Is Jesse Jackson Right?

[RogerFGay]

I added some comments to the YouTube presentation of Obama's fathers' day speech (http://youtube.com/watch?v=_cWCwn5ebN4) - the one among several on the subject during Obama's career, that made Jesse Jackson feel like cutting Obama's balls off. It was clear to me that Obama is carrying on the same corrupt war on fathers as his predecessors. It's not change and not something we can believe in. Had I made the "hot mic" comment that Jackson did, I would not have apologized. I would have instead explained why Obama's comments made me feel that way - and only that.

Jackson says Obama is "talking down" to black people when he says black fathers are not men. I say that Obama's a corrupt little turd positioning himself to eliminate marriage and family forever for the sake of queer votes and pork - just as his predecessors did. If we can't cut a guys balls off for that, what can we cut their balls off for?

[BarkleUSA]

Actually this is the only thing Jackson has said that I agree with.

As for Obama's Bill Cosby speech on parental responsibility he's just trying to appeal to whites. Like every other utterance coming out of Obama it's meaningless - his voting record tells us all we need to know.

[RogerFGay]

I've said several times that Obama is playng the same race card that Reagan was when Reagan promoted the same things Obama is. Change, my ass! This is the same corrupt crap that created the fathers' rights movement and launched MND (http://mensnewsdaily.com/).

[DesertFox]

Obama eats shit. He juss doan die.

[Timberwolf]

Obama eats shit. He juss doan die.
So, THAT'S why he's black? :evilgrin:

Seriously though...if ya beat the crap outta him, you'd have nothing left but teeth and big ears...

[Linnét]

Jesse Jackson is right about the ball cutting part.

[BarkleUSA]

RE:
I've said several times that Obama is playng the same race card that Reagan...

Fortunately, I stopped reading your post as soon as I realized you had included Reagan and BHO in the same sentence!!

I know it was a mental mistake but please be more careful because most conservatives find this extremely offensive.

There is no possible comparison between the two.

[Kathy30]

Obamination was told that he can't win the election with no one voting for him but the far left and black folks. He tried to make some changes and only suceeded in pissing EVERYONE off.

[DesertFox]

RogerGay is persuaded that Ronald Reagan was one of the worst things ever to happen to America because under Reagan, the bogus deadbeat-dads thing flowered and ruined many thousands of innocent men and is still with us, still wrecking the lives of decent men.

[RogerFGay]

RogerGay is persuaded that Ronald Reagan was one of the worst things ever to happen to America because under Reagan, the bogus deadbeat-dads thing flowered and ruined many thousands of innocent men and is still with us, still wrecking the lives of decent men.

Only part of the story. The Reagan administration invented the dead-beat dad thing. It didn't go into effect and begin to flower until the Clinton years. Clinton milked it for all it was worth; taking credit for it in both his presidential campaigns. The Democrats included the effort in every party platform, whilst I recall it being in the Republican platform only once ("Contract with America"). Reagan also spear-headed the "no-fault" divorce movement as California governor.

In the end, his contributions weren't just easy divorce and an expanded welfare state with a huge new mountain of pork. They led to the end of the civil marriage contract, elimination of all civil rights related to marriage and family issues, followed by the formal legal downfall of the institutions of marriage and family. We can trace the court victories for same-sex marriage directly to the body of Reagan's life-work in the politics of marriage and family.

Judged objectively, based on the facts, Reagan never got over being a far left Hollywood Democrat union boss. He simply learned his lines to play a conservative while working as an industry spokesman (and playing a patriotic American in the movies). The ties created to big business and the military-industrial complex helped his political career and gave him a group that needed to be paid back. That's the formulation of a guy who pushed for lots of military spending - including the Star Wars program that spent huge amounts on R&D without needing to actually go to war.

But on the domestic side, he needed to wrap far-left policy in conservative rhetoric. That's where the language of "personal responsibility" (forcing fathers to take responsibility) that Obama so easily uses in his campaign was created. It represents government intrusion and arbitrary control of the most intimate parts of our personal lives; striking at the very heart of personal life and freedom. Thanks to Reagan, the Constitution (Bill of Rights) is no longer there to protect us from it. For anyone who doesn't get it - think carefully about the direct opposite difference between "personal responsibility" and the state specifying your behavior arbitrarily and using force to get you to do what they say. The fact that the specificiation is decided arbitrarily ... i.e. under absolute unlimited political control, with no constitutional protection - do you get it yet? "Personal responsibility" is conservative phrasology - expressing a principle that we all agree with. The policy it's been used to promote is one of arbitrary government intrusion and control.

Without mentioning Ronald Reagan - the subject matter here is very popular among conservative radio talk hosts, where Stephen Baskerville (http://www.amazon.com/Taken-into-Custody-Fatherhood-Marriage/dp/1581825943/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216287600&sr=8-1) has been a frequent guest.

[DesertFox]

Well, you're off-base in styling Reagan a far-Left anything. Reagan was a classic, God-fearing conservative who loved the family. Assuming that all you're saying is so, and I have no reason to doubt your word, that doesn't mean Reagan set out to wreck the family. He didn't. Reagan was a family man. It was like so much else that the Commies come up with, seemingly innocuous at the time but turned into a nightmare. True dead beat dads should be forced to do the right thing, it's that simple. It remains true, however, that using the blunt instrument of govt to fix any social problem always, always involves unintended consequences that unfailingly outweigh whatever benefit they confer.

