From: barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry)
Subject: Re: Duck and Jive (sounds like an English pub...)
Organization: QQQCLC
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 06:20:23 GMT

In article <4460@unisql.UUCP> wrat@unisql.UUCP (wharfie) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.164754.6557@netcom.com> barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry) writes:
>>person refuses to help his own child, the flesh of his own flesh, when
>>that child is too young to care for itself, is there really anything
>
>	I believe that what is so objectionable is the idea of being
>forced to beggar one's self to support an estranged family in relative
>comfort.  How much does the government pay a foster family to support
>their foster children?  How much can an unemployed mother of two get in
>welfare, food stamps, and AFDC ?   Now, why is _this_ sufficient to 
>support children unless there happens to be a man to soak for an order
>of magnitude more?  Why isn't the _government_ required to support
>children at some substantial fraction of its income?  Don't _those_
>children deserve the same comfort as the children of some _man_ who had
>the bad grace to get his girlfriend pregnant?  I have a mental picture
>of thousands of orphans suing Uncle Sam for overdue child support...

	I'm not going to defend the current system in detail; I don't
approve of a lot of those details. I do believe in adequate support for
children, and that it's fair to force the natural parents to contribute
to that support before you go to the taxpayers with the same demand. The
parents' responsibilities take precedence over the responsibilities of
anonymous taxpayers, whose resources should be conserved for those
children whose natural parents _both_ lack adequate resources to support
their children.

>>Is there some demonstration of amoral selfishness which is stronger or more 
>>definite than this? 
>
>	How about "Hurt that fellow as much as you can, since your action
>does not hurt me at all." ?

	That's pretty close to what I _am_ hearing from those who
believe that a father should have the right to abdicate all
responsibility for his children. That responsibility ends up on the
shoulders of the mother, of other relatives, of taxpayers. Somebody
pays. A _fair_ argument for that position would be one arguing that all
these others _ought_ to pick up the responsibility, but no, that would
acknowledge someone besides mom is picking up the slack.

>	Now, what's really happening here is that our society is twisted. 
>She shouldn't _need_ a man to support her (nor should he be reduced to
>slavery to support her) because her own family should help where her own
>resources might fail.  Of their own will.  Out of love.  Out of duty.  How-
>ever much they want, or can.  Not at the point of a gun.

	In an ideal world, everything gets done out of love. You're
shifting the ground of debate again, wharfie; all of a sudden mom is the
problem to be solved, not the kids. Those family values you praise are
the same ones I mean when I say the man must support his children.
They're _his_ children; can you get more "family" than that?

-  Nothing fails like success  -             Kenn Barry
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