Below i have copied an article from the Globe and Mail by Sarah Hampson. I hope I'm not transgressing any copyright laws here. I give Sarah Hampson full credit for writing the article and the Globe and Mail full credit for publishing it. It is high time we push through the fortress of 'political correctness' to get down to the toxicity of domestic discrimination and injustice against men in the Family Courts of Canada. The issues at stake are: support payments, money and property division, domestic assaults, and even sexual assaults -- or should I say 'alleged sexual assaults' -- outside the home.
Sarah Hampson pushed through the fortress of political correctness 'gently' offering a token of 'empathy' for the stressed out father. The email feedback she got from a small cross-section of divorced/separated fathers gave a much better picture of where the whole domestic court issue really stood for men -- in the mud and swamp and deepest, dingiest holes in Canada -- a prelude to how the Family Courts of Canada can make Canada a living hell for separated/divorced men, in effect, a prison outside of prison for those men who are coerced into following its economic directives. Separation/divorce is stressful enough for any man or woman who has been together for any length of time in an extended relationship -- far worse, when there are children involved. The Family Courts of Canada have a responsibility to find the 'right economic and emotional homeostatic balance' between all three of the major parties experiencing significant stress here: the woman, the children -- and the man.
To pamper one sex or the other -- and to throw the other sex to the wolves, man or woman -- is a gross travesty of 'justice', and an inexusable error of judgment on the part of the politicians and judges who have passed the laws and/or are governing these laws on the behalf of every citizen of Canada -- again, not just one sex or the other, any more than 'black', 'brown', or 'white' should make a difference in our regular court system.
The pendulum has swung 180 degrees. Years ago it was the women and children who were getting 'blugeoned' in the Family Courts of Canada. Now it is the men. Both situations are equally inexcusable. With all due respect, Sarah Hamson comes at this issue with a feather; I -- like many of the men in the feedback emails that she got -- come at this issue with a 'Nietzschean hammer'. Pardon the violent metaphors but there is a time in philosophical writing where 'gentle' just doesn't cut it anymore. The feminist lobbyist groups -- and I distinguish here between 'egalitarian' feminists (aiming for political fairness) and 'narcissistic' feminists (aiming for all they can get) -- have had their say in the political arena for the last 30 years or so, with most men saying barely a peep. We, as men, have endured the feminist, political onslaught either with ignorance of what has been happening, and/or with a Clint Eastwood type of 'masculine stoicness'. Let the women have their say. Well, they have been having their say for almost 30 years now in their pamphlets and their books and their lobbyism -- and one has to ask in the absense of any 'compensating' masculine rights groups, 'Where have all the male politicians and judges and lawyers been to say, 'Enough is enough! You are killing the economics and the spirit of all the divorced/separated men in this country!' Single women in their 40's and 50's complain that they can't find any 'good men' out there -- at least 'good men' who still have some money and property left to their name that hasn't disappeared, or isn't disappearing, to some ex-spouse (or spouses) who has/have taken the lion's share of the man's money and property -- and his spirit with it. The man may still be making $50,000 or more -- and be left with $15-20,000 to try to live on, after Revenue Canada and Family Responsibility have both gotten through with him. Revenue Canada doesn't care about the man's financial responsibilities to Family Responsiblity -- they couldn't care if he is married, divorced, or single; they still want the same cut. And Family Responsibility doesn't give a 'rat's ass' about the man's responsibilities to Revenue Canada, or for that matter, for the man's ability to economically sustain himself to any degree -- after they have both gotten through with him. They don't even care if the child the man is still supporting has passed the age of 18, has moved out with a boyfriend or girlfriend, is working full time, and is no longer in school. 'That' -- they say -- 'is for the courts to decide. Fill out the 20 pages of technical court documents, hire yourself a lawyer if you wish -- even if you can't afford one -- and wait for your time in court. A judge is the only person who can tell us whether to stop your payments or not, no matter whether your son or daughter is half way through his or her twenties now and making more than you are. We may stop the flow of money to the mother -- but we will still keep the money for the government umtil a judge tells us to stop collecting it.'
This is 'equal rights' for the separated/divorced father today in Canadian society. It is high time that these 'equal rights' laws are trashed and we start all over again -- with both men and women at the bargaining table.
My aim in Hegel's Hotel, short and simple, is for domestic justice in the courts of Cananda and in the homes of separated/divorced mothers and fathers in Canada. I don't want women to be walked over by men who taken off on them seeking to run away from all family responsiblities -- and I don't want men to be walked over by the Domestic Courts of Canada who are practically robbing separated men of all the money and property they have earned, and/or are still earning.
And people wonder why there are so many 'ghost' fathers in Canada. How about counting the dead and dying separated/divorced fathers who feel -- or can't feel anymore -- the depth of the alienation and lack of support that they feel for their own country. I, myself, went through a period where I didn't want to call Canada 'home' any longer. I was sick and tired of listening to all the articles about 'dead beat fathers'. I was more interested in getting out my 'Nietzschean hammer' and verbally attacking the 'dead beat politicians, judges and lawyers' who let this legal travesty of so-called 'equality' and 'justice' happen. The lawyers, you can partly understand. They tell you how unfair the Family Courts of Canada are to men -- as they take another large cheque from you and pad their already high income. Welcome to Canada! Home of eqaulity and justice for all!
