Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

[Maitre]

*raises eyebrow*

And fathering a child and not supporting him/her to the same living style you enjoy is what?
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Agreed. Unwilling to comply when able, male or female, deserves prosecution (though the result of prosecution is either fine or prison, each of which are unlikely to result in improved compliance), however, those who cannot support themselves can only share their poverty.

It seems to me that the question that Doc points back to repeatedly is the case of a party who may be willing to comply but is unable to comply (ordered payment exceed reasonable earning expectations). We can have a seperate discussion about "reasonable earning expectations" which will varry from one individual to another within a market and from one market to another, but the point stands, those who cannot buy their own groceries may not deserve prison for not being able to buy someone elses groceries. I agree they have a responsibility to their child, and many rational parents would recognize that the responsibility to the child often outweighs the responsibility to one's self, however, what punishment should be levied against those who can ("can" mind you not "will") share only lack of money despite their "best effort" to the contrary?

[Artega]

Let's not.  :)  If ethics are not part of our legal system, then there is no point to having a legal system.
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Frankly I think ethics should be removed from the legal system altogether. Stem cell research has promise, but I seem to remember it getting flak from various sources because it was considered ethically unsound, yet it has the potential to cure various terminal illnesses and permanent disabilities; would it be encouraged, given the potential benefits, if ethics were removed from the equation?

Regardless, I have to side with Shadow on this issue; the playing field isn't equal, and never will be, so trying to make it equal is like an analogy I'm unable to think of at this point. I do think that some of the laws regarding child support and such are a little insane, though :)

[Doc]

Women have reproductive freedom. They can have casual sex and say to hell with the consequences because of abortions.

Men have no such freedom. For all of the talk about women being equals, and wanting the same rights as a man, it still boils down to this one little bone in the craw. I still think, for some circumstances, men should have the same ability as a woman to simply shrug off the consequences for casual sex. And I believe that men should also have the same rights for reproductive freedom. Men should have the same right to abort. Ok, maybe not physically, but financially.

This thread has been most interesting and has really caused me to sit down and think about what is "fair."

It's a tough issue. I do not believe there are any simple answers, but it is important to think about.

[ShadowHM]

Women have reproductive freedom. They can have casual sex and say to hell with the consequences because of abortions.

Men have no such freedom. For all of the talk about women being equals, and wanting the same rights as a man, it still boils down to this one little bone in the craw. I still think, for some circumstances, men should have the same ability as a woman to simply shrug off the consequences for casual sex. And I believe that men should also have the same rights for reproductive freedom. Men should have the same right to abort. Ok, maybe not physically, but financially.
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Quit whining, Doc!

The shoe is on the other foot, after centuries of it being the other way around, and you damn well resent it, right?

Get away from the 'poor men' thing, and start worrying about the children!

[Doc]

Quit whining, Doc!

The shoe is on the other foot, after centuries of it being the other way around, and you damn well resent it, right? 

Get away from the 'poor men' thing, and start worrying about the children!
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Well, at least Susan B Anthony had the class to demand to be sent to jail like any other man would have for breaking the law.

It's not about poor men or poor women. It's about the removal of a double standard. I am entirely neutral on my positions about the sexes. If I see something that shouldn't be, I'll say something about it. I am all for women's rights and making sure they are treated as equals. However, in the process, I don't believe they should be elevated to a higher status than the menfolk. And if a woman demands to have a certain right than by damn, she had better have the class to make sure that the same is offered in return. Fair is fair after all. If they can't offer the same in return, then they shouldn't have it at all. And THAT GOES FOR MEN TOO. So don't nobody get no bright ideas. Everybody should have rights. Voting, handguns, property, the right to speak their mind. And so on. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. With these rights should come a little thing called personal responsibility.

And yes, children should be the real concern. I don't agree with abortion at all... And most of the current child custody dispute methods these days. It's all wrong. I had to go through some nasty wrangling and some damn dirty underhanded stuff just to make sure my Goddaughter was kept happy, healthy, and safe from harm. Namely, state foster care. It is absolutely vile the sort of hoops one is expected to jump through concerning a child's welfare. It's no fookin wonder that so many children slip through the cracks when mommy and daddy wind up fighting and a feuding.

