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I'm really starting to not like these people.

Bush and Kerry refuse to address the issue. However, Iowa Governor Vilsack signed into law this year presumptive equal parenting time law. Governor Vilsack was one the the 3 finalist to be JK's running mate. That may have played into not choosing him; I don't know. But, by not choosing him it was easier to avoid the issue.

This issue isn't going to go away. There are going to be a lot of politicians scrambling for any previous words of theirs that said, "of course, I believe both parents to be meaningful parts of their kids' lives should be protected." Problem is that cupbard is pretty bare right now. A lot of thes politicians are going to look pretty silly. I don't really care what they have to say. I just intend to force them to reply to my question.

If I get to pick the question, it doesn't really matter what their answer is.

Lambasted, no, she just did a lot of frenetic shouting. Lambasted gives the connotation that she at least had made a point in some way. To the contrary, how could any parent support a candidate who does not even believe that both parents should be meaningful parts of their kids' lives? And, yes, she is a parent.

Truthfully, the issue has largely gone ignored in my family, even though they feel I am personally in the right. It is ironic that they take it much more personally now that I have forced them to consider larger implications. This issue concerns some 25 million parents and some 40 million children. They say how I can base my vote on one issue. Well, first of all it is hardly one issue. This issue directly affects crime, education, the deficit, teen suicide, welfare, child abuse and neglect, psychiatric care, and other issues indirectly. How many other issues have such a profound effect on 65 million Americans?

3rd party candidates aren't necessarily more liberal or conservative. They could very well be either. Ralph Nader is more liberal. Pat Buchanon and Ross Perot were more conservative. Michael Bidnarik has positions that are more liberal on some issues and more conservative on others.

As long as we have majority rule, we will always have a two-party system. 3rd parties serve a purpose of forcing one of the major parties to cannibalize the 3rd party when an issue(s) become popular in the 3rd party. If a major party is too reluctant to cannibalize sets of issues it will get over taken. That is what happened with the Whig Party. 3rd parties are also useful by forcing the two major parties to gravitate away from the middle. If left unmolested, the two major parties would just take the middle of the road on every issue, whereby voters would have no real difference in choices.

What drives this political mechanism are opportunistic voters. Nothing pisses off the machine operator more than for its parts not to work as intended. The operator is most effective when he/she doesn't have to concern themselves with looking over all the parts. They would prefer to look for loose parts that they can add to the machine, not tighten bolts down to keep it together.

That is all well and good if you are happy with the direction the machine is going. If not, it is the voter's duty unto him/herself to hop off the machine, if they know the machine is going down the wrong road. There will always be two major machines. But, each election, only one machine will get to cross the election road. The other machine has to figure out how to put enough parts together to cross the road next time.

Every voter should ask themselves; do they want to be a part of a machine that does not believe in the absence of wrong-doing that both parents should have the ability to be a meaningful part of their kids' lives?

While busy at work today, I got a phone call from my sister. It was the kind of call that you could hear the bit chin before the receiver got 10 inches close to your ear. After yelling at her to shut the he** up, and listen, I had to explain that no, I wasn't voting for Ralph Nader.

Now, most of you don't know this, but I grew up in a politically active family. My dad was a party executive committee chairman in the county I grew up in. No, it wasn't some high fluting position. But, it was enough to keep every dinner conversation charged up if we weren't talking about baseball. That's just the way it was.

My sister has done well for herself, and is quick to let others know about it. Not saying she is a bad person, but that's the way she is too. Some things you just seem to learn by the time you are five or so. As the eldest of 6 kids, she takes liberties about pseudo-matriarchical duties. Some times I just let her feel important about herself, and go on about what ever it is that she feels is so important. Personally, I'd rather use the time to chat with you all about matters that I know are important.

Well, finally, I had to clue her in on whom I was voting for. His name is Michael Bidnarik - if only my father could hear me now (I really miss him:(  My sister went ballistic, "Michael WHO, I've never even heard of him. HOW IN THE HELL COULD YOU WASTE YOUR VOTE ON HIM?" I told my sister, "well, it's like this, there's only one candidate who believes that in the absence of wrong-doing, both parents should be meaningful parts of their kids' lives." That person's name is Michael Bidnarik.

With much more whining and moaning, I had to listen to how I was throwing my vote away to the other major party candidate. Calmly, I replied, "no, he doesn't believe in both parents being a meaningful part of their kids' lives either." I graduated with a Political Science degree, and I have thought about this a long time. I completely understand the dynamics of the two-party system we live in. That is the way the system is, and the way it was designed to be. I even thought what if my one vote in FL was to be the difference this election?

