CA Judges Put Hawaiian Father in Debtor’s Prison

The Honolulu Advertiser reported on 7/8/2008, that a California U.S. District Court sentenced a Hawaiian man to 12 months and a day of debtor’s prison for failing to pay child support, “Hawaii man sentenced for failing to pay child support in California“. The victim, “Kenneth Firestone,” is accused of arrearages of nearly $210,000.

Doing the math, that would be $500 per month for 35 years, or how about nearly a $1,000 a month for 18 years. That would cover a very generous payment for several children or, certainly, an adequate amount for an extremely pampered child.

What the article does not tell is that the Los Angeles district responsible for the man’s arrest is one of the most notorious around the country for issuing warrants far in excess of a father’s true income.

Also likely, is that
1) the court order was entered against the father without his knowledge,
2) the father may be making minimum wage,
3) the order may have been calculated upon an unrealistic income even when or if the father is full time employed,
4) the children may not be his own, and
5) the father has been denied visitation or any access to his children by vindictive ex-partners.

The article says nothing about the draconian laws that ensnare fathers who are not willing partners to divorce. It does glorify the process by which a father is made to do time in debtor’s prison where no crime has been committed.

Silent March Reveals Father Discrimination

An article in Today’s Honolulu Advertiser, 7/8/2008, announces a Silent March, organized by the “Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.” What they don’t announce is their complicity in the events that ended up in a family killed last week in a murder/suicide.

No one will ever understand why a 7-year-old boy had to die. Murder is not an acceptable way out to respond to threats of divorce. But the very same DV people organizing the silent march are responsible for Hawaii’s draconian laws that victimize men and give women the control and power to call the shots in divorce. The results are as predictable as when cornering a wounded animal.

DV advocates even tell you what is the best strategy. “Get a man to hit you once in anger, no matter how inconsequential, and you can remove him from your life permanently. You can remove him from having any influence on your children for the rest of their lives. You can milk him for child support payments that will enrich you for the rest of your life.”

The problem with this philosophy is that men never react well to the threats of divorce. Combine that with the “strategy” to get a man to hit a woman and, sometimes, men break down. Murder is not acceptable, but it is statistically predictable. This is a little advertised fact the DV advocates are likely to skip over.

When a loving father collapses under the weight of feminist’s demands for a life no reasonable person could be expected to provide, you can be sure those same feminists will be out there saying, “See, We told you he was a perpetrator / killer.”

Even at their funeral, the man will be purposefully ignored. No one understands the weight of the legal system upon a father threatened with divorce better than the DV advocates who push for ever more draconian, anti-family legislation they promote. Among their victims, we can count all the men who have tried to hold their families together and the children who will never know their father.

NYT Dowd Berates Men

Maureen Dowd takes men to task for being the targets of vindictive women in her New York Times posting on July 6, 2008, “An Ideal Husband” Opinion. She notes the celebrity breakups initiated and aggressively pursued by Christy Brinkley and Cynthia Rodriguez as evidence that men come in no manner suitable for women looking for a husband.

She pursues her goal of proving that men are responsible for marital breakups by focusing on the media-hyped “women-are-victims” syndrome. The syndrome should be defined as a sickness in itself, like malaria, diabetes, and group-think; it’s opportunistic via culture, it’s endemic to 20^th century feminism, and it’s as avoidable as thinking before one puts a foot in their mouth.

From Australia, a country with one of the worst father-friendly records of democratic countries, Dowd claims that an old Irish-Catholic priest has the answers in a simple sermon he delivers to high-school girls. All of the poor priest’s judgments fall upon the man in the relationship.

Does he have friends? Does he use money responsibly? Is he attached to his mother? Does he have a sense of humor? Does he have a good family?

In American culture, a man has to ask: Will she destroy your relationship with the friends you have? Will she take your bank account and run? Will her mother interfere in your marriage? Can she take a joke? And, ultimately, does she come from a troubled family with divorce or domestic violence as major themes?

Dowd allows her interviewee to make one equitable point after another, fatalistically tinged with misandristic pinings, and finally, killing all hope of men ever trusting women and women ever trusting men.