Edit. To directly reply to the shoe being on the other foot... If we followed this line of reasoning that Shadow has presented, it should be perfectly ok for black folks to take white folks in to slavery. For just a little while. It would allow the shoe to sit on the other foot for a while. Sure, white folks would resent it... But it would be the right thing to do... Right? No harm, no foul. Somehow, they deserve to break the law and twist it around to their advantage because of what happened to them. But they should learn to just shut up and not say anything and let the black folks have their moment in the sun, because the shoe is now on the other foot. And that's ok.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Probably something I need to pay more attention to my self. Overcompensating the situation solves nothing, but breeds further resentment which will only hurt women even more in the long run. Women hurt their own cause by demanding special circumstances and priviledge, and to be protected in the long dark shadow of double standards.

[DeeBye]

With all of this gender equality stuff floating around, I don't even know if it's okay for me to hold a door open for a female. Sometimes I get yelled at :(

[Griselda]

With all of this gender equality stuff floating around, I don't even know if it's okay for me to hold a door open for a female.  Sometimes I get yelled at :(
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You sure that's not related to the little slap you give them on the way through the door? :P

:whistling:

[Doc]

With all of this gender equality stuff floating around, I don't even know if it's okay for me to hold a door open for a female.  Sometimes I get yelled at :(
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If you don't do it, you are crass and have no manners. And a woman can and will call you on it. Wait till there is an argument or a disagreement. "You can't even hold open a door for me! You don't love me! Blah blah blah! You have no respect for me as a woman!"

If you do do it, you are sexist. "What, you think I can't even open doors for my self?"

The last time something was said to me when I opened a door I calmly and casually replied that she should stop flapping her gums and show some courtesy to all of the women behind her that she was holding up. She turned beet red and tried several times to come back with a witty and hurtful barb. I gently reminded her that she was still holding up traffic and added my own witty barb, that it was she that was blocking the forward progress of women. There were some giggles and titters. She raised her hand, I think she wanted to slap me. She was most furious.

[DeeBye]

You sure that's not related to the little slap you give them on the way through the door?  :P

:whistling:
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It's more like a little pinch and my mom and grandma say it's cute :)


edit: I don't actually pinch people

[DeeBye]

If you do do it, you are sexist. "What, you think I can't even open doors for my self?"
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This happened to me once. I held a door open for someone, and they made almost word-for-word the remark quoted. I just slammed the door in her face and went on my merry way.

[Doc]

This happened to me once.  I held a door open for someone, and they made almost word-for-word the remark quoted.  I just slammed the door in her face and went on my merry way.
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Er, well, I most certainly wouldn't have slammed the door in her face. Well, maybe, but it's not bloody likely. That would be just plain rude. And wrong. A gentleman must endure the abuse of the fairer sex on occasion, if only to show that we are more gracious than women make us out to be. However, such a woman would be put in her place with a few well spoken words. Perhaps a taunting.

[DeeBye]

Er, well, I most certainly wouldn't have slammed the door in her face.
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Well, I just let go of the door. Unbeknownst to me, the door had a spring-loaded closing thingie installed. When I let go of the door, it slammed in her face. Oops.

[kandrathe]

With all of this gender equality stuff floating around, I don't even know if it's okay for me to hold a door open for a female.  Sometimes I get yelled at :(
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Well, at work I treat women like men. The first one to the door opens it, and it's their decision whether they hold it open for the next people or go through first. At home, my wife expects me to be a gentleman, so I open her car doors, etc. and pamper her as best I can.

Not that she isn't liberated, but we have worked out the battle of the sexes thing. I do the dishes and housework, and I don't complain (or snicker) when she tries her hand at carpentry. In fact, since I'm allergic to grass, having her do the mowing works best for us.

[kandrathe]

Frankly I think ethics should be removed from the legal system altogether.  Stem cell research has promise, but I seem to remember it getting flak from various sources because it was considered ethically unsound, yet it has the potential to cure various terminal illnesses and permanent disabilities; would it be encouraged, given the potential benefits, if ethics were removed from the equation?
...
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Well, then you might have some of the nightmare sci-fi plots unfold. If law were not based on our moral traditions and ethics we would be very well justified in a utilitarian state to terminate the elderly, criminals, and otherwise unproductive to harvest their organs for repairing the productive members of society. We might encourage baby farming, or women getting pregnant to donate embyonic tissue to aid rich people to live extended life spans.

