Kenneth S.
September 12th 03, 02:45 AM
For some time, it's been clear to me that the fundamental factors
driving the "child support" system are: (1) the fact that child support
is paid by fathers and received by mothers, and (2) the fact that
fathers are one of the few remaining scapegoat groups in the U.S.
If you doubt this, consider the following scenario.
A father gets behind on his child support payments. When the police
arrive to take him off to jail, he is under the influence of drugs. He
puts up a huge fight, which is videotaped by a neighbor, who then sells
the tape to a TV station. The tape is repeatedly broadcast, resulting
in prosecution of the police officers for brutality.
In the first trial, the police officers are acquitted, but local
fathers groups then participate in a major riot, resulting in the death
of 58 people. The police officers then are prosecuted by federal
authorities, and found guilty of violating the father's civil rights.
The father then gets $3.8 million in damages, but goes on to get
involved in further conflicts with the police. However, these go
unreported by the media.
Sound likely? Hardly -- because fathers are an officially designated
scapegoat group in the U.S.
But consider the following piece from the Internet blog sheet Frontpage
magazine:
Rodney King: Once a Bum, Always a Bum
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 9, 2003
"If you’re not a news junkie you probably didn’t notice that Rodney King
was arrested again. He was speeding at 100 miles an hour, high on PCP,
when he ran a red light in Rialto, California on August 27. It is just a
matter of luck that King hasn’t killed someone yet. This was his fifth
arrest since a kangaroo court awarded him $3.8 million some years ago
because the LAPD had “violated his civil rights.” Or perhaps it was
because the court was afraid that rejecting King’s claim would spark
another riot that would kill 58 people and cost the city $16 billion in
destroyed homes and stores.
"One of King’s post-riot arrests was for beating his wife, just in case
you thought he was a nice guy harassed by police simply because he was
black.
"Apparently, in addition to going to jail again, Rodney King is now
broke. Which is one of the reasons you haven’t heard much about his
latest bust. Because the post-riot life of Rodney King gives the lie to
virtually every liberal nostrum for improving society, eradicating
poverty and making us all equal.
"How can you go broke on $3.8 million? Let’s say, for the sake of this
example, King had to pay his lawyers a million dollars in legal fees. If
he had put the remaining money in the bank in a long-term savings
account it would have netted him a six-figure income for the rest of his
life -- without requiring a stitch of work to get it. But if you give
money to a self-destructive lout like Rodney King, all you are going to
get for your money is trouble.
"Poverty, as a friend mine has said, is different from being broke.
Being broke is when you’re out of pocket. Being poor is a dispiriting
and disabling state of mind. Giving money to dysfunctional people is not
a way to make them rich or even comfortable. It’s a way of enabling them
to pursue their self-destructive behaviors at an even higher velocity.
"If Rodney King had obeyed the orders clearly given and had laid down in
a “prone position” on the night of his famous encounter with Los Angeles
police, 58 people would be alive today, $16 billion would be circulating
in the economy and four dedicated LAPD officers who were working to the
book that night would not have been forced to endure two trials (the
first had acquitted them) and had their careers destroyed to appease the
liberal conscience.
"But liberals had to make their point. They had to roll out the racial
melodrama, insisting that every time a black man is arrested – even one
fleeing and refusing to be cuffed -- a hate crime is committed by the
police themselves. Liberals had to wring millions of dollars out of Los
Angeles taxpayers to pay reparations to a man whom everyone knew then
and knows now is just a pathetic bum.
"Will Rodney King’s fifth arrest teach anyone anything? Hardly. First,
because no one wants to even talk about it. But second, nothing will be
learned for the same reason that liberals reading this column will
consider it mean-spirited and lacking compassion. Of course the same
liberals have already forgotten the 58 people who are dead because of
Rodney King and the criminals he and his supporters inspired – (I am
thinking of the late unlamented murderer Damian “Football” Williams).
Nobody cares about the innocent victims of the protesters for social
justice – the 2000 Koreans who lost their businesses to “black rage;”
the four cops who lost their careers because they beat a reckless
criminal who was resisting arrest and refused to go prone.
"And so is the inspirer of it all, Rodney King, forgotten too. But he is
forgotten because remembering him would tell a liberal culture more than
it wants to hear."
