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I can't think of any examples from history of a society where government took human young away from their parents on a routine basis.

While this may be true, the majority of children in fatherless homes were born out of wedlock. Men refusing to abstain from casual sex and their slavish donations to sperm banks has far more to do with this problem than the judicial system, yet men can't seem to see it. In some areas in Europe, children born out of wedlock has reached 75%. Think about that. 25%, 50%, 60%, and men couldn't see what was happening. Now they're demanding rights to their children, but what leverage do they have now that they have taken themselves out of the family.

Unfortunately, I don't see this changing any time soon. I saw another article in which young men said they were putting off marriage because they can get sex without it. What this means is that their female counterparts will be able to have babies without marrying them, but men can't seem to see this.

None of this is to disagree with the points made in the article above, but only to point out that there are other sides to this issue. Men have the power to put a stop to this, but are more interested in proving their manhood instead. Until men change their priorities, things will only get worse.

While this may be true, the majority of children in fatherless homes were born out of wedlock. Men refusing to abstain from casual sex and their slavish donations to sperm banks has far more to do with this problem than the judicial system, yet men can't seem to see it.

Women play a more major part in this, as I see it. Men are "supposed to" spread their genes around, and are more prone to casual sex. Not that it makes it right, but it happens more often.

Women have always been the more civilizing influence on the family structure. We have the power to say "no" under most circumstances (in the West, at least), the power to attract the most deserving male, the power to keep the spouse at least involved in the family structure...using sex and intimacy, of course.

We have the power to keep our legs closed. Feminazis and nihilists have trained our young women to pleasure themselves first, be "like men" (not meant as an insult) in order to gain power in society, and to throw away the civilizing influence of femininity and womanhood. Instead, we are told to substitute permissiveness for permission on the grounds that "it's not fair" that men can do it and we can't. Then we whine that we aren't taken seriously, that we get the raw end of the stick when a man uses us, and we demand that we be viewed as women, dammit.

Why? Aren't we now just men with boobs?

While this may be true, the majority of children in fatherless homes were born out of wedlock. Men refusing to abstain from casual sex and their slavish donations to sperm banks has far more to do with this problem than the judicial system, yet men can't seem to see it. In some areas in Europe, children born out of wedlock has reached 75%. Think about that. 25%, 50%, 60%, and men couldn't see what was happening. Now they're demanding rights to their children, but what leverage do they have now that they have taken themselves out of the family.

Not just the guys, though. I overheard a conversation between two young women in which one was outlining her plan to have three out-of-wedlock children by three different fathers. Each would be able to afford child support for one child, the aggreagte would support her and she wouldn't have to work!!

It IS a wasteland out there, but it takes two to tangle..

While this may be true, the majority of children in fatherless homes were born out of wedlock. Men refusing to abstain from casual sex and their slavish donations to sperm banks has far more to do with this problem than the judicial system, yet men can't seem to see it.

Of course the judicial system has a lot to do with this! Why do you think they are not getting married????? Not wanting to marry does not mean they do not want to have sex. Oh, and last time I heard it takes two....

Men have always been able to obtain sex without marriage.

The benefit for men was the (more or less) reliable identification of heirs and the ability to be involved in their children's upbringing.

Otherwise, women are the only beneficiaries: they obtain food and shelter for themselves and their offspring, companionship despite shrewishness, relative security, and status.

Men have the power to put a stop to this, but are more interested in proving their manhood instead.

We are probably going to find out in not too many years whether you are right, and I suspect that we are going to find out that men's pre-marital sexual behavior has zero to do with whether government seeks to remove adult males from those human families they do manage to form.

A safe and effective male contraceptive is going to change the dynamics of the current situation in some funny ways. A "marriage strike" can be tolerated so long as government continues to enforce child support obligations. Women may not find it desireable, but it is tolerable. You are suggesting that men take this a step further and go on a "conception strike," thus placing the continuation of the society itself in peril. This would indeed get government's attention, but probably not in the way you expect.

There are hints in the debate over paternal DNA testing that government is less interested in tying child support obligation to biological parenthood than to men as a class. Were there to become available a cheap and effective male contraceptive, such that men with something to lose economically could take themselves out of the target environment (a much more likely form of 'conception strike,' in my view, than the widespread adoption of celibacy which you seem to be suggesting), I believe government's response would be to begin supporting the children of single mothers via the tax system. There would always be loser men out there who had nothing to extract in terms of child support who would be willing to serve as society's studs. All you'd have is bunch of frustrated, celibate males who got dinged anyway in the form of higher taxation.

My hunch is that what is going on is not fixable, at least not in a democratic society. This is a classic "tragedy of the commons" phenomenon in which it is in each person's individual short-term interest to continue pushing the society incrementally towards collapse. It is now in every man's short-term individual interest to avoid marriage. It is in every woman's short-term individual interest to seek ever-more onerous government intervention to extract child support from men, married or not. The whole thing just goes click-click-click like a ratchet, one baby and divorce at a time, toward a place no one wants to go.

It is easy to see how short-term political considerations and the application of endless band-aid fixes will take this society from where it is now toward nearly universal single parenthood by women, supported through the tax system by a government that has to become ever-more draconian in its collection methods, as men quietly opt out of the society altogether because it has nothing for them. That's not politically stable and it won't last all that long, but for the decade or two before it is overthrown, the government we have now is likely to become men's worst nightmare. At the time it will look to people like the only way, but it wasn't the only way. It's just that the choices to go another way had to have been made about twenty years ago. It's too late now, we're going this way.

In a perfect world men will put concern for the children they MAY father before sex! It always has been and always will be the woman's responsibility to see that she is not impregnated, no matter who jumps up and down and screams.