I know Michael Bidnarik will not be elected president. But, I could not imagine my vote meaning more than by saying the father of the first family in our country should openly express that both parents ought to be meaningful parts of their kids' lives. If something terrible were to happen to you before you got to vote in the next presidential election, wouldn't you want your kid(s) to know that both mothers and fathers are important?

For those of you wondering, no, I didn't let my sister win the argument today.

"Its attack on Blair in the House of Commons four months ago caused a massive security alert amid fears of a terrorist attack and prompted changes to access rules for parliament."


Seems to me that if Parliament wasn't already so good at limiting access (of children to parents) that it wouldn't have found itself under such attack.

"Parents' Rights

No issue is more sensitive -- and few issues are more
troubling to Libertarians -- than the role of
government in family life. On the face of things, the
federal government has an even smaller role in that
area than it does in most, and I favor keeping
Washington out of issues like defining and licensing
marriage, regulating homeschooling, mandating
childhood vaccinations or using tax policy for
"socially engineering" the makeup and function of the
family.

However, there are some areas of family life in which
the federal government arguably has a role to play.
The Constitution ordains that all Americans receive
the equal protection of the law, and it prohibits
involuntary servitude.

In both of these areas, the federal government has
failed America's families and, in particular, its
parents.

Equal protection of the law pre-supposes fairness for
those coming before the bar of justice. Yet in divorce
proceedings, the states routinely award custody of
minor children to one parent or another, relegating
the other parent to the status of "second-class
citizen" -- not because the latter parent has been
convicted of any crime, or found unfit, but because of
a prejudice in favor of father or mother as the best
"single" parent.

This is a matter of federal interest under the 14th
Amendment, even intra-state. Once one parent or
another, possibly with a child in tow, moves to
another state, any shadow of doubt is erased. It
becomes an interstate matter, and by definition
therefore falls under federal jurisdiction.

As president, I will direct the Justice Department's
civil rights division to investigate state policies
which violate the 14th Amendment rights of parents and
to pursue the elimination of those policies in court.
The default presumption in any divorce proceeding must
be for joint custody of minor children. Failing the
waiver of that presumption by one parent, or proof
that one parent is unfit, to deny any parent equal
access to, and equal participation in the raising of,
his or her children is clearly an abuse of law and
repugnant to the Constitution.

Above and beyond the matter of custody comes child
support. While it is reasonable to assess support for
a minor child when circumstances dictate that he or
she will be living exclusively with one parent, the
matter has been inflated into, literally, a federal
case.

The 13th Amendment prohibits involuntary servitude. In
the Slaughterhouse Cases, the Supreme Court clearly
and unambiguously ruled that this prohibition applies
to "peonage" -- the attachment of criminal liability
to failure to pay, or work off, debt. Yet, across the
nation, hundreds of thousands of non-custodial parents
find themselves in court, often charged with felonies
and facing prison, for their failure or inability to
pay child support. Further, the federal government has
intervened to the extent of maintaining a special
database to track "deadbeat parents" across state
lines in order to enforce these draconian and
unconstitutional laws.

As president, I will direct the Civil Rights Division
of the Department of Justice to sue states which
attach criminal liability to child support obligations
and, if necessary, to charge government officials who
administer that unconstitutional criminal liability
with violations of the civil rights of non-custodial
parents.

I'm Michael Badnarik, Libertarian for President. I ask
the tough questions-to give you answers that really
work!"

http://www.badnarik.org/Issues/

Noogie,

Hey, long time. Sorry to hear about things. It's a real kicker in the *icker, I know.

Just remember, Lady Justice is blind. But she's also deaf and really pissed off at ex-husbands who have the audacity to see their kids.
- This too will come to pass.

The circumstances that you describe are much as I suspected. It would have been very odd for you to have known what you said without some type of first hand knowledge. It is also understandable, in fact expected that a parent would amend their ways once they know that they will have a child. After that point, nothing is about you any more.

If the purpose of your post was to vent, feel free to keep doing so. If it was to look for advice, I will give mine. Period, end of report, I would not want my child to be anywhere near drug use. You are well justified to take prudent measures to determine if that has occurred, and if so to cease it from happening in the future. By no means should your 8 year-old child be viewing sexual type movies that are beyond her years. However, that is a gray area, which I will not delve into. But, at some point, it becomes wrong beyond refute.

The best thing for your daughter would be if she could benefit from a meaningful and substantial relationship with both you and her father. That being said, it is not possible for all children to receive such type benefits. Every parent's first obligation is to provide safety to their child. My first hope is that the situation is not the worst that it may appear to be. If it is, then I hope the father can amend his ways to become a meaningful and substantial part of his daughter's life.

Do your best. That is all anyone can ask.

