Another Man Down in the War Against Fathers

FatherMag.com ^ | August 22, 2002 | Roger F. Gay

[RogerFGay]

Another Man Down in the War Against Fathers

August 22, 2002
By Roger F. Gay

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America's Most Wanted put it like this:

Catalino Morales is wanted for the attempted homicide of five deputy sheriff’s in Allentown, Pennsylvania and for failure to pay back child support.

On Saturday, morning, December 9, 2000, eight deputies in Lehigh county Pennsylvania broke into Catalino Morales' home to serve an arrest warrant charging him with failure to make child support payments. According to the deputies, Morales barricaded himself in a second-floor bedroom and fired two shots through a closed door. He then shot out a back window, jumped onto a flat roof, and onto the ground where it is alleged that he shot at a deputy. The deputy returned fire but no one was injured. Morales escaped the immediate area.

Police say Morales then entered a house in the neighborhood and held a family of four hostage for several hours. The standoff ended when one of the residents managed to wrestle the gun out of Morales’ hands and Morales fled the scene. A massive hunt ensued, including search dogs, helicopters, and Allentown police; to no avail.

On the night of June 20, 2001 a SWAT team in Hartford, Connecticut surrounded Morales in a housing complex and shots were fired. No policepersons were injured in the encounters. Morales was hit by three of 25 police bullets, permanently damaging his hand and his leg and endangering the lives of the nearby residents.

He is a father. He is a man. He is allegedly behind in making "child support" payments.

It is unlikely that the child support system will be put on trial in defense of Catalino Morales, but it should be. Under heavy influence from a profit-driven collection industry the process of determining the amount of child support ordered and enforcement practices have changed dramatically within the past fifteen years. Political corruption is rampant and obvious not only to those who have studied the system closely but to many fathers who have been forced into subjugation by it.

Millions of men are treated arbitrarily and unfairly to a degree that compromises or destroys their chance to maintain themselves, let alone get on with a normal life. Many cannot do what the system requires them to do. Add to that years of harassment and threats from a long list of strangers, including half-witted pimple-faced high school drop-outs trying to collect to make a commission and female bureaucrats, possibly former welfare mothers, who revel in the opportunity to emasculate men. There is no escape, no reason. Every politician says so. Men and women with more power than moral character constantly remind them that this is what fatherhood is all about.

Then other strangers arrive with guns and invade their homes with the intent of taking them prisoner. They are experiencing the horror of a dictatorial police state.

Catalino Morales is one of many canaries in the child support coal mines. Year after year we watch the canaries die yet the workers are not allowed to leave. Those among us who have the opportunity to communicate are morally obligated to pass the word. This system must be abandoned as quickly as possible whether the masters wish it or not.

In the early 1990s, millions of fathers first experienced the suspension of constitutional law in domestic relations courts and the transition to enforcement of arbitrary en masse central political decisions. The new system seems designed to ruin men's lives. Decisions are arbitrarily based on statistical projections that have no basis in reality. State governments are encouraged to take as much from fathers as possible in order to increase the amount of federal funds they receive. "Public-private partnerships" formed with private collection agencies that benefit from higher child support awards and greater debt. Industry representatives control much of the policy making process, including the design of most formulae used in setting child support amounts.

With so many people involved, there has been a predictable variation in reaction to the change. The early 1990s saw the rise of the fathers rights movement, class-action lawsuits, a surge in the number of appeals filed against child support orders, and new national conferences on fathers issues. State and federal politicians were lobbied constantly to fix or abandon the new laws. Members of the Washington State Legislature received thousands of pairs of baby shoes from fathers trying to make a point.

There were also reports of increases in suicide and violence. The early 1990s saw news reports of the first of the early morning raids on communities to round-up hundreds of dads to cart them off to jail. It saw shootings in courtrooms, lawyers and judges taken bloody to ambulances, and fathers barricaded in their homes surrounded by police.

In Dallas, a lawyer representing himself in a divorce case pulled a semi-automatic weapon from his briefcase and opened fire. While one father was barricaded in his home threatening suicide if police came too close, he was telephoned by a reporter who wanted to turn the conversation over to a police negotiator. Feminist groups protested, saying the government must not negotiate with terrorists. News coverage on such incidents ended. Billions of dollars were spent increasing security in courthouses.

Despite the best efforts of ordinary citizens, the system got worse. Fathers rights advocates were largely cut off from making their appeals through traditional media that continued an enormous propaganda effort against the so-called "deadbeat dads." By the mid-1990s politicians were confident that the public couldn't get enough. Child support was on the political agenda in every election year. Politicians in both parties continually promised to make life tougher for fathers and passed law after law to do so.

By the late 1990s life had become so desperate for a few divorced men (in more than one country) suffering psychologically from the loss of their children and constant harassment that they took guns into day-care centers and held children hostage. Do you now understand how it feels, they asked before being gunned down by police snipers.

Due to the enormous weight of one-sided reporting on the child support issue, many people are still quite unfamiliar with the problem. It is easy to find people who believe that errors can be corrected and orders adjusted to circumstances by a quick visit with a family court judge or through some simple administrative process. They have been brainwashed into believing that men generally avoid what are presumed to be fair and reasonable obligations to their children. It is difficult for them to understand that millions of ordinary citizens are fighting for their survival in the midst of a constitutional crisis.

The Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the states define a system of checks and balances. Unreasonable orders are to be corrected on appeal. Unconstitutional laws are to be overturned by the judiciary. These are necessary safeguards against harmful, intrusive, and corrupt government behavior. But during the past twelve years the system has not functioned as designed. Everyone in government connected with child support, including judges, receive financial rewards for maintaining the centrally planned system and courts and prosecutors have cooperated to an amazing degree. This has created a situation in which no legal remedy for arbitrary and oppressive orders and overly zealous enforcement measures exists.

