the "reality" comment. I would be pleased to do so, if you really mean that. What you have requested is difficult, of course, because we all perceive reality in a subjective way - for you and for me, reality is what we "think it is". What we can do is compare our perceptions of reality and see if we can come to some conclusions - perhaps we can both emerge from the discussion with a more complete and "real" picture than the one we started with. I would hope that this could be done honestly and respectfully.
Perhaps we could start with you telling me just where you believe my perception of reality is skewed.
Posted by: stanton at Jun 7, 2005 4:58:56 PM
Dan and Cruella: One more. How could I have forgotten my own final days of child support? That was when my youngest was in high school and demanded so persistently to be allowed to live with her father that her mother finally let her go. But the support payments of $1000 per month (in 1993) were still being withheld from my paychecks. Did she send the money back to me while we were getting the paperwork done? Hah! Six months later, the court stopped the payments. No order for her to pay me anything, though (surprise!). So for six months I pay $1000 per month to my ex for a child that lives with me, not her - and you say it's never too much? This is the reality (ginmar) of a broken system that needs fixing, in order to be fair to the children as well as the parents - the father is a parent, too.
Posted by: stanton at Jun 7, 2005 6:18:15 PM
Uh, stanton, do you have some kind of proof beyond anecdote? Because when FRAs respond to womens' stories by saying, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" but then expect us to believe that their story is common, well...
The genuine FRAs you talk about are guys with sad stories that tell us all about..themselves. Trish and Amanda, hell, even myself, have done some research. These guys just cite their stories---no research, no nothing. So what is your point again?
Posted by: ginmar at Jun 7, 2005 7:47:31 PM
Sheena whines like a spoiled little brat who thinks that spelling must always be perfect to present a valid argument, "....If warble can't even be bothered to spell the names correctly, that's what one would call A Clue that he hasn't read the source material which he is trying to use as back-up...."
Now that is funny. Prove to me that the Communist Manifesto does not explicitly state that the family must be destroyed.
Prove to me that feminists do not embrace that value.
Oh. What was that? You are source material challenged? Cannot quite lift your fingers to Google the document? Too damn lazy to learn where feminists values originate? Here is the link to the source document:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
The link is courtesy of our friendly Communist buddies that Amanda admits to embracing when she states publicly that she is “…to left of the left…” (paraphrased from an earlier statement).
Finally, it is just as easy for me to provide links to many other source documents that explicitly link feminist ideology to Socialism and Communist values.
Posted by: Warble at Jun 7, 2005 8:27:33 PM
Stanton writes, "....First there is self-congratulating and expressions of smug superiority, and then general agreement that FRAs are bad and don't care about their kids and if they did they would pay any amount they were told to pay and smile as they did... "
Sadly, this is the prevalent attitude of the Socialists that have gained widespread power in America. I've experienced this air of superiority from ALL of the liberals first hand in Sacramento. It is quite sickening to feel the hate first hand.
As we (MRA’s) fought for a just paternity fraud law, the racism of the Assemblies Committee of Judiciary was astonishing. You see we had 90% African-Americans, 5% Mexican-Americans, and 5% other races represented.
As the liberal socialists and Marxist-Feminists groups sneered down their noses at the victims, the children of the male victims, and their families it astonished even the most staunch African-American Democrats who were in the audience. The immediately made comments to me personally about the racism of the socialist.
Clearly, these Marxist-Feminist, Socialist, leftist, liberals, collectivist, and more hate men, and the hatred is even stronger when impoverished African-American males plead for their right to feed their children. What did they do wrong? They were born male and black. Then they got a false accusation against them by a Marxist-Feminist who claimed they were the father of their child. Worse, they lived at the wrong address when the mythical substitute service came.
People like Amanda and Trish don't get it. They never will. I only expect that they will continue to go deeper into embracing socialist values and seek to impose their evil systems of justice upon the rest of America.
For Amanda there is little hope because she came from a broken family. As a result she will never be able to have a permanent life time stable marriage. She is just too damaged (IMHO). How sad, yet she argues for the very laws that resulted in her personal damage.
Posted by: warble at Jun 7, 2005 8:44:36 PM
Great. I now see that Glenn Sacks has linked to this post. That explains some of the moronic comments from fathers' rights activists that have recently been posted here. The last thing I want to do is wade through a bunch of snotty comments from nasty trolls.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Jun 7, 2005 8:55:24 PM
