GeorgiaDon

Well, sure. By the same token, many many dads just really resent the mom, and don't want to give "them" a dime. How do you propose the courts distinguish between these motivations in every case? What system can you suggest where money is paid in child support, but the custodial parent does not have any access to that money? Should 6 months old have to go out and buy their own diapers? Sometimes the interests of the parent and the child coincide. If the parent needs a car to get the child to school or extracurricular activities, is it an abuse of child support to use some of that money to buy a dependable car? If the dad has evidence that mom is using child support to pay to go on cruises to Tahiti, leaving the child in the care of sketchy friends, then he needs to go to court with his evidence and challenge the custody arrangement. How do you propose doing that without affecting the child? Or is this a case of fuck the mom (literally), then fuck the kid (figuratively)? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

OK, I nominate you to be responsible. The courts are interested in culpability, but they also have to be interested in the interests of the child. The courts get their funding from the taxpayer, as does Child Protective Services and the welfare system. Holding the courts or the state responsible for the expense means holding you responsible. So the first choice to be made is, should the child be entitled to have its basic needs met, or not? Most people would say yes, but if you feel the proper answer is no, have the balls to say so. If the answer is yes, the question becomes who pays for that? Traditionally, the answer has been the biological parents. It really doesn't matter that the father doesn't want to. Also traditionally, it has been legally assumed that the married spouse of the mother is the father of the child, because no definitive method was available to prove otherwise. Such technologies are available now, of course, so an argument could be made that the law has to catch up to the technology and hold the actual biological father responsible. That is an issue for legislatures, the courts have to follow existing law. Bear in mind that it's not uncommon that fathers find out after years of caring for children that they were not the actual "sperm donor"; examples have been posted here in Speaker's Corner. Then a question arises about who is the "real" father, the person who cared for and loved that child, or the "sperm donor"? Do we want laws that sever the rights of the person who cared for and loved the child, baring them from contact with the child even if they want to continue it, and by force of law substituting someone who has never had any contact with the child, but only contact (perhaps a single incident) with the mother years before? Given that there are no good solutions to the problem, which one is worse: taking kids from the only father they have ever known so as to hold financially liable a person who had sex with the mother but who has no interest in a child they have never seen, or sticking some unfortunate cuckold with the expense of raising a child that is not (biologically) his? Although the mother perpetrated the situation, there is no resolution that does not have major, potentially life-altering (in a bad way) consequences for the child. Why should the child be the main one to suffer? A related question is, what does it mean to be a father? Is sperm the only factor that bears on the question? Caring for the child, nursing them through illness, teaching them to ride a bike and shoot a gun and drive, all those things should count for nothing? Personally, if I were to find that any of my children were not fathered by me, that would change my relationship with my wife but not at all with my children. I love them as people, not as "blood lines". One solution might be found through the civil courts, where biological fathers could be found liable for some portion of the financial expenses without making them the custodial parent. I suspect that law would have to legislated to allow for that. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