Some orders are so high as to be life threatening. They do not leave the person who is ordered to pay with sufficient income to support himself. Lives have been lost. But to create the order is not enough. Once bound, the system constantly threatens and harasses fathers who are unable to meet their arbitrarily assigned "obligations." Just give the situation more than two seconds thought. If you do not think that the system caused Catalino Morales to fire a gun and run for his life you do not pass elementary applied probability. You do not understand humans.

Unless the corruption in the system is dealt with and those abusing power and influence arrested and jailed, there will be more gunfights and more men brought down in the war against fathers. Some will no longer have the compassion for life that Catalino Morales displayed. Their instinct to fight when threatened will win out over flight. They will aim at police before firing and not relinquish their weapons to hostages. We will all be guilty if we do not hold those responsible for the child support system as we know it today guilty of conspiracy.

Copyright © 2002 Roger F. Gay

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Roger F. Gay is a professional analyst and director of Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology. He has also been an intensive political observer for many years culminating in a well-developed sense of honest cynicism. Other articles by Roger F. Gay can be found at Fathering Magazine and Men's News Daily.

[RGSpincich]

first "publicized" cases = first "pulicized" non-payment of child support cases

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Not at all. It was my fault for reacting when tired and someone stepped on a raw nerve. I apologize for my lapse in good manners and restraint. Your post and Don Joe's defense of your mutual point of view has provoked thought which is what I believe you attempted to do. I don't wish to trade insults anymore. I don't take Don Joe's comparison of me to Marie Antoinette as an insult, but Josef Stalin is uncalled for.

I simply tried to show that my ex and I have tried to work it out for the sake of someone we both love, our son. If you wish to find fault with that, then I don't know what you expect to achieve, other than what others on this thread have accused you of -- attempting to distract and cause problems.

[Home By Dark]

=>Analogous to "she made me hit her?"

We don't mind if you remain passive while someone beats the crap out of you. It's a personal choice. How about pedophilia? You haven't accused all heterosexual men of child abuse yet. I'm surprised you've been so slow off the mark.


How about necrophilia, Rog?

Your odd thought that your hero hostage-taker was FORCED to take hostages and FORCED to evade arrest is perfectly analogous to the classic line of batterers.

You probably believe the hostages were happy to assist in any way they could to help the cause of the righteous hostage-taker, even though people just don't react this way.

[RogerFGay]

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

[Home By Dark]

=>A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

And what sort of personal responsibility does he have for his actions?

[balrog666]

Childless women who are unemployed are not eligible for many of the charities and government programs. I assume the same is true for single men who are childless, but I am not sure.

Big whoop! Why would childless people be fighting over child support inthe first place?

[RogerFGay]

Not at all. It was my fault for reacting when tired and someone stepped on a raw nerve.

Maybe this will seem odd too, since I have enough of a grasp of statistical theory to be dangerous. You're illustrating the same basic idea as I present in the article. In a large population, you can expect a variation in the reaction to a particular phenomenon -- in the article to grotesque and oppressive political corruption, and in your example to someone stepping on a nerve. One also sees a variation in reaction over time. That is, people who responded passively and patiently one day, can get angry and strike back the next. Put enough pressure on enough people for long enough, and you're assured a violent reaction. That's just as much a fact of life as breathing. The way Nazis and Commies handled that problem is exactly the way it's being handled now in the US child support system. If they resist, hit 'em harder.

You probably didn't listen to the NPR broadcast on child support yesterday. A representative from the Office of Child Support Enforcement was on explaining that the policy of arresting wealthy fathers and advertising the arrests was intended to make examples of them to intimidate the other fathers. That's a pile of Nazi - Commie crud as well, and certainly not allowed by the Constitution. (I know that for a fact.)

So what we have here are people in government positions who are not acting within the law. They're breaking all the rules, not just some of them. What do we owe them in return?

[Jerry_M]

"Police say Morales then entered a house in the neighborhood and held a family of four hostage for several hours. The standoff ended when one of the residents managed to wrestle the gun out of Morales’ hands and Morales fled the scene."

This "man" terrorized an innocent family at gunpoint in their own home. We are asked to feel "sorry" for him. Sheesh.

Roger, I have appreciated your position for some time now. However, don't you think you could find a better "champion" for your cause?

[RogerFGay]

Apparently this is an issue you should discuss with the owner and moderators of this site. You are certainly at odds with more than a few people here.

You brought it up, and I'm explaining to you that it's not a discussion question. I own the article. I own the copyright. They're violating the law.

[Home By Dark]

=>Childless women who are unemployed are not eligible for many of the charities and government programs. I assume the same is true for single men who are childless, but I am not sure.
Big whoop! Why would childless people be fighting over child support inthe first place?

Big whoop? Another intellectual comment.

I was speaking of charities and programs in general, not about child support.

[RogerFGay]

Now that you've explained your story, I'm left with only two possible choices;

1. You're lying about everything.

2. Your situation legally is actually much different than most people because you have children of multiple families to support and your state has a liberal deviation policy when multiple families are involved .... i.e. allows judicial discretion that essentially voids the guideline. Washington is one of those states.

[RogerFGay]

I have a radical idea: pay the damn child support on time.

That would indeed be a radical idea since at present no state has a child support policy or awards child support.

[RGSpincich]

You're lying about everything.

Can't imagine why you can't garner much support.

[RogerFGay]

Can't imagine why you can't garner much support.

Are you imagining that you've been winning?

[RGSpincich]

Winning? I've already won. I didn't fall for your hype. What other people do is their business.