Posted on 12/09/2001 10:26:26 AM PST by FoundationAndEmpire
Amid the war against terrorism both abroad and at home, as we send our servicemen overseas to defend our homes and country, Attorney General John Ashcroft can apparently find time to undermine our heroes here on the home front by continuing federal action to destroy their families and children.
The Attorney General and Health Secretary Tommy Thompson have just announced the creation of a federal “Toolkit to End Violence Against Women.” The Toolkit is a series of documents that rehash familiar but discredited hysteria about domestic violence and instruct mothers on how to use groundless accusations of domestic violence to end their marriages and remove children from their fathers.
Like myriad existing government programs, this will do nothing to “end violence against women.” What it will do is accelerate family destruction and increase violence against children.
Consider three long-established and undisputed facts:
* First, there is no epidemic of violence specifically against women. In 1999, the socialist-feminist magazine Mother Jones, hardly a bastion of male chauvinism, reported that “women report using violence in their relationships more often than men” and “wives hit their husbands at least as often as husbands hit their wives.” While the politicians of feminism, such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), refuse to acknowledge this truth, its theorists admit and even celebrate the fact. “Women are doing the battering,” writes feminist icon Betty Friedan, “as much or more than men."
In his book, “Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say,” former NOW board member Warren Farrell provides a bibliography of studies going back a quarter-century, many by feminist scholars, establishing beyond doubt that domestic violence is an equal opportunity problem. Professor Martin Fiebert of California State University has compiled a similar bibliography of 117 studies.
* Second, the hysteria over domestic violence is largely geared toward one aim: removing children from their fathers. Donna Laframboise of the National Post investigated battered women’s shelters in the US and Canada and concluded they constituted “one stop divorce shops” whose primary purpose was not to shelter abused women but to promote divorce.
These shelters, many of which are federally funded, issue affidavits against fathers sight-unseen that are accepted without any corroborating evidence by judges eager (for their own bureaucratic reasons) to justify restraining orders against fathers and the removal of their children.
Feminists themselves contend that most domestic violence takes place within the context of “custody battles.” “All of this domestic violence industry is about trying to take children away from their fathers,” writes Irish Times columnist John Waters, who predicts:
“When they've taken away the fathers, they'll take away the mothers.”
* Third and most serious of all, the most dangerous environment for a child is the home of a single mother. Children in single-parent households are at much higher risk for physical violence and sexual molestation than those living in two-parent homes.
A British study found children are up to 33 times more likely to be abused when a live-in boyfriend or stepfather is present.
“Contrary to public perception,” write Patrick Fagan and Dorothy Hanks, “research shows that the most likely physical abuser of a young child will be that child’s mother, not a male in the household.”
Mothers accounted for 55% of child murders according to a 1994 Justice Department report (and fathers for a tiny percentage). As Maggie Gallagher writes in her 1996 book, “The Abolition of Marriage”:
“The person most likely to abuse a child physically is a single mother.
The person most likely to abuse a child sexually is the mother's boyfriend or second husband. . . . Divorce, though usually portrayed as a protection against domestic violence, is far more frequently a contributing cause.”
Adrienne Burgess, head of the British government’s Fathers Direct program, observes that “fathers have often played the protector role inside families.”
Domestic violence programs provide a gravy train of government funding that empowers the divorce industry to seize control of more children, with predictable results: more divorce, more single-mother homes, more abused children. In no other area has the current administration been so committed to continuing the failed policies of the last one.
Do we really believe that the preponderance of firefighters and police officers who died on September 11 were “batterers”?
More urgently, how long do we expect our servicemen to fight and die to protect their country and families when the government of their country seems bent on destroying their families?
An incendiary statement, to be sure, as well as being someone's interpretation as well as a distortion ...
Ans: It was this guy, a poly-sci type 'doctor':
Stephen Baskerville, PhD Department of Political Science Howard University Washington, DC 20059 202-806-7267 703-560-5138
Office of the Attorney General
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Friend:October was recognized by the President as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The month gave all of us an opportunity to gather information, hold discussions, and increase awareness about domestic violence. However, if we are going to be successful in putting an end to violence against women, we must keep the issue at the forefront all year long.
Violence against women is perpetrated in all types of intimate relationships and crosses economic, educational, cultural, racial, and religious lines. Nearly one-third of women murdered each year in the United States are killed by their current or former intimate partners. Approximately 1 million women are stalked each year, and 1 in 36 college women is a victim of an attempted or completed rape in each academic year. As a result, across the country, women live in constant fear that they will be attacked at home, at work, at school, or in public places. Few women walk home alone at night without being concerned for their safety.
To assist communities and individuals engaged in activities to end violence against women, we are pleased to announce the development of the Web-based Toolkit To End Violence Against Women. The Toolkit was developed by the National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women, a council that is chaired by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The recommendations and information contained in the Toolkit were the result of input from leaders and practitioners around the country with expertise in domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Input was also provided by key individuals working in the areas of criminal justice, health, sports, faith, the media, the military, and entertainment. As you know, to end violence against women we must change our culture, and all facets of society need to play a role.
The Toolkit comprises 16 chapters that provide recommendations for strengthening prevention efforts and improving services for victims. Each Toolkit chapter focuses on a particular audience and includes recommendations for a range of professionals. The format is designed to help readers quickly pinpoint topics of interest, and each chapter is relevant to more than one group of individuals. We encourage you to consult all chapters of the Toolkit for instruction, guidance, and inspiration.
The Toolkit will be available beginning November 1, 2001, at the following Internet address: http://toolkit.ncjrs.org.