Tulip,

Obviously, smoking pot is illegal. But, smoking it in front of your child has to be one of the 7 sins of parenting, if there is such a thing. Just as obvious is your intimatte knowledge of the father's habits and the friend's who came over. That leads to the next question, which you may not like, but nevertheless, must be asked - do you smoke pot or do any other drugs too?

Children should not be subjected to parental use of illicit drugs. If the father and/or yourself are doing drugs in front of the child, then the child needs to be protected and the offending parent needs treatment.

Assuming no drugs are being used in front of the child, a more regular pattern of sharing time with one another needs to be established. Short of demanding that your child be safe, you can't really tell him what to do with his time any more than he can with you. I'm not sure why he has "no rights" to see his child, but must assume that you were not  married to him when the child was born. That is an issue, as there seems to be many others too. But, before going any further, the question of parental drug use needs to be addressed.

Bitter parents who try to block their formerly beloved's access to the couple's child(ren) following divorce might think twice in New Hampshire, where a proposed bill aims to make life difficult for uncooperative custodial parents.

How difficult? By inviting the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to investigate the offending parent for child abuse and neglect.

This relatively revolutionary move was the brainchild of Maine psychiatrist Dr. Stevan Gressitt, who has been working with legislators to put some teeth into visitation enforcement. New Hampshire HHS Commissioner John Stephens endorsed the idea, and a bill sponsored by state Rep. David A. Bickford (R) heads to committee Tuesday.


Gressitt is hoping for a domino effect if the bill passes in New Hampshire.

The idea behind such legislation is that children of divorce should continue to have access to both parents, assuming there's no reason to protect a child from one of his parents. While child visitation orders are taken seriously in theory, the legal process of enforcement is usually time-consuming, laborious and expensive. In practice, the failure to take them seriously leads to an ever-widening, and predictable, trajectory of distance between the child and visiting parent.

Bickford's bill (HB 1585) would make it easier for parents denied visitation to seek remedy, while promising grief for parents who don't cooperate.

First, the non-custodial parent would get an expedited court hearing rather than take a docket number and possibly wait three to four months. Next, if the judge determines that the custodial parent is blocking access for no legitimate reason, then the Department of Health and Human Services would be notified of a possible case of child abuse and neglect.

Gressitt contends that denying a child his parent out of vindictiveness is a form of child abuse, but Bickford, a non-clinician, says he isn't ready to go that far. He explained to me that the bill supposes some parents may block access to hide abuse and that, therefore, the case warrants investigation.

He did say, however, that should there be a finding of psychological or emotional harm - a form of abuse - then the custodial parent could be prosecuted, referred for needed treatment, or lose parental rights.

I feel your cringe. Who wants government bureaucrats breathing down parents' necks to see who got little Johnny for the weekend?

I'm happy to lead the chorus saying family matters are none of the state's concern - let the adults hash out their visitation schedules. But abuses of this mannered approach assume qualities not always present in some adults and often leave non-custodial parents (usually fathers) bereft and angry.

Common sense tells us what we seem to need studies to demonstrate - that children need two parents and manage divorce best when they have equal access to both.

While family courts are increasingly trying to ensure that children have that access by awarding joint or shared custody, emotionally distraught humans don't always follow directions.

Meanwhile, courts and the state historically have been more effective in enforcing child support than visitation such that we have entire bureaucracies built around support collection tied to federal incentives. For every dollar that states put up to collect child support monies, for example, the federal government matches with two dollars. Other incentive funds are also available to reward collections.

While fathers' organizations long have pushed for stronger visitation enforcement, there are also some 3 million non-custodial mothers in the U.S., according to David Levy, CEO of the Children's Rights Council, a nonprofit group that advocates for shared custody. Levy applauded the New Hampshire bill, saying that the proposed bill codifies the idea that it's important for children of divorce to continue to have both parents.

But the proposed bill is not without critics. As with any law related to personal relationships, this one could be tricky to enforce. Imagine a HHS social worker knocking on your door to ask why you didn't let Johnny see his daddy last weekend.

Such well-intentioned laws also could backfire. As one close observer put it in an e-mail exchange, "Getting (HHS) involved is usually the worst thing to do. They usually side with the 'Mom who is concerned about letting the kids go to their father' and, they (investigators) may decide that neither parent is fit. And take custody of the kid(s)."

Such is the mess we have made of our lives.

In the best and least of all worlds, the deterrent effect of such a scenario would make visitation abuses less common and enforcement unnecessary. That way, only the bad guys lose. Or gals, as the case may be.

Kathleen Parker is a popular syndicated columnist and director of the School of Written Expression at the Buckley School of Public Speaking and Persuasion in Camden, South Carolina


http://www.townhall.com/opinion/column/kathleenparker/2006/01/13/182425.html