QuoteI think I see how you think now.I doubt that. You come across as having a much more black-and-white view of the world. No implant has a perfect success rate. Norplant, for example, has a 99-99.5% success rate, and that is the most effective implant available. The male partner in your little passion play would therefore have been aware that there was a chance, as high as 1%, that pregnancy would still result even if the implant was functioning normally, had he actually gone to the doctor with his partner. If he chose not to use a second birth control method, he implicitly accepted a 1% risk of pregnancy. Further, if his partner did have the implant removed and he was completely unaware of that then he is having sex with someone he does not actually know. It's hard for me to believe that he would have had absolutely no indication that his partner desperately wanted a child; few people are such good liars as be able to completely conceal such a basic desire. It seems more likely that she agreed to the implant to placate him, reluctantly and under duress. Even if she was intentionally deceptive, it's likely that he believed what he wanted to believe, and overlooked evidence to the contrary. Also, if he did not use a backup method of birth control, it's clear he regards birth control as the woman's responsibility and not his. Finally, I have to say that you and others have been arguing this issue as a dispute between sex partners, completely ignoring the fact that (by the time this kind of dispute becomes an issue) a third person has a stake in the outcome, the child. A child is not a piece of furniture. The child had nothing to do with circumstances of it's creation, made no choice, took no action, assumed no risk. Our society in general, and the courts in particular, have judged that the only innocent party in this tragedy should not be the one to bear the brunt of the adverse consequences. A child is (in our society) entitled to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education, and someone has to pay for that. Who should bear primary responsibility for that, the adults whose actions created the child, or the State? If the mother is unable to provide for an acceptable standard of living, why should the father escape responsibility? Otherwise the choices are grim: society turns its back on the child, and allows it to suffer neglect of even basic necessities, or else the State assumes responsibility for child rearing, taking responsibility and also freedom to decide what is best for the child away from all parents. Sometimes no completely "good" or "fair" solution to the problem is available, and the courts have to choose the solution that does the least damage overall. The worst solution would be to deny the child basic necessities of life, and courts will never choose that solution. Sometimes the alternative is to take the child and make it a ward of the state, but that is done reluctantly, in circumstances where the court believes leaving the child with a parent or parents poses an imminent risk to the child. So, in some circumstances, the solution that does the least damage overall is to require the biological father to contribute to the basic needs of the child, at least financially. That may not be "fair" to the father, if he was deceived (or even, if we are to believe the story, raped). It's just the lesser of the various possible evils available to the courts. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