We consider the Toolkit to be a “living” document that will evolve as the issues surrounding violence against women continue to grow. We encourage your feedback and look forward to working with you to eradicate violence against women and to make this country a safer one for all individuals. Sincerely,
Attorney General John Ashcroft
U.S. Department of JusticeSecretary Tommy Thompson
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
From chapter 4 of the 'toolkit':Chapter 4. Enhancing the Response of the Justice System: Criminal RemediesWhy the hysteria (forgive the pun) over this?What Criminal Justice Practitioners Can Do To Make a Difference
- Require ongoing training for all sworn and civilian criminal justice personnel on issues related to sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, and stalking.
- Adopt comprehensive protocols for law enforcement response to violence against women.
- Coordinate the efforts of the justice system to prevent or intervene in violent crime.
- Require the prompt completion of detailed incident reports and ensure their availability to victim advocacy agencies and victims as appropriate.
- Educate members of the bench and bar about the struggles faced by victims deciding whether to participate in prosecution.
- Encourage prosecutors to build a case based on evidence in all cases even when the victim is unable or unwilling to testify.
- Invest in victim/witness programs and the expansion of community-based advocacy.
- Provide women victims of violence facing criminal charges or in prison access to quality legal representation.
- Evaluate arrest policies to determine whether victims of violence are being inappropriately arrested.
- Support intervention efforts for batterers and sex offenders
Right on target!
Why do they have it in for him?
Oooooeeeeee!Chapter 12 of the 'Toolkit' contains some scary stuff too! (Not!):
Chapter 12REALLY scary stuff ...Engaging Religious, Spiritual, and Faith-Based Groups and Organizations
Two out of every three Americans are affiliated with a religious, spiritual, or faith-based group or organization, and approximately one out of every four Americans is an active member of such a community.
Based on the breadth and reach of these organizations, it is not surprising that many women and girls turn to religious leaders for guidance in dealing with violence.
Some religious, spiritual, and faith-based organizations provide victims with well-informed, practical, and spiritual guidance, including referrals to other organizations.
Religious organizations are essential to the culture and sustenance of communities and are uniquely positioned to champion efforts to end violence against women. Although philosophical differences have created tension between some religious, spiritual, and faith organizations and victim advocates, common ground can be found in shared interests to end violence against women. programs, and public and private funders can take to end violence against women.
What Religious Communities Can Do:
o Commit to making the problem of violence against women and girls a critical concern.
o Emphasize the teachings, practices, and organizational structures that promote a woman’s right to be free from violence, such as teachings that support equality and respect for women and girls.
o Develop theologically based materials that emphasize a woman’s right to safety and support and a perpetrator’s personal responsibility for ending the violence.
Stop infringing on their 2nd amendment rights and those numbers will plummet. Typical of politicians and bureaucrats to create a problem (trashing 2nd amendment) while lauding how they're fixing a problem (gun violence). Next problem (the one the politicians and bureaucrats made worse -- see above italicized quote) they want more more money and power to fix. The "tool kit" is a nice idea but it rests on a problem government made worse. The end result will be no different than the first problem they created in order to claim they're fixing a problem. They do that in order to "justify" their unearned paychecks.
_Jim, thanks for bolding The Point.
Hey - I agree on that point. (IOW - DON'T blame me, I am all for C & C.)
There is no better equalizer for a woman than a firearm ...
However, that being said, there is MUCH more to this 'issue' that author of this very opinionated piece attempts draw out of thein air - he's working to create a straw man for whatever stange political purpose he's got in mind ...
I apologize if it appeared that I was hitting on you in regards to the 2nd amendment. It was solely aimed at those responsible: advocates of gun control.
Everything claimed in this article is right on!
The Battered Shelters are "One-stop divorce shops"! Your federal and/or local taxes going to promote divorce and not very equitable in terms of offering counseling or like services for men. Basically, all the paperwork and info to get the ball rolling and getting what you can, from the divorce! A real strong advocacy for divorce. And there's no check to see if these women are really being battered, often as not, the woman is more violent than the man. Also many are more interested in getting custody, and the support payments, than the actual welfare of the children.
I know of a divorcing woman whose friend raped her 5 year old daughter. She forced the the 6 and 8 year old brothers to shut up about it, and when the daughter started showing emotional signs of the stress, implied it was "the ex" molestating his own daughter; tried to have social services and the school counselor investigate him and interview the children. All this so as not to lose the custody and child support.
The children had to live through the trauma of the experience and lying to authorities, while their own father was falsely accused. This woman even forced her daughter to invite this bastard to her birthday party!
All came out a few years later, after the divorce, when the mother died of breast cancer. The children broke down and told the whole story. The incident was reported to the police and the perp was found, already in custody, in a neighboring state, for charges of raping another 5 year old girl.
The examples you gave in the toolkit again imply that only women are victims and our tax dollars should go to rabid, feminazis, to distribute their brand of utopia: all families consisting of single moms, federally funded on welfare, of course!
Check the statistics on the broken homes of the Black families. Turn of the century had very few, but thanks to the federal programs and scoial welfare, rewarding the women, if there is no father present, ..., 100 years later and guess what? Half of the children are raised with no more fathers in the picture! Pavlov and the bell! No father at home and Ding we'll give you the money!
Yes, I see cause for alarm every time the federal government tries to "solve" these problems, better left to religious organizations and NGO's. Seems to me, people at a local level are better to handle these issues. Isn't that what conservatism is all about?
Finally, I feel a good minister and his wife, with professional counseling skills, are more mature judges of what's happening in a marriage and how to handle it, than some 19 year old feminazi, with your tax dollars and an agenda!
I don't trust any of these numbers. These centers like to inflate their "incidents" to get more funding at the crowded trough!
What is the definition of a "stalking" or an "attempted" rape? Show me a number of women in divorce proceedings/custody battles and I'll show you a lot of inflated numbers of "crimes"!
Don't hear much about this in the mainstream press, do we?
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