The simple political fact is that fathers are treated the way they are
in the current U.S. system because fathers are heterosexual males, and
they have no political group that springs to their defense.
driving the "child support" system are: (1) the fact that child support
is paid by fathers and received by mothers, and (2) the fact that
fathers are one of the few remaining scapegoat groups in the U.S.
If you doubt this, consider the following scenario.
A father gets behind on his child support payments. When the police
arrive to take him off to jail, he is under the influence of drugs. He
puts up a huge fight, which is videotaped by a neighbor, who then sells
the tape to a TV station. The tape is repeatedly broadcast, resulting
in prosecution of the police officers for brutality.
In the first trial, the police officers are acquitted, but local
fathers groups then participate in a major riot, resulting in the death
of 58 people. The police officers then are prosecuted by federal
authorities, and found guilty of violating the father's civil rights.
The father then gets $3.8 million in damages, but goes on to get
involved in further conflicts with the police. However, these go
unreported by the media.
Sound likely? Hardly -- because fathers are an officially designated
scapegoat group in the U.S.
But consider the following piece from the Internet blog sheet Frontpage
magazine:
Rodney King: Once a Bum, Always a Bum
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 9, 2003
"If you’re not a news junkie you probably didn’t notice that Rodney King
was arrested again. He was speeding at 100 miles an hour, high on PCP,
when he ran a red light in Rialto, California on August 27. It is just a
matter of luck that King hasn’t killed someone yet. This was his fifth
arrest since a kangaroo court awarded him $3.8 million some years ago
because the LAPD had “violated his civil rights.” Or perhaps it was
because the court was afraid that rejecting King’s claim would spark
another riot that would kill 58 people and cost the city $16 billion in
destroyed homes and stores.
"One of King’s post-riot arrests was for beating his wife, just in case
you thought he was a nice guy harassed by police simply because he was
black.
"Apparently, in addition to going to jail again, Rodney King is now
broke. Which is one of the reasons you haven’t heard much about his
latest bust. Because the post-riot life of Rodney King gives the lie to
virtually every liberal nostrum for improving society, eradicating
poverty and making us all equal.
"How can you go broke on $3.8 million? Let’s say, for the sake of this
example, King had to pay his lawyers a million dollars in legal fees. If
he had put the remaining money in the bank in a long-term savings
account it would have netted him a six-figure income for the rest of his
life -- without requiring a stitch of work to get it. But if you give
money to a self-destructive lout like Rodney King, all you are going to
get for your money is trouble.
"Poverty, as a friend mine has said, is different from being broke.
Being broke is when you’re out of pocket. Being poor is a dispiriting
and disabling state of mind. Giving money to dysfunctional people is not
a way to make them rich or even comfortable. It’s a way of enabling them
to pursue their self-destructive behaviors at an even higher velocity.
"If Rodney King had obeyed the orders clearly given and had laid down in
a “prone position” on the night of his famous encounter with Los Angeles
police, 58 people would be alive today, $16 billion would be circulating
in the economy and four dedicated LAPD officers who were working to the
book that night would not have been forced to endure two trials (the
first had acquitted them) and had their careers destroyed to appease the
liberal conscience.
"But liberals had to make their point. They had to roll out the racial
melodrama, insisting that every time a black man is arrested – even one
fleeing and refusing to be cuffed -- a hate crime is committed by the
police themselves. Liberals had to wring millions of dollars out of Los
Angeles taxpayers to pay reparations to a man whom everyone knew then
and knows now is just a pathetic bum.
"Will Rodney King’s fifth arrest teach anyone anything? Hardly. First,
because no one wants to even talk about it. But second, nothing will be
learned for the same reason that liberals reading this column will
consider it mean-spirited and lacking compassion. Of course the same
liberals have already forgotten the 58 people who are dead because of
Rodney King and the criminals he and his supporters inspired – (I am
thinking of the late unlamented murderer Damian “Football” Williams).
Nobody cares about the innocent victims of the protesters for social
justice – the 2000 Koreans who lost their businesses to “black rage;”
the four cops who lost their careers because they beat a reckless
criminal who was resisting arrest and refused to go prone.
"And so is the inspirer of it all, Rodney King, forgotten too. But he is
forgotten because remembering him would tell a liberal culture more than
it wants to hear."
The simple political fact is that fathers are treated the way they are
in the current U.S. system because fathers are heterosexual males, and
they have no political group that springs to their defense.