From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity,soc.men,soc.women,talk.abortion,alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Reproductive Technologies... (was: Re: Father Notification...)
Date: 5 Jan 93 01:37:11 GMT
Followup-To: alt.feminism,soc.men,soc.women
Organization: mydog in exile

NOTE: abortion-related newsgroups removed on follow-up.

gf:
| >Do you have figures on this?  Over the last twenty years,
| >I've known many people paying or receiving child support,
| >but in most cases the support was somewhat less than what
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| >it would take to raise a child in roughly the same standard
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| >of living the parents were used to.  Avoid anecdotal
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| >evidence, however; we can both supply that, but you are
| >making a positive implication that a great injustice is
| >going on, and need more than anecdotes to back it up.

karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger) writes:
| You've just made my point for me.
| 
| If the NCP is providing "somewhat less than what it would take to raise
| ....." then what about the other parent who should be providing >half< of
| that support?  Are they off the hook?

It's supposed to depend on the incomes of the parents.  Like I
say, I'd like to see some figures.  Otherwise we're just woofing
around with a bunch of speculations and abstractions.

kd:
| And what about the >fact< that if you take one household, and split it into
| two households, INVARIABLY the two households standard of living will
| >decline< dramatically.  This is fact.  When you double fixed costs you're 
| going to see a precipitous decline in living standard.  No escape is possible 
| from this fact.

It's not quite invariable, actually.  I know of at least
three cases where one or both of the parents was acting in
a destructive manner prior to the split, and quit (or had
its behavior more or less quarantined) afterward, so that
the aggregate effect was financially positive. I have read
that in many divorces, possibly a majority, the living 
standards of one of the households rises as of a year after 
the divorce.  I think this has been discussed before here 
or in soc.feminism.

However, I put in the part about living standards because
child support payments are supposed in most jurisdictions
to roughly accord with the economic status of the parents.
Movie stars may pay a lot; bus drivers less.  It's an
approximation, and your arithmetical excitement is 
misplaced.

kd:
| Now what is it that makes the CP (and the child, putatively) entitled to the
| old standard of living when it is >physically impossible< to do that by any
| other means than impoverishing the NCP?

See above.

kd:
| Further, the LAW in many states is that support is calculated not on >actual<
| earnings of the NCP, but >imputed< earnings.  That is, if a NCP loses his 
| job he STILL owes support money, even though he is not earning ANYTHING at 
| the time! 

Could you quote one of those laws?  Does it define 
"imputed"?  I know of a case where a guy who was a
building contractor closed down his business and moved
in with his girlfriend, claiming to have no income, while
his ex-wife and three children went on welfare at my
taxpayer's expense; I don't know what the courts imputed
to him, but he didn't pay and his ex-wife stayed on
welfare until her youngest was old enough to get day-care,
and she got a job.  Is this what you're talking about?

kd:
| [ sad tale of dad going broke.... ] 
| Sure, the kid goes on getting his money (maybe), although really its Mom who
| gets it.  Dad lives on the street, where the feminists claim "he belongs" 
| since he should support his kids (and his ex-wife, although we don't mention 
| that) first - even if it means destroying him utterly.

Which feminists claim he belongs on the street?  How
many of these street dads are there?

kd:
| >| ...
| >| Particularly when, should the man complain, she can simply use the "nuclear
| >| bomb" of child custody disputes, sexual abuse allegations, and >even if they
| >| are false and baseless< walk away scott free -- with the kids -- while the
| >| man is ruined not only personally for financially as well.

gf:
| >You've been making this charge as well, but as yet you have
| >not offered any evidence that I have seen.  Again, an
| >anecdote or two will not do; you are asserting that it is
| >a general problem.

kd:
| It certainly is.  Whether or not a weapon is used is not the point.  It is
| still a weapon.  The fact is that today a woman can use this weapon with
| impunity and face no punishment, even if the accusation is completely false
| and baseless.  In many counties and states it is >impossible< for a woman to
| stand trial for a false accusation, as the "experts" claim that there is no
| such thing as a provably-false abuse accusation.

I disagree with you that a weapon which is never used
is believable, and I think everyone would appreciate it
if you could document some of this stuff.  How can I write
to my state legislators about this inequity if I don't
know what the law actually states?  Making it impossible
for a woman to stand trial for something a man may stand
trial for is unconstitutional, and removing it should be
a quick matter.  We must know what to remove, however.

kd:
| I stand by my statement; if I have a nuclear bomb I do not have to use it 
| or even threaten to for there to be an impact on a negotiation we are
| undertaking; your knowledge that I posess it, and can use it if desired, 
| are enough.

If you have a nuclear bomb and want to make the threat of
using it believable, you have to use it at least once or
twice; that's how you convey knowledge of its potency.  As
for the particular case of the threat of false accusation
of sex abuse, what you have written implies that the threat
is used only by implication and is never, or hardly ever
carried out; thus, you must be able to read minds and 
innumerable private communications to discern that the
threat is taken seriously.  I'd be very interested in your
methods of doing this.

kd:
| Read the statistics on the granting of primary physical custody in 
| divorce cases.  See who gets the kids, and who gets the bills.  The
| percentages are right there if you care to do the work for yourself.
| 
| All the complaints I've heard, here and in real live, have had to do with
| the bills -- not having the kids.  

But your suggestion implied that men would be _required_ to
take the kids, did it not?  To fill that quota? I think you
may have invented a new dimension of unfatherhood!

-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity,sci.econ