From: biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel)
Subject: Re: Response to Deluge About Hillary Clinton
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:35:13 GMT

note: distribution trimmed.

slarsen@verdi.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:

...[ ]...

HB:
>>Sue, your faith in lawyers is touching, but misplaced. As a practical
>>matter, what do you think will be the typical reaction of a parent
>>upon finding out that his/her child is bringing suit? Compromise
>>and reconciliation, or alienation and confrontation? Who pays the
>>lawyers? What do you suppose will be the effect on the family of a
>>lawsuit that was decided in favor of the parents? Who pays for what?

>As a practical matter, children have no assets.  Lawyers would have 
>to go after the parents for payment. If the case had no merit, 
>lawyers fees could not be collected through the parents.  How many 
>lawyers do you know would take a case without merit, never to see
>a dime for their efforts, just to run up the parents' legal fees?

>The way I see it, the court system of this country is in place not 
>only to prosecute criminals but as an avenue where I, or any other 
>individual, who feels they have been wronged can get a hearing.  
>Granted, lawyers  capitalize on the system, but I sure want that 
>system in place if someday a poorly built car blows up in my face, 
>or some employer stiffs me a paycheck, or a government official says 
>they don't like my face so I can't vote, or a doctor leaves a 
>surgical sponge in my brain.

>No, my faith is not in the lawyers, it is in the courts, the only 
>place where an individual citizen can go to get individual justice.
>And I care enough for my daughter's welfare and the welfare of other 
>children that I believe that that system can be made more responsive 
>to the very real needs of children in distress.

As I said before, I find your faith touching. My all-too-personal
experience with the American legal system persuades me that the system
dispenses mixed truth and diluted justice, that it exists largely to
grow and perpetuate itself, and that the resolution of important
issues is only rarely achieved by it. The system adjudicates disputes;
it does so through the adversarial verbal combat of opposing lawyers,
pitting two contending parties against each other. Doesn't sound
like a good forum for resolving parental and filial problems.

As a practical matter, have you ever tried to get someone to fix
your lemon car, pay you the salary they owed you, or make restitution
for malpractice? In my experience, the system is set up to reward
lawyers for suing those with deep pockets, and for representing the
rich and powerful in their struggles.

In your scenario, children would have to find lawyers to take them
on contingency, or else you and I as taxpayers would have to fund
the process. In the end, at best the court sez "Pay $X zillion to
the plaintiff." How does that address the exploding heart of your
cousin? Or suppose your beloved daughter decides to divorce you
on the grounds of extreme mental cruelty (you've insisted for
years that she clean up her room before going out, you wicked,
controlling person) and wins. What now? She goes to live on her own,
fully mature 13-year-old that she is, with you paying her bills?
Or maybe she gets entry to a government Facility for Emotionally
Abused Teenagers, staffed by Sensitive and Caring (TM) personnel, all
trained at government facilities? Or rather, she gets A Large Settlement
from you, 35% of which her lawyer pockets, while she continues to live
in your house, except that you're now subject to random inspections
to make sure you don't crowd her personal space. Perhaps she is
consigned to the tender mercies of a foster family, who will provide
her the opportunities for personal growth that you, mere birth-mother,
have so long denied her?


Regards,
       H. Biesel s.N.a.

Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,alt.dads-rights,alt.child-support