Child Support Is More Than Just Money, Says Filmmaker, Angelo Lobo

Submitted by anthony on Fri, 2007-06-15 20:59

Article here. Excerpt:

"Noncustodial parents, mostly fathers, say financial child support has been deemed by some officials as the most important thing they can contribute to their children.
...
The situation is beyond absurd. We have loving, fit fathers, who want to be there and support their children, who are unfairly prevented from doing so. On the other hand, we have men proven by DNA testing not to be the dad, yet they are forced to financially support children they may not even know and did not father."

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A friend of mine was subpoenaed to testify in a Chancery court in a case involving a restraining order violation. In this case, the husband had beaten his wife, who obtained a restraining order against him. The husband pled guilty, so my friend did not have to testify.

But he was shocked by what he saw in this so-called "court of equity." There were people saddled with debts so large they would never get out from under them.

A Sargeant in the military had a $60,000 child support debt, which become a $120,000 debt, thanks to interest. Apparently he was among several people in that dismal court who had left the state of California, known for its punitive child support assessments. The debt caught up with him in New Jersey.

My friend saw a 25 year-old woman taken to jail for failure to pay child support. Her boyfriend was present; the judge, who rarely looked up from her writing (it is an administrative court), even asked the boyfriend if he had any money. He said he didn't have any. His girlfriend was led away in metal handcuffs.

He saw an Egyptian businessman who had lost his business in Egypt. He had paid his ex-wife $2000 directly, but the court didn't recognize it. This is because child support is structured as a fine, which has to be paid to the court, my friend explained as he recounted the story.

"I had to look up the name 'Chancery' he said. These are courts of equity, a court of last resort; they originated in England. They were intended for persons who could not find satisfaction in the common law courts. There hasn't been a Chancery in England since 1873."

He saw a bear of a man, a manual laborer, ordered to pay $1000/month. Probably more money than he ever sees at one time.

"This is debtors prison," my friend said.

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Submitted by OpEd on Sun, 2007-06-17 00:24

The one peculiar thing I am noticing, is that in the article (and supposedly in the movie), there is a fair amount of mention of _women_ who must pay child support, and how they too are suffering under the current system. It sounds like the movie-makers are kind of making a general issue out of the whole thing, whereas in reality the vast majority of non-custodial parents are fathers. In other words, the issue will not be portrayed as screwing men over in particular, even though that is what is going on.

In regard to OpEd's post, it must be remembered that "child support" has indeed been turned into a system of "wife support", or I guess you could call it "ex-family support". That is why the payments are so high [ref: Legalizing Misandry]. As mentioned in a recent Sacks column (or maybe it was his blog), these high payments are why so many men go into hiding, even if they have not yet been ordered to pay support - because they see what other guys are having to pay. Then of course, these men are called "dead-beat dads" and are subject to having their faces displayed on pizza boxes, etc., and being rounded up en masse by the police and the rest of the facist system.

-ax

P.S. One other thing you guys may not be aware of, is that an exhaustive scientific analysis of a large number of divorce cases, has now shown that the single most common reason women file for divorce, is to gain sole custody of a child [ref: Legalizing Misandry].

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Submitted by axolotl on Sat, 2007-06-16 18:13