The American family is the last bastion of defense against the ever expanding tyranny of the socialist-welfare state and corrupt bureaucrats who would usurp dominion and subjugate our citizenry. by Jake Morphonios
(libertarian)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
A series of social-welfare policies promulgated by President Lyndon Johnson were enacted in the 1960's and came to be known as the "Great Society". The intent of these programs was to eliminate poverty and racial injustice among the inner city poor. After 30 years, however, the result of these financial incentives has been the destruction of the traditional father-mother-child family unit among this demographic and the subjugation of millions of Americans to ghettoes, often rife with violence and crime.
By the 1970's the US government estimated that the skyrocketing costs of these social-welfare programs, which cost taxpayers trillions of dollars, would bankrupt the federal treasury. Politicians proposed myriad solutions but the entrenched welfare regime was not going to give up its power without a fight.
In the 1980's and early 1990's, the efforts of Presidents Reagan and Bush to reform welfare failed. Newt Gingrich and the Republican controlled Congress again tried to enact welfare reform, but it wasn't until President Bill Clinton joined in the fray that any substantive change occurred. Unfortunately, rather than reduce the welfare state, politicians greatly expanded it. The chief adjustment to the welfare system occurred under Title IV-D. The gravitational pull of the welfare bureaucracy had now sucked into its control middle and upper class Americans. If the welfare policies of the 1960's were disastrous, those of the 1990's were apocalyptic.
In the beginning, state welfare agencies gave financial assistance, such as food stamps and housing, to low income recipients. Because the federal government was subsidizing these state welfare programs, it decided to try to get some of its money back by going after "deadbeat dads" who were supposedly getting low income women pregnant and then abandoning all responsibilities for their children.
Under Title IV-D mandates, when a woman applied for welfare benefits she was obligated to simultaneously apply for legal services to establish the paternity of these "deadbeat" fathers and then collect child support from them. Naturally, some of the money would end up in the coffers of child support collection agencies. Like sharks smelling blood, bureaucrats began a feeding frenzy, devouring the resources of innocent fathers.
Under the welfare reforms of the 1990's, state governments were drafted into the child support collection racket. The federal government began providing millions of dollars to state governments that met child support collection quotas. Because states are largely free to use this money to fund their budgets as they wish, child support collection became a very lucrative business. It came as no surprise that as states competed against each other for federal funds they began to impose outrageous child support orders against more and more men - thus increasing the pool of potential "deadbeats" from which they could demand money. Pulled into this Orwellian nightmare were millions of middle and upper class men who had never abandoned their children and had no history of abdicating parental responsibilities. The original intent of Title IV-D was now history, and no man was safe from the insatiable addiction of state bureaucrats to free federal monies.
Have you ever wondered why fathers lose custody of their children in more than 85% of all family court custody cases? Well now you know. The government, including its family court system, complete with its cadre of divorce attorneys, child psychologists, child protection welfare police, and other parties in the divorce-for-profit industry, receives an avalanche of funding by systematically separating men from their children. The less time a man is given with his child, the more child support he is ordered to pay - and the more money that the government can forcibly collect from him.
How is this scam accomplished? Why isn't there more outrage? For tyranny to succeed, it must employ effective propaganda. One must have a monster to slay to arouse the passions of the masses. The myth of the "deadbeat dad" was thus created by government bureaucrats and is perpetuated by the media, by the Department of Social Services, and by the misandrous family court system. Even well-intentioned citizens will savage the general reputation of divorced men in conversations with their friends simply to avoid sounding unsympathetic. After all, who doesn't want to seem to be on the side of innocent children?
A middle-class dad who is involuntarily divorced by his wife and loses custody of his children through no fault of his own, who does his best to care for his children in spite of the unjust system of family law that has stripped him of his parental rights is not a deadbeat. Yet he will be vilified on the nightly news, his face will appear on Wanted posters and pizza boxes for child support arrearages, he will have his wages garnished, his drivers' license suspended and his reputation ruined. And though he is innocent of any wrongdoing, he will receive neither sympathy nor support. His money now belongs to the government, and the full force of the child support industry will compel him to pay or he will be thrown in jail without mercy. Welcome to the United States of America.
In his masterful work, 1984, George Orwell penned the infamous slogan of Big Brother:
"War is Peace - Freedom is Slavery - Ignorance is Strength"
In 2009, perhaps Mr. Orwell would add to his list the official slogan of the expanded and improved powers of Big Brother:
"Marriage is Encumbrance - Divorce is Entitlement - Bureaucracy is Enrichment"
The American family is the last bastion of defense against the ever expanding tyranny of the socialist-welfare state and corrupt bureaucrats who would usurp dominion and subjugate our citizenry. If the institutions of fatherhood and the family fail to withstand this liberty eroding plague of despotism, the fulfillment of Orwell's vision of the future will be complete.
The views expressed
in this article are those of Jake Morphonios only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Jake Morphonios is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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