Meanwhile, much closer to the truth of the matter, is the fact that separated fathers have become a marginalized, scapegoated, victimized sect of Canadian society. It is time that separated fathers started speaking up for themselves. Because 30 years of feminist lobbyist has more than proven the point that nobody else is going to do it for them. Gentlemen, keep up your silence, and you might as well jsut lay down on the pavement and let these feminist lobbyist groups steamroll over top of you. The same net result.
The government of Canada needs to find a way to make divorce and separation trials less lengthy, less costly, less adversarial, and less 'trashy'. More couples should go to conflict mediation rather than court. And court should not be a place where there is a huge 'winner' and a huge 'loser'. Of course, the longer a couple spends in court, the more the likelihood that they are both going to walk -- or crawl -- out as huge losers -- along with the children.
It would seem that I am stating the obvious when I say that a domestic court settlement should be 'as fair as possible' to both sides. However, it pains me to say that either of two things are likely to happen: either, 1. the person with the best lawyer and/or the best capability of paying legal fees is going to win the settlement; or the man is going to get 'trashed' and often actually 'povertized' in a way that women who are old enough should remember how the opposite types of settlements used to come down like a sledgehammer on them.
Again, welcome to Canada -- not that it is likely any better in the U.S. It seems to be a North American thing, maybe Europeon too. Maybe the whole world has beomce a land of greed and selfishness -- 'narcissism' is the technical philosophical term that I generally use. Everyone for themselves -- and teach this fine ethical system to your children. You don't even have to teach it to them. Just model it for them. Lord of The Flies. Land of 'Screw your friend, your business partner -- and your ex-spouse.' The word 'screw' is not meant in any nice sense of the word.
Everyone grab a safety net. Those who don't, tough luck. Your problem, neighbor, not mine. Our 21st Century Schizoid World. Our Brave New World. Everyone try to find a politician that you can trust and respect. That's like trying to get rich in a Casino. Like the sound of one hand clappin', it just ain't gonna happen. I think Bob Dylan wrote that.
It is time to stop this nonsense and re-establish some ethics and integrity. Some 'fair play' that is not just a couple of rosy words meant to disquise what is really happening. Narcissism kills equal rights and democracy. Only ethics and integrity will get back on track. And that will take the will of the people -- a large and active, not alienated -- political group of normal people like you and me -- working people, the salt of the earth, the Silent and Suppressed Middle Class -- to mobilize enough power and influence in this country, in this world, to get it back to something even partly resembling what it idealistically should -- and can --be. Black, Browns, and Whites working together. Christians and Muslims working together. Men and Women working together -- and neither one trying to take the other one to the cleaners. And regardless, a set of judges that won't let it happen.
Because in the end, we will all live together. Or we will all perish together in a world that is socially, politically, legally, economically, ethically, and/or environmentally not hospitable enough for human existance and survival. Even now it is not hospitable enough for many a human spirit. Will any politician ever be able to repair what has happened in the last 5 years in America and The Middle East. They are both being dragged down together on an anchor to the bottom of the ocean.
The same csn be said for many a divorced or separated man or woman trying to survive the onslaught of lawyers and the judicial decision of The Domestic Courts of Canada -- particularly the men who seem to be taking by far the largest brunt of the economic pain. One spouse might walk away a 'winner' and the other a 'loser'. But in the end, both sexes are the losers. Because we need each other. And when you destroy the fabric of trust and respect -- and economic equality and/or fairness -- between the sexes, they you have a problem that is not going to end with any one messy divorce or separation.
Indeed, we are all going to have to deal with the accumulative total of 'massive family court traumacy' -- and the fact that no one wants to involve themselves anymore with the opposite sex if it means that they could end up going back there again. Better to live alone than to live in a court-imposed economic prision outside of prison. There is no 'sexual equality' in these courts. Men have learned what it is really about. For the most part, unless the man has a really good lawyer, it is about a transfer of money from men to women, or from men to the government with no one caring how much 'net income' the man has left, and with the newspapers and feminist lobbyist groups still marginalizing, scapegoating, and victimizing separated fathes as as 'ghost' or 'abandoning' fathers and nobody willing to dig deep enough to find out why this is really happening.
What we have, in effect, is collusion happening between the feminist lobbyist groups and the politicians of Canada -- no more or no less than would seem to also be a rather apparent collusion between the gas companies and the politicians of Canada (the politicians like both the gas taxes and the separated fathers' support money) -- and the separated fatherrs are the 'marginalized, left over pieces' that are on the outside, not the inside, of the equation.
That's how politics works in Canada. Just look at the Gomery Report as another example of what I am talking about. Two in bed with each other -- and one getting shafted on the outide. I call it 'narcissistic politics'
dgb, Jan. 19th-20th, 2008, updated Feb. 17th, 2008.
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