Posted on 04/05/2006 8:14:34 AM PDT by FreeManDC
Laws that protect the fairer sex from rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment all rest on a simple assumption: women who claim to be victims are almost always telling the truth. Maybe it’s time to revisit that belief.
Three weeks ago the National Center for Men filed a lawsuit on behalf of Matt Dubay, 25, who claims his girlfriend repeatedly assured him that she was unable to get pregnant. When she later bore a child, the state of Michigan went after Mr. Dubay for child support.
That’s what people used to call entrapment.
But chivalrous pundits rose to defend the honor of this damsel in distress, dubbing Mr. Dubay a “sexual predator,” “deadbeat dad,” and – horrors! -- a “weasel.” And if you happen to believe that men should be shouldered with the responsibilities and women enjoy all the rights, their criticisms certainly ring true.
Recently That's Life! magazine polled 5,000 women and asked them if they would lie to get pregnant. Two-fifths of the women – 42% to be exact – said “yes,” according to NCM’s Kingsley Morse.
Yikes!
But that was just a hypothetical survey. Women would never stick it to a man they actually knew. Or would they?
Consider the paternity scam. Here’s how it works:
Find any dim-witted man to get you pregnant. Then look up the name of some unsuspecting Joe who’s got a steady job – it doesn’t matter that you never met the poor bloke. Put his name on the baby’s birth certificate.
Now cross your fingers and hope the man is out of town when the sheriff delivers the papers. In California, such default judgments account for 70% of paternity decisions, according to a 2003 study by the Urban Institute.
Or defraud one of your previous boyfriends, assuming he’s a good breadwinner, of course. That’s what happened to Carnell Smith of Georgia, who willingly assumed financial responsibility for a child, shelling out more than $40,000 in child support over an 11-year period. But when the mother went to court to up the payments, Smith requested genetic testing. That’s when he learned, to his great surprise, that he wasn’t the girl’s father.
Stung by the injustice, Mr. Smith founded Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, [http://paternityfraud.com/pf_fight_back.html] a group that works to protect men from being cheated by these modern-day Welfare Queens.
Last year Michael Gilding, sociology professor at Swinburne University in Australia, reviewed studies from around the world, and concluded that 1-3% of children were fathered by someone other than the man who believes he’s the daddy.
Let’s run the math. Four million children are born in the United States each year. Using the mid-range 2% figure, that means 80,000 men become victims of paternity fraud.
Yikes again!
Ready for the next scam?
This one involves false allegations of domestic violence. Each year, one million restraining orders are issued that serve to evict a person – usually a man -- from his own home.
Restraining orders have become so commonplace that family lawyers refer to them as silver bullets, slam-dunks, or simply, “divorce planning.” It has been estimated that one-third of those orders are requested as a legal ploy in the middle of a divorce proceeding. Not only are the orders easy to get, in many states a restraining order automatically bans a father from gaining joint custody of his children. [www.mediaradar.org/docs/VAWA-Threat-to-Families.pdf]
So the restraining order granted on the flimsy grounds that he caused “emotional distress” becomes the woman’s meal ticket to many years of child support payments. Prosecutors never go after persons who commit perjury, anyway.
And state welfare agencies don’t get upset either, because the federal Office for Child Support Enforcement reimburses 66% of the costs of states’ child support enforcement activities. Think of it as a bounty payment for deleting daddies.
So let’s see . . . 42% of women admit they would lie to get pregnant. Each year 80,000 non-biological fathers become victims of paternity fraud. And about 300,000 restraining orders are issued in the middle of a divorce.
Assume a father so defrauded finds himself on the hook for $250 a month for each of his children. Over an 18-year period, that comes out to a cushy $54,000, all legally-enforceable, tax-free, and no strings attached.
In the past the American legal system was guided by the rule, “No person shall benefit from their own wrong-doing.” But now, hundreds of thousands of women replace that dictum with the self-indulgent excuse: “Get while the getting is good.”
Many women are told by their doctors they are infertile, when they are not.
This is usually the case when the woman has a severe case of endometriosis, and the doctor assumes the scarring is so severe she will not conceive.
So guys (and I will tell this to my sons as well)
It may not be a case of ENTRAPMENT if a woman gets pregnant after she has told you she is sterile.
It could be an honest mistake.
Any guy who ASSUMES she is correct about being sterile is setting himself up.
Sex isn't free for anyone people!
