Father Torches Car in Protest Over Child Support

Anchorage Daily News ^ | October 18, 2002 | Tataboline Brant

[RogerFGay]

CHILD SUPPORT: Officials say suspect had threatened staff before.

Two floors of the 19-story Atwood Building were evacuated Thursday morning after a man parked his blue Mercedes near the building's entrance, doused the car with gasoline and set it ablaze.

[sinkspur]

True, but how else to you bring change to a system unless you make extreme protests?

Protesting, unless it's done on a massive and sustained basis, generally only makes the protesters feel good.

It's like pis*ing in a navy blue suit; it may make you feel good, but nobody else notices.

[glory]

Again, we need to get back to FAULT divorces. That way male friends of mine who have women who flake out and divorce(ie they are at fault) will not get lumped in with men like abused your daughter. Likewise selfish, ego driven women who have divorced male friends of mine won't be lumped into your daughter's situation as some kind of victim deserving of compensation. Surely you can see how different your daughter's situation is than a woman who doesn't want to be married anymore and wants to keep the kids to ensure her meal ticket right?

[glory]

You know, I am nearly through this thread and the ONLY posts that look irrational are yours and you've already revealed that you are dealing with a woman whose got some strings attached. Me thinks you protest too much and are finding insults where none were laid on you. Put your girlfriend aside for a second and try and consider that not all men who are divorced are your's girlfriend's ex ok?
I mean, I watched my mom get burned first hand by my dad who was a real jerk and I still think that many men get hurt financially by the way child support is done now. Can you step back and look at this objectively?

[Rebelbase]

Its got to start somewhere.

[Thinkin' Gal]

Maybe Ta's (that's her nickname) Mom just liked the sound of it.

Talk about being tonedeaf.

[nobdysfool]

Prayers that God will send you a stable woman who values marriage more than her ego.

Thanks, I appreciate it! It's hard, when all you want to do is to give a heart full of love to a woman, and she can't (or won't) accept it, because she's had her head filled with all this junk about marriage being "bondage" and that she needs to pursue "being a woman" as though being a wife was the exact opposite of being a woman. Something tells me there are going to be a lot of bitter old maids and even more bitter divorced women who will have no companionship in their old age, and it will dawn on them too late that they were sold a lie...a lot of men will wind up the same way, because they gave up.

[RogerFGay]

"About a month ago, Magby wrote a threatening letter to the office, Persily said."

So what was this personal information that you allege was given out?

Your bluff has been called, show what ya got.

I've already responded to this once. Ignoring my response and calling it a bluff just proves you're an idiot.

[Roscoe]

I've already responded to this once.

You didn't answer it.

Court ordered debts aren't "personal information" and neither is the threatening letter.

Your charge was false.

[FReepaholic]

>>...Fathers went from a family pillar to a family burden...<<

That has been by design.

Notice that for several decades, fathers on network TV shows have been portrayed as idiots while the wife and kids are shown as being smart.

I can't recall a SINGLE network TV show that portrayed a father as strong and smart.

I believe it is a concerted effort by liberals/socialists to destroy the family. They want to denigrate the father and put the woman into the traditonal role as head of the household.

[mvpel]

The Cosby Show, maybe?

[Catspaw]

Roger, my first husband and the father of my daughter, died when my daughter was six. I doubt if I can "let him off the floor," unless you'd like me to disinter him.

But say, Roge, if he had snuffed his (former) wife and children, would you be making him into a martyr?

[Aracelis]

OK, I'll bite, does your ex's lawyer practice in CA? If so, name please!

Sorry, this took place in Illinois.

[FReepaholic]

>>...The Cosby Show, maybe?...<<

I thought of that and also the current sitcom with one of the Wyans brothers: "My Wife and Kids" He, more often than not, comes out looking pretty smart and cool.

However, my cynical side says that, of course these guys are African-American and that white fathers are portrayed as buffoons.

[RogerFGay]

I answered in post #213. Whatever else you want to say I didn't do -- simply assume my response.

[RogerFGay]

You're a charmer Catspaw. If we had a story telling thread for developing a fictionaly story by a group, you'd be tops.

[Mamzelle]

Whining over child support and its inequities (of which I'm sure are many) is one of the incessant background noises on FR. Wonder if they were whining while the kids were being made? My sympathies are rather mixed. It's not an eternal sentence, after all, eighteen years at most. Their kids must really enjoy listening to the b&tching...makes them feel truly loved! I know the women aren't to be depended on in the expenditure of their support...but we all have to live with our mistakes. Kids can't help their parents, but parents must help their kids. If money is all the help they get, so be it.

[Catspaw]

I've posted about this before, but you haven't noticed it. My first husband died when my daughter was six. And I'm lying about that? You really are paranoid, Roge, you really are, and sick to boot, to impugn me, my daughter and my first husband. Do you want directions to his grave? His death certificate? Do you want substantiation from the Social Security Adminstration? People do die young, Roger. They die of illness, they die of crime, and like my first husband, they die because of accident (in his case, a car accident). So Roger, you tell me what's an appropriate and, at least in your mind, permissable age to die? The next time we go to his grave, we can let him know that RogerFGay said 1) that he's not dead and 2) he didn't have RogerFGay's permission to die.

But I'm a liar, huh? What does that make you, Roge, for being a cheerleader for an arsonist wacko?

[Aracelis]

I was very inexperienced at that point in my life, and scared to death that my ex would try to take the girls from me - either legally or by kidnapping. I made no protest. However, as I said before I think we girls made out better than he did. He hasn't seen them, and has no clue what they look like or the kind of women they've turned into with the passage of time. There are some things that money cannot buy.

[Mamzelle]

re: Although I must say, even after the years of poverty and struggle, I think my daughters and I have had the better end of the deal. He never bothered us again (he had threatened to kill all three of us over the measley $50/week), and hasn't seen his daughters in over 10 years.))))

He's probably somewhere on FR's disgruntled divorced dad ping list. I can't believe there's support here for this idiot who burnt his car.

[Redmen4ever]

What the man did with the car sounds stupid. Part of me says that if he felt so unfairly treated he should simply have left the country. (I am in no position to say whether or not he was unfairly treated, but I can say it is possible.)

The old adage is "it takes two to tango," and if a marriage fails, it is very difficult for anybody to know who (the husband, the wife, or both equally) was at fault.

(And, even if the man was, to some minor extent at fault, that is no reason for the man or the children to be made to suffer as badly as they make us suffer.)

Against the truth that "it takes two to tango," the bias of the government, to take the children away from their father and award them to their mother, is unwarranted. Children are supposed to have two parents. This means some form of share custody.

If this means the man has to cut back hours so he can both "bring home the bacon and cook it up in the pan," then that's the way it goes. The marriage may be over, but the product of the marriage (the children) continues.

The false hope of living off a man without having to live with him encourages way too many women to leave their husbands in our country. The overwhleming majority - something like 70 percent of divorces - are precipitated by women. This hurts children (and it hurts the men and women involved).

Nature may have made men physically bigger, and I understand the sympathy battered wives receive (yet male on female violence is no more frequent than female on male violence among married couples). But, stacking the deck, legally, against men in divorce and custody doesn't make up for this difference.

As a society, we need to work to uphold marriages, and this includes ostracizes those who leave their marriages when there are children involved (except, of course, when something like abuse is involved). This means we have to reform our divorce and custody laws that make it seem like the woman can gain something by leaving the marriage.

But, as individuals, being treated unfairly in divorce and custody is not sufficient reason to treat others unkindly. Not when you can leave. The man should not have destroyed his car.