No. Assuming you're talking about a situation where the guy alleges that he was raped, did he press charges against the woman? Was she convicted? Or is he just claiming "rape" after the fact? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Please enlighten me as to the surgical procedure that would allow a woman to get pregnant without a source of sperm. If your sex partner is hoarding your sperm so she can undergo some mysterious "secret surgical procedure", you need to be much more selective about where you're sticking your dipstick. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You know that condoms are not 100% effective. Birth control pills are also not 100% effective, and you know that too. The chances of both failing are low, but not 0, so any intercourse where those methods are used properly will still have some non-zero chance of resulting in a pregnancy, as you know full well. What is reasonable? If you take a risk, you accept the consequences. Suck it up, act like an adult and shoulder your responsibility. What is not reasonable? Expecting to be able to take risks and have others shoulder the consequences if things don't turn out the way you want. Children are not pieces of furniture you can drop at Goodwill or toss in the dumpster if you weary of your responsibility. Women are not sperm dumpsters who exist only to satisfy your carnal desires and then jump to your command when you order them to abort. What is not reasonable is expecting kids to survive without food or shelter because you'd rather fuck and spend your money on skydives. What is not reasonable is expecting taxpayers to take care of the mess you make by sticking your dick in women you aren't prepared to raise a child with. Don't want kids? You have lots of options. Get a vasectomy. Don't have sex. You can reduce your risk, but not eliminate it, by using multiple levels of birth control, and only have sex with people you know well and absolutely trust. And, only have sex with people you are prepared to have an interaction with for a long time, because you might be tied to them for decades (at least financially) by a shared child. I'm always surprised when skydivers say they expect to be able to engage in some activity but assume none of the risk. We all enjoy a sport that could leave you dependent on some TSA reject to spoon feed you pablum and wipe your ass for the rest of your life. Somehow that is a risk worth assuming, but a fathering a child would be the end of the world? Give me a break. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'm surprised to see you advocating sharia law. Seems somewhat out of character, but what do I know? The police investigate and decide if the evidence available fits the survivor's story. There might be witnesses, or surveillance video, or forensic evidence that supports the story. Or not. If there is ambiguity, the prosecutor's office, and beyond that the grand jury, decide if charges are warranted. I don't think we would want a system where the police automatically take the word of the person alleging self defense, and don't even bother to investigate. That just opens the door to people being killed just because someone else "felt skeered" for no good reason. The operative criterion is, would a reasonable person have felt their life was endangered in that situation? The best way to answer that is to ask reasonable people, which in most circumstances means a grand jury or a jury in a trial. Locally, we had a case where a couple claimed that they had killed a man who had broken into their house, and claimed self defense. The police were skeptical, though, as the deceased had been stabbed and the body was in the front hallway, but there wasn't much blood. Also the guy had been dead a while before police were called. An investigation revealed a large bloodstain on the sidewalk in front of the house, which someone had tried to wash away with a hose. It turned out the guy came to the house to buy drugs, but when he didn't have enough money he grabbed the drugs and tried to run away. The wife caught up to the guy out front and stabbed him, then she and her husband dragged the body into the house and staged the "home invasion". Both the husband and the wife were on probation after serving time for drug dealing. So, should the police have just taken their word that they were defending themselves? Are you outraged that the police actually checked out their story, and found that it did not hold up? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I teach at one of the institutions mentioned as having a persistent and growing imbalance towards female students in almost all majors. I think the article makes some very good points, as does the other article linked in the first one ("Stop penalizing boys for being unable to sit still..."). A point that is emphasized in the teaching workshops that I have attended is that there are (at least) three major learning modes: listening (lectures), reading (textbooks), and doing (labs, "hands-on" exercises, etc). Most people are reasonably good at only one or two of these modes, and boys tend to learn most efficiently by doing hands-on exercises as opposed to reading and listening alone. In my undergraduate teaching, I try to use all three modes. However, labs are much more expensive to deliver than lectures, and of course the cost of textbooks and such is entirely on the student (universities actually make money on textbook sales). So, under shrinking budgets (especially for state schools) universities have been cutting labs, and more and more courses are lecture only. This of course excludes all the people who learn best by "doing". In middle and high schools, the same budget pressures again dictate in favor of the classroom and against lab-oriented courses. Also, ever larger classroom sizes demand a more regimented environment where students are expected to sit still and work at their desk for hours at a time. I personally can't do this, I have to get up and walk around every once in a while. Add to this the need to crowd more and more required courses in things like "diversity", and the perceived need to manage students like inmates in a prison, and activities like recess and even socializing/playing at lunch are long gone. When my kids were in school, they had 1/2 hour for lunch and were not allowed to leave the cafeteria, and had to stay in their seats once they had their food. Even Phys Ed is only taught one quarter out of the year. Kids are not built to sit still for 6-8 hrs at a time, any administrator who thinks that is a good idea never was a kid. It's no wonder most kids regard school as a kind of prison, but it's especially hard on kids who need to be active, which affects boys more than girls on average. I bet an hour of being able to run around and burn off some energy in the middle of the day would do wonders, as we used to be able to do years ago. One last thing that I think works against boys, is the excessive worship of the sports culture. Sports can of course be a valuable learning tool (teamwork, setting personal goals, and all that). Where it becomes destructive (in my opinion) is when the money and status paid to professional athletes results in a situation where 95% of the boys in middle and high school see the NBA or the NFL as the ONLY career option worth working towards. Of course, parents are equally complicit in this. I also blame universities, for feeding the sports culture by supporting huge programs that admit academically unqualified students who have no intention of ever graduating. I'm always dismayed when I do outreach presentations in local schools, and find that by the 7th or 8th grades virtually every single boy (even the obvious runts) are absolutely convinced they'll be in the NBA or NFL, and most of the girls are talking about being doctors or scientists or even lawyers, or running businesses. If we (as adults, and as educators) encourage boys to think of time spent on the practice field as "career development", and deliberately or otherwise insinuate that they only need to earn a minimal grade in math, reading, or science (just enough to qualify for a sports scholarship), we do them serious harm. Ideally, I'd like to see universities require student athletes to meet the same academic standards as all other students for admission. Of course that will never happen, because of the money that is to be made from football and basketball. I do have to say that I have had some excellent student athletes in my classes. They were focused and disciplined, which was the only way they could keep up with their practice and competition schedules as well as maintain academic performance. All of these students, though, competed in sports that had little or no prospect for a lucrative professional career: women's soccer, women's basketball, gymnastics, even baseball. They knew that, ultimately, they would need their degree to earn a living. I even had a student who was a walk-on (as a kicker) on the football team as an undergrad in my class, and later he did a Master's in my lab while also working on a MBA. Possibly the most organized person I've ever had in the lab, but then he was a walk-on 3rd string kicker who actually playing in only 2 games, so he knew the NFL was not a realistic prospect. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Interesting article, thanks for linking to it. There are some very bizarre cases discussed there. More relevant quotes from the article include: "While it is true that after conception a woman has more control than a man over the decision whether to bear a child, and may unilaterally refuse to obtain an abortion, those facts were known to the father at the time of conception. The choice available to a woman vests in her by the fact that she, and not the man, must carry the child and must undergo whatever traumas, physical and mental, may be attendant to either childbirth or abortion. Any differing treatment accorded men and women ... is owed not to the operation of [state law] but to the operation of nature." and: " As to Stephen's claim that he was tricked into father a child he did not want, no good reason appears why he himself could not have taken any precautionary measures. Even if Roni has regularly been taking birth control pills, that method, though considered the most reliable means of birth control, is not 100 percent effective. Although slight, there is some statistical probability of conception. Thus, to all men who complain about paying child support for children they did not want, the simple advice is, "Shut up and put on a condom. And dispose of it yourself." Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I watched it all, and I have to disagree that it painted base jumpers and skydivers as anything like drug-addled addicts. I thought it was very honest about the risks, and the rewards for people who are inclined towards extreme sports. Beautifully photographed as well. Thanks for the link, it cost me an hour but it was an hour well spent. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I never met peregrinerose in person, but somehow felt as if I knew her, at least in part, thanks to DZ.com. I find myself shocked, saddened, and dismayed at this news, so I can only imagine how devastating it is for those who were close to her. They all have my deepest condolences. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

