Granted, not all these disenfranchised dads are model citizens. Some really are bad guys who don't care about their kids, beat up their wives or shirk duty and responsibility. But experience and the preponderance of research do not support the widespread belief that most men are deadbeat, abusive and neglectful, nor the public policies that treat all men accordingly. Were mothers routinely robbed of their children, barred from their homes and jailed for failing to pay extortionate sums, we would see blood in the streets. And, curiously, sympathy from the grandstands.
Men get no such sympathy, and that's where the apprehension comes in.
You can't steal something as important as someone's children and money and property and think you can walk away without any repercussions. Miller predicts that Holstein's theories of social change will seem like a dream compared with the nightmares simmering in someone's living room in every town or city, in every state, every night of the week. Violence is inevitable, he said, as evidenced by the American courthouse decor these days. Call it police-baroque. Only the Berlin Wall had more barricades, metal detectors and armed guards.