I don't know my wife hasn't told me yet... but get in good with her and who knows >:)
ping
I agree. In a reappraisal of child support, my husband was ordered to increase payment from $1200 per month for two kids, to $1800 per month -- for two children spirited out of state in a divorce he did not want. Sadly, the son committed suicide before it kicked in, reducing the amount to $1200 per month for a single child. Over the course of 15 years, we paid all transportation costs for visitation, even though the ex was supposed to pay half -- she never did, and the legal costs it would have required to take her to court over it would have been higher, so we just let it slide. Further, when the kids came to stay with us for 30-day stints, did we get to then send LESS to the ex that month because we were the ones incurring expenses? OF COURSE NOT! The original payments amounting to $600 per month per child -- now, really, does it take that much to raise a kid? Especially when the ex was theoretically kicking in a share as well?
LOL! My 15 year old son plays high school sports and his feet may now have stopped growing at a size 15. Between shoes, cleats, and everything else $120 a week is a basement bargain.
I never said that marriage was about love only. But without love, it's not any different than buying a house, a car, etc.
The marriage contract is tangible evidence of a promise made by two parties - to love, honor, cherish each other forever.
Your point is understood and I will concede that arranged marriages have worked, but we really don't use that system here in the U.S. For better or worse, that's the way it is.
My point is who would want a marriage void of affection, where the only thing you have is fulfilling "your end of the deal"?
I would venture to say your kids have a problem. Sounds like you need to get a life of your own and let them have theirs. Or do your own parents invest themselves so deeply in your life?
Even in an amicable, joint custody, full visitation rights divorce, my ex wife and I had to join forces, TWICE, to keep the State of California from inserting itself in our family's business. California wanted me to pay the state, instead of the mother. It was unbelievably difficult to fight them off, even with both of us working together to do so.
(I got my son back full time once he turned 12, and could legally assert his preference.)
The marriage contract is tangible evidence of a promise made by two parties - to love, honor, cherish each other forever.
Buy a Craftsman socket set and engrave it. They're guaranteed forever.
I'm kidding.
Seriously, marriage has another role. Anything could be "tangible evidence". Anything. Second, it's not forever. It's for life. "'Till death do us part." That's why they call it the "sweet release."
I'm also kidding. I feel like I have to tell you or I'll get a nasty reply.
My point is who would want a marriage void of affection, where the only thing you have is fulfilling "your end of the deal"?
Pamela Anderson? Katie Holmes? Kevin Fetterline?
This time, I'm not kidding.
Pamela Anderson? Katie Holmes? Kevin Fetterline?
Now, you know as well as I do that ~nobody~ takes those folks seriously at any angle, let alone marriage. ;-)
After my father died, I built a mother-in law suite for my mom. Since she basically lives with us, she's fairly vested in the family. But in all honesty, I'm the one with all the toys. We keep the boats, jet skis, and four wheelers garaged at home. There's simply no room at college.
How about that horse face E.D. Hill on Fox and Friends, she has something like five or six kids by five or six men. I bet she is pulling in serious duckets from those guys. How did she get that job anyway?
I guess I'm just reflecting my experiences of two cases where parents of grown children caused many problems because their whole lives revolved around those kids -- as opposed to even closer experiences with other sets of parents, who -- while they love and are always there for their grown kids -- have purposefully avoided making the grown kids the centers of their lives because they didn't want to burden those kids with it. As a result, it is the latter sets of parents whose kids spend more time with them, and the former sets have kids who (not surprisingly) are (or were) constantly trying to distance themselves, politely, from their parents.
I also envy you in being able to have a m-i-l suite. I wish I could do the same for my mother in law; and very much wish that I could have had one for my grandmother-in-law. As for my mom -- same thing goes, when she gets to the point that she needs such a dwelling. But as it is (thank you Lord) she and my wonderful dad are still in good health and independent. May they remain so for many more years.
Hasn't worked a day in 17 yrs? Honestly?
How does he live?
You're very kind. I admit it though, I'm addicted to my kids. They are beautiful, polite, and funny - truly gifts from God.
Yup - if a child is born while the parties are married, the child is presumed to be the husband's. Takes a lot of proof to overcome the presumption.
He may have worked a year, all told, during that time. He's lived with several different women over the years, maybe they've supported him. He's alone now, lives less than 10 minutes from our home, and doesn't have a phone. If and when he chooses to see the children, he drives over to our house to see them. He knows he's welcome anytime - he's their dad. (And I have an incredibly understanding husband.) These visits are few and far between. I'd say it's been six months since we've seen him. He'll never be able to make up all that lost time.
I bet there are a lot of people who have propounded a lot of concepts on the state of nature. Doesn't mean any of them are right.
Without marriage, society slowly breaks down. It is the singlemost important civilizing influence we have.
Ok.
I'm sorry you find it cynical, but it is the truth and understanding it can help you understand the pathologies infesting society at large but most acutely African-Americans.
You misunderstand. I don't find it cynical at all. I just think it's a silly statement that may have some application to some people and maybe more so to certain periods of time, but that certainly doesn't apply to the modern state of marriage.
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