All your base are belong to us! _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Sure. That doesn't mean it's wrong to try; simply a risk. I might be wrong, but I'm fairly certain the leaders in the US are aware of it.Law enforcement learned some time ago that staying out of domestic disputes just tended to allow the disputes to escalate until eventually people ended up maimed or dead. Irrespective of the personal interests of the individual parties in the dispute, it all becomes a lot messier, expensive, and impossible for society to ignore once you are talking aggravated assault or murder. Now we've got SWAT teams, medical costs, costs for courts and jails, and so on. Better to defuse it before it comes to all that. If we're going to compare Syria to a domestic dispute, are we better off to intervene now, or to wait until people are shooting at the neighbors and we have to send in the SWAT team? If we decide to ignore Syria stockpiling and using chemical weapons, shall we also ignore the situation when Iran and North Korea do the same? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Bird has a broken hip and foot, and you'd bring it to someone who'll align its spine? Anyway it seems to me this one is entirely on the dumb-ass handler. No-one in the congregation forced him to bring the bird there and release it. It was up to him to assess the situation and ensure the conditions were safe for the bird. If you're going to hold the congregation responsible, then maybe we should also blame the audience for what happened when a Cirque du Soleil performer was killed when a cable detached a while ago. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Perhaps. On the other hand, what do we gain by allowing a country to manufacture, stockpile, and use chemical weapons with impunity? Laws (and treaties are laws) that are not enforced may as well not exist. The world's experience with poison gas in WWI was so horrible that the entire world agreed to ban such weapons forever, and indeed for all the other atrocities that war has brought since we have managed to avoid that one, with the exception of a few instances such as in the Iran-Iraq war. Now we seem prepared to send a message that such weapons are again OK, or at least we won't do anything about it if we catch you using them. Great. All these little pain-in-the-ass countries may not be able to match the US, or NATO or whatever in troops or aircraft, but by God or Allah they'll have rockets loaded with Sarin gas and if we don't like what they're up to they'll make sure we get a good lungful. Do we really want to return to the days when gas attacks were just another weapon of war, or a threat to be trotted out when convenient to extract some concession? It sucks that there is no clear good guy side in Syria so we don't know if what comes next could be as bad or worse than the current regime. I can also see why people are reluctant to take action just to avenge the deaths of a bunch of people who have no close connection to our interests. But I wonder what problems we will create for ourselves down the road if we send the message that chemical weapons can once again be openly stockpiled and used and we'll just wring our hands and bluster. It's even more disheartening to me that some people seem willing to embrace this future for no better reason than the opportunity to rub Obama's face in his words. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Curious that you would risk dying, or even worse catastrophic injury that leaves you dependent on others to feed you and wipe your butt, for the sake of a sport, but you won't risk committing to a relationship of having kids, things you say you'd like to do, for fear of a possibility of financial burden. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

