Posted on 07/10/2006 3:35:04 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Goldwater, McCain, and Indentured Servitude July 09, 2006
By David R. Usher
Don Goldwater raised the ire of Republican candidate John McCain last week by suggesting that illegal immigrants should be imprisoned and have to help build a wall to stop Mexico from mass exportation of its poor and criminal citizens.
Goldwater is champing for a term as Governor of Arizona. He correctly asserts that foreigners who intentionally go out of their way to violate immigration laws have committed crimes, should be incarcerated for a period of time, and have to work to pay the costs of their incarceration.
Goldwater cites “tried and tested, effective and accepted practices” dealing with convicted non-violent felons in the penal system.
McCain, a leading Republicrat who confidently expects a presidential nomination from whatever party would have him, feels it is “deeply offensive” to do this to criminals, but only if they are from Mexico. McCain is a decade too late opposing this notion. He supported forced labor camps when he voted for passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Act of 1996. We have been doing this since 1996 to divorced fathers, who for no reason of their own fall behind on child support, and find their way into permanent peonage working for state prison labor camps.
Prisoners make license plates, handle airline reservations, make military tents and garb, and just about anything else the state can think of at the bargain wage of only 25-cents per hour, under the auspices of Correctional Systems, Inc (CSI), which is America’s largest private prison contractor.
If one is really a criminal, this is a good idea as long as government isn’t competing unfairly with private businesses (which it does). But, if one happens to be a divorced father who is merely unable to earn what some bureaucrat imagines he should, PROWA is an unconstitutional form of eternal slavery.
As if supporting slavery is not bad enough, McCain co-sponsored S.1227 in 1999, in an attempt to amend PROWA to give free Medicaid and SCHIP to illegal immigrant women and children. McCain’s net idea: lock up thousands of innocent divorced men, who labor for 25-cents per hour, to pay for free medical care for illegal immigrants. How dare we do this to good American citizens who have done nothing wrong and committed no crime!
Courts in most states hold that child support cannot be lowered simply because a man’s income has decreased. In most states, a man must be permanently and seriously disabled before courts will consider lowering child support orders. A 1999 study by the American Coalition for Fathers and Children found that less the 5% of those who filed for a downward modification of support in the State of California were able to get a modification. The rest were ordered to pull money out of thin air or go to prison.
Once a divorced man who falls behind on support enters the prison system, he is caught in a permanent trap. Courts consistently rule that imprisonment is not cause for lowering child support. There is no way that a man can pay off any child support order when being paid only twenty-five cents per hour.
Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Goldwater have some serious thinking to do about their political futures. Feminist politics supporting the predatory “see no evil” welfare state are falling apart. Political candidates supporting Leninist-style labor camps full of divorced men who have committed no crime will lose many disaffected voters who know exactly what is going on.
In-balance, there is nothing wrong with expecting real criminals to work to cover the costs of their incarceration – especially where this would clearly stop illegal immigration.
But balance cannot exist until federal legislation is reformed to require that state child support orders match actual monthly income. We cannot permit federal funds to continue being misused by states to create profitable penury in the name of radical feminism.
Anti-family politics of the 1990’s is dead. Pro-marriage reforms are what both leading Republican pundits and all but the most ignorant voters demand and expect from candidates in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.
————————————————-
David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Net
It might be a good idea, sometimes under duress and forced labor people do learn discipline and manners. It shouldn't be based on RACE, but some unfortunate people might be a benefit for them
if based on felony murder(s) I'd have no problem with this.
of course I'm antiquated enough to still think chain gangs
were a good thing.
Nobody is going to catch up on their child support while in jail. The system is completely broken. And unconstitutional.
On the other hand, there's nothing in there that says I have to watch my tax dollars go to pay for them either.
Must be something missing in this picture ~ oh, yes, the states!
The control divorce, they should control child support. Might help if we had an internet accessible registry of child-support evaders.
Once again, Goldwater never said to arrest all illegals and put them into tent cities. This is, once again, the MSM trying to make a republican seem heartless and cruel. If you people believe all this sh** without checking it out, then shame on you!
Then he shot himself in the foot by being as much of a moron as McCain when he gave the same easy out to fathers who "fall behind on child support payments through no fault of their own" as the leftists (and some RINOs) give to illegal immigrants.
What illegal immigrant does not know that he/she is breaking the law by sneaking across the border? It is a conscious risk that they take (though it is becoming less risky everyday as our politicians become increasingly sympathetic to the potential voters). Likewise, what man in this country does not know that he is going to get bent over in a divorce or break-up and pay through the nose and get doubly screwed if he doesn't pay the amount directed on the timeline directed to support whatever kids he helped to create or took on responsibility for? It is a conscious risk that men take when they marry/shack-up with/knock up whores and/or dingbats.
But I guess when you're a one-issue man, nothing else matters.
Personal responsibility, rest in peace.
Well, five comments in. Didn't take too long for the dad bashers to show up.
Ne'er-do-wells indeed. I was an average American who got screwed out his fatherhood rights and my money by an adulterous spouse who was enabled by the courts.
You need to look at he percentages of men who keep up on their sometimes crushing child support. It's over 80%. We're the ones lucky enough not to lose a job or become disabled.
Let's see...If I got this right, Goldwater wants Illegal Aliens to do Labor.
Illegal Aliens came here to do labor that Americans won't do--right?
McCain is worried about "Offending" the Illegal Aliens.
I'm voting Goldwater.
BTW, Fail to pay Child Support is the only misdemaenor that you can be extradited to another state for. It is also a justification to suspend your driver's license in Kalifornia.
Concerning your ex-wife, is she paying?
Most of us learned the hard way after the fact. If we had thought about it before marriage, there would be no marriage, and procreation would be accidental, not by choice.
Sorry about my testiness. It gets old seeing decent men being thought of as criminals. There are deadbeats. They make the rest of us look bad. Nail 'em to the wall, I say, but make them pay. Prison won't accomplish that.
Hope neither one of you have spent any of my tax dollars on those kids ~ ain't mine ~ got my own.
Well, I can't imagine why a single mother needs a 2006 Mustang in the garage next to her 2005 Explorer, but hey, who am I to judge? /sarc.
Happily for all, no taxpayer dollars have ever been spent on this sordid episode (both of us make over 50K, but I shell out 12k of mine, post-tax, to her. Tax free for her.)
McCain is also for a draft.
Can you imagine the MSM's reaction to a draft today? Yikes.
AUH2O in 2008.
The irony is, McCain criticized Goldwater for advocating involuntary servitude while McCain is for the most deadly form of it!
The MSM loves the idea of a draft. At least, the ones old or gay enough to avoid it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.