Remove stem cell research, and insert something like nuclear weapons reseach and see if you are still willing to give science a blank check in the ethics department. Many new technologies have great potential benefit, and great potential harm if misdirected.

"Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal." -- Albert Einstein

[kandrathe]

I step out for a few days and this place gets all reproductive.  Sheesh.  I have 2 points that would have made better sense had I made them earlier, but here goes anyway:
In the context of Doc's original post (abdication of male parental fiscal responsibility on the basis of choice, argued under equal protection clause) and combining with Occhi's comment on adoption, would a change in the system similar to what the lawsuit seeks allow for an "adoption of child support," e.g., kindly older couple with not to many years left, no kids of their own don't want to adopt, but want to help those who need it paired with young mother whose baby's-daddy decided to split (analogue to open adoption through private "broker").

Just something interesting that came to mind.  Seems like a very awkward process, but something that might evolve.
...
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Your post reminded me of a situation with some friends or ours who were trying to adopt through the US system, rather than do the usual overseas adoption. I saw first hand why couples would want to choose to adopt a foreign child rather than try to work through our system. The most important point was that our system has a very unclear break, so that a couple might have a child with them for many months or years while legal wrangling occurs only to have the adoption unravel. This happened 4 times with our friends, after they have accepted babies and cared for them for many months only to see them taken away and returned to their birth parents.

In one case, it was extremely sad since the father wanted deperately to keep his son, but he did not earn enough money to pay for daycare and provide a living for his family. The mother had been committed long term to a mental institution. The case draggged out for two years, until he finally found a way to care for the boy while he was at work. It may have been a happy ending for the father and the boy (even though in extreme poverty), but very sad for our friends who had raised the boy for 2 years from infancy.

[kandrathe]

Women have reproductive freedom. They can have casual sex and say to hell with the consequences because of abortions.

Men have no such freedom. For all of the talk about women being equals, and wanting the same rights as a man, it still boils down to this one little bone in the craw. I still think, for some circumstances, men should have the same ability as a woman to simply shrug off the consequences for casual sex. And I believe that men should also have the same rights for reproductive freedom. Men should have the same right to abort. Ok, maybe not physically, but financially.

This thread has been most interesting and has really caused me to sit down and think about what is "fair."

It's a tough issue. I do not believe there are any simple answers, but it is important to think about.
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"A chicken and a pig are together when the chicken says, "Let's start a restaurant!".
The pig thinks it over and says, "What would we call this restaurant?".
The chicken says, "Ham n' Eggs!".
The pig says, "No thanks, I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"."

I'm not saying that women are pigs, but they are in the sense of pregnancy in this story. After conception, men are merely involved and have only opinions.

I look at it this way, if you as a man want to have a say in what happens to the pregnancy, then for heavens sake get to know the woman before you knock her up. Form a committed relationship and in fact, get to know her so well you'd marry her, provide for her and her children, and take care of them the rest of your life. If you knew her, and she knew you well enough that she'd trust you'd follow through on your committments, maybe she'd listen to your opinions on your contribution to the fetus growing inside her.

[kandrathe]

*raises eyebrow*

And fathering a child and not supporting him/her to the same living style you enjoy is what?
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It really depends on how unscrupulous the mother is.

I know a couple cases where unmarried, but committed couples conspired to take advantage of men. In one case the male had a congenital anomaly they did not want to pass to their offspring, so the woman caroused with quality specimens until she got pregnant. Then she fleeced the sperm donor for child support, and continued her relationship with her permanent boyfriend.

Generally, though I agree that the suffering is the other way.

[Occhidiangela]

*raises eyebrow*

And fathering a child and not supporting him/her to the same living style you enjoy is what?
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"The same living style you enjoy" is both a nebulous term, and beside the point.

What are the costs to support the child? What are the necessities? What is a fair share contribution? What is the excuse to penalize future earnings and income due to a perceived "living style."

For poorer (economically) men who split with their wives or are correctly sued for child support/paternity, your argument would "have the child living in debt" since it is the same lifestyle of the disenfranchised, or deadbeat, father.

Good idea? Not.