It could always be worse. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Is it really? http://www.thegodarticle.com/7/post/2011/10/clobbering-biblical-gay-bashing.html Thanks for the link. I learned something from that. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

That really does suck. Bear in mind, though, that the level of animosity is sometimes so high that the alimony payer will quit their job, or take a job with much lower pay, just to avoid having to pay anything to their ex. The court has to (or should have to) try to distinguish between the cases where someone's circumstances have changed due to events they can't control, and cases of maliciousness. Often, though, it seems they don't even try. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I believe in Canada after a relatively short time (2 years? Not sure of the exact number) of just living together you are considered to be in a "common-law" marriage, and all the rules apply the same as if you walked down the aisle. I don't think alimony-for-life applies, though. Just don't fool yourself into thinking that not signing on the dotted line will get you off the hook. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

According to the article (in the section under the heading "Far-Reaching") legislation has been introduced in the New Jersey legislature that would allow alimony modification. The implication is that there is currently no legal mechanism to modify alimony payments in New Jersey. Also towards the end of the article it describes how the guy was ordered by the court to obtain a $500,000 life insurance policy with his wife and kids as beneficiaries. He has tried to obtain such life insurance and the insurance companies have refused to issue such a policy. He is now going back to jail because the courts demanded that he purchase a policy that no-one is willing to sell to him. How can that be justified? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Well, a 3.9 magnitude earthquake is so small many people fail to notice it, it causes no structural damage, at worse it might cause your wine glasses to tinkle a bit on their shelves. Plus that was the most severe incident, and it was associated with wastewater disposal, forcing too much water into too small a volume too fast. Plus, hundreds of thousands of earthquakes of that magnitude occur naturally every year, without causing damage. Typical "earthquakes" associated with fracking (actually fracturing the rock) are in the 1-2 magnitude range, far too small to be felt on the surface. If "earthquakes" is the worst fracking opponents can muster, I'm afraid they have no case. As far as I have been able to tell from reading actual studies of the issue, all the problems noted to date are associated with accidental contamination of ground water by leaking well casings or waste-water storage containers. Those are potentially serous local issues, but they can be dealt with by enforcing safety standards and testing. I also think monitoring wells for contamination is a reasonable measure. Many areas currently being explored or developed for fraking were drilled for conventional oil back in the 1940s or earlier, and the location of almost all those wells (exploratory as well as producing) has been lost, so it is theoretically possible for fraking fluids to move up into ground water through those old wells. Nevertheless, with appropriate attention to monitoring and containment of waste water, I believe fraking is something that can be done with minimal risk. Whether or not we should continue our dependence on fossil fuels is a policy matter, but using trivial issues (earthquakes that can't even be felt, let alone do damage) to argue the technology is too dangerous is bogus, IMHO. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

No doubt some here in SC will be happy to tell these folks that the record high temperatures they believe they are experiencing are just a delusion instilled by a liberal media intent on destroying the Western way of life, or something. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Would you be so kind as to enlighten me about this "thug" profile? Exactly what characteristics identify someone as a "thug"? I'd like to be able to identify any "thugs", should they happen to wander into my neighborhood. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Speaker's corner has become quite the cesspool of late. Certain "contributors" make me feel like taking a shower every time I see one of their posts. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)