Witch Hunt
Sam Aurelius Milam III
Throughout
the land today, there is a witch hunt. The victims aren't being drowned,
or burned at the stake, or pressed under boards, but that doesn't keep
it from being a witch hunt.
Who
are the targets of this modern witch hunt? These modern pariahs are
fathers. Today, a father can be deprived, against his will, of his
rights, his liberty, his income, his home, and (if he resists) maybe even
his life. The imposition of this punishment is based entirely on
an assumption — that a father has an automatic and mandatory obligation
to pay for the upkeep of his children.
With
regard to this alleged obligation of fathers, I have a different belief.
I believe that an obligation follows only from negotiation and agreement,
and cannot be unilaterally imposed. If
a man agrees to pay for the upkeep of his child, then he has an obligation
to pay for that upkeep — not because he's the father but because he made
an agreement. If he makes no such agreement then he has no such obligation.
The
widely held belief that the obligation is automatic and mandatory is an
assumption, and not a law of nature. There is no law of nature that
requires a father to hang around. This is why God in his wisdom,
or nature in his expediency, put the mammary glands on the only person
who could be relied upon to be there when the baby was born — the mother.
The sexual equipment given to a man makes him indispensable for only one
small part of the process. After that part is accomplished, whether
it is the will of God or a fluke of evolution, men have two good feet and
a nine month head start. C'est la vie, ladies. I have occasionally
heard women whine about why birth control always has to be the woman's
responsibility. That should be obvious. It is because the woman
is the one who will end up with the child.
There
are various non-coercive ways that "unattached" mothers can address the
problem of raising children without the support of a man. After all
the rhetoric about equality and the capabilities of women, that's exactly
what they ought to do. Instead, they're conjuring up a witch hunt.
They justify it by casting kids in the role of pathetic victims.
Of course, they can make as many victims as they want. The targets
of this hunt are men who can be easily defamed with epithets like "deadbeat
dad" or "sexual predator", thereby dehumanizing them into legitimate targets
for persecution. However, the loudly lamented plight of "the children"
doesn't justify the enslavement of men. If my attitude seems callous,
then so be it. I'm no more callous than a woman who contrives to
get pregnant without first securing an agreement from the man and then
uses the child as a weapon to enslave him.
For
several years now, I've been a target
in this witch hunt. I've been threatened with the confiscation of
everything that I own, including my home. Recently, I was arrested
at gunpoint, placed in a maximum security lock-up, taken to court in chains,
and threatened with continuing confinement. I wasn't brave enough
to refuse their demands while I was in jail. However, since I have
not made any voluntary agreement and since there is no obligation
under duress, I have no obligation whatsoever to make the child
support payments that they demanded. Since my agreement to pay was
extracted under duress, I will pay only what I am forced to pay and only
for as long as I am forced to pay it. When they stop forcing, I will
stop paying. Like any other victim of extortion, I have only one
obligation — endure my condition until I can find a way to end it.
![Witch](Images/Witch.gif) There's
no greater persecution than that imposed by righteous puritans on a holy
crusade, and this witch hunt has turned into exactly that. This particular
crusade is part of the larger debate about the nature of obligation and
the source of authority. Like most such crusades, this one is an
attempt to compel people to behave according to a belief system that they
do not share. Such a campaign is seldom successful. Instead,
it changes perceived evils into something far worse. Whether it's
Christian vs Moslem, Hutu vs Tutsi, black vs white, or female vs male,
the results are the same — hostility, resentment, and resistance.
This kind of holy crusade doesn't win converts. It creates victims,
hatred, and enemies.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif) ![Male Symbol](../../Images/Male_Symbol.gif) |
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