The means method results in such idiocy as the professional golfer Fred Couples being sued for alimony and child support on the order of $50,000 per month to ensure his ex could sustain her polo habit. That is an extreme example, of course, and he is no deadbeat, but that is the door opened by such loosely worded laws with vague, or no definitions, and thresholds.

The limitation on human greed and digging into another's pocket has yet to be measured. The "family law" practitioners stand to profit from an open ended well of "other people's money" to lower their buckets into. They pursue language in the laws, as do various other agenda bearing persons, to permit an open ended economic leak from a limited sector of society. Lampreys in the pockets of both deadbeat dads, for whom I have little sympathy, and disenfranchised fathers, who are time and again abused by the system. It' a wonder more lawyers aren't killed in their sleep.

There is a cost, an opportunity cost and a material cost, for most decisions. Being promiscuous carries a cost. Giving up on a marriage carries a cost.

Back to Grisdelda's point, a page back: once baby is born, the conceptual problem is people thinking it is still "all about them." The root cause is not addressed by these provisions. The percentage gain for the middle men is too attractive to be eliminated, since the door is always left open for "you owe me more" based on vague criteria.

Occhi

[Doc]

And lets not forget that the child support laws are so farked up that a boyfriend that spends a week in a woman's life that is not the biological father can become a "father figure" and be responsible for child support.

As I recall, I posted that story here. Occhi had some good stuff to say about men that are not the father being banged for child support.

What I would like to know is, how does a judge arrive at the conclusion for weekly child support payments?

I mean really, here is a man that by all rights should be educated, have a higher degree of reason, a little wisdom, and a little wit.

Yet how does this moron sitting on the bench decide that a guy making six bucks an hour can somehow afford 400 a week in child support? Really... Some of the fault here lies with the legal system, and the lawyers who push for the highest possible limit so that there 5 to 10% cut from each child support check plumped out as much as possible. What judge is such a dimwit that he can't even do the math to see that some poor soul just can't offer up that kind of money. For a lawyer, it's the difference of 10 bucks a week to 40 dollars. (or more a week) One gets him some coffee and a muffin, and the other might fill the tank half way on the big honking SUV that his fat bloated botox injected wife drives.

I mean, it doesn't take that many brain cells to determine that you can't get something from nothing.

And my wife would like to add, a woman's independance ends at marriage. So does a man's. From there on out, it's a team effort. There is no "I", only "we".

[ShadowHM]

With these rights should come a little thing called personal responsibility.

If you have not cottoned on to my stance on personal responsibility by now, you are being willfully forgetful.

And yes, children should be the real concern. I don't agree with abortion at all...  It's all wrong.

Yet you were quick to suggest that men should have the right to demand that his erstwhile partner should have one. :angry:

Edit. To directly reply to the shoe being on the other foot... If we followed this line of reasoning that Shadow has presented, it should be perfectly ok for black folks to take white folks in to slavery. For just a little while. It would allow the shoe to sit on the other foot for a while. Sure, white folks would resent it... But it would be the right thing to do... Right? No harm, no foul. Somehow, they deserve to break the law and twist it around to their advantage because of what happened to them. But they should learn to just shut up and not say anything and let the black folks have their moment in the sun, because the shoe is now on the other foot. And that's ok.

Nice piece of misdirection, Doc.

For most of human history, men have had the ability to deny any form of responsibilty for the children they father. Women have had to accept all the conseqeunces of unintended preganancies. Men still do have the option of wrapping that willy in the first place. Women now have legal access to safe abortions, if they choose, but I don't see how that has any bearing on the lack of personal responsibility of the man in the first place to ensure that his casual sex has no outcome. Sure, the stakes are higher now. He can no longer walk away. But don't expect me to get all concerned about it, when he could have prevented it in the first place.

I will not argue that there are no unscrupulous women. But there is still nothing to prevent any man from ensuring that sex involves contraception.

I will not argue that there are never broken condoms. But the failure rate is nothing like the epidemic you are suggesting.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Probably something I need to pay more attention to my self. Overcompensating the situation solves nothing, but breeds further resentment which will only hurt women even more in the long run. Women hurt their own cause by demanding special circumstances and priviledge, and to be protected in the long dark shadow of double standards.
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Agreed. We are back to the notion of personal responsibility. And the lack of that is an epidemic in North American culture, in manifold ways, not just this one.