Nor is Reagan accountable for court decisions. That's a whole 'nother branch of govt, not under the control of any single person, not even the Chief Justice; and the history of post WWII appointments shows that nominating a conservative doesn't mean he'll stay a conservative or that, if he does stay a conservative, that the Senate will consent to his appointment.

[RogerFGay]

There's so much bull in sticking up for Reagan. He developed a hatred of traditional marriage when trying to get divorced from Jane Wyman. It was legendary.

True dead beat dads should be forced to do the right thing, it's that simple.

Absolutely not at all that simple, starting with the fact that US President Ronald Reagan brought the FEDERAL (did I emphasize that enough) government into a state / private issue with myths about fathers and family every bit as outrageous as Al Gore's global warming scam. This was Big Lie politics that probably did more to teach Gore the trade than anything else.

(FACTS: States were already dealing with nonpayment issues before the federal government got involved. Their procedures were equally effective - i.e. there has been no increase in the portion of court-ordered CS paid since the federal program began - and they did so at a small fraction of the cost and without arbitrary intrusion into personal life - with lots of extra "unintended" (sic) consequences.)

There are certain presumptive requirements for allowing the FEDERAL government into such issues - it can't be done without absorbing marriage and family law into the economic / social policy arena - dramatically expanding the welfare system into private life. It could not have been done without the understanding that it would legally destroy marriage and family and that it would lead to court challenges. In crafting the policy concept, the Reagan administration added billions in pork precisely for the purpose of paying for the curruption to get it through.

It's tiring to read such excuses as nobody who was involved in this having any idea what they were doing when it comes to the consequences of public policy. We have 1) a policy that has absolutely no reason whatsoever to exist, 2) obvious and devastating consequences economically, socially, legally, 3) billions of dollars in public money spilling out, and 4) politicians and bureacrats lying their asses off to keep it going.

Unintended consequences? Well - no matter what you think about the past - the consequences are perfectly clear now. What's your congressman doing to fix it? Nothing!?! That's what I thought.

Reagan's Big Lie family politics is now text-book for every Big Lie scammer on the planet.

[RogerFGay]

I was looking around for my own references to Reagan's involvement, when I came across this (http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/crowley/SSR-2003.pdf). It at least makes my point extremely well, that Reagan was in bed with far left extremists in fashioning welfare / family law reform. For those who haven't researched the subject as thuroughly as I have, it seems instructive to know that the proposal for a federal child support enforcement program was not a popular one. It passed in Congress only as an amendment to more popular welfare legislation. When Ford signed the bill, he said the amendment took the FEDERAL government too far into domestic relations and promised to suggest corrective legislation. THE ONLY PEOPLE TO SPEAK IN FAVOR OF THE AMENDMENT were representatives from NOW and Ronald Reagan. OK - so what the paper is saying would have been obvious (to me anyways - don't know why it wouldn't be obvious to everyone).

The paper goes into some detail re: Reagan's strategy - which was to present far left extremist social policy reform wrapped in conservative rhetoric. It supports what I've said many times before. "Reagan Democrats" were not created by Reagan's mythical ability to convince people on the left that conservatism is better - but by Reagan's far left extremist social policy agenda; which was crafted by NOW.

[RogerFGay]

CONSEQUENCES: Academic review of Taken into Custody (http://www.amazon.com/Taken-into-Custody-Fatherhood-Marriage/dp/1581825943/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216384806&sr=8-1), by Baskerville

Source: Parental rights: An endangered species? (http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=main.doiLanding&uid=2008-05960-001)

Highlights:

"...the state and its agents increasingly are acting as if they are the superior parents while the biological parents are subject to review and removal by the state at will.""Stephen Baskerville's masterful new book...explains in detail how a man's (or woman's) home no longer is his or her castle, that parents no longer have the right to determine how and under what conditions they may rear their children. Rather, these rights have been usurped by the state acting through an extraordinarily complex and interlocking nested set of professionals (including psychologists, social workers, lawyers, and judges), and enforced by civil bureaucrats (often armed) with police powers."

"...these agents and agencies have placed America's children and families at the mercy of a state acting much like that envisioned by George Orwell in Animal Farm (Orwell, 1945) and Franz Kafka in The Trial (Kafka, 1925)."

"...this is happening behind a fog of legal terminology and process that hides from the general public the sinister nature of this covert seizure of the children by the state—until it happens to them. Even those going through the process hardly understand how this could be occurring and think they are simply suffering some unusual misfortune. Arguably, Baskerville's greatest contribution to the social good is his bringing to public light that which otherwise is practiced only in the secret shadows of family law."

"The powerful effect the book has on readers…comes from the clear presentation of well-documented…social science research, media reports, and case studies."

"...family courts, judicial retainers, and ideologically driven government bureaucrats (at taxpayer expense) have taken virtually complete control of anyone who is in any way related to a child."

"The state creates powerful perverse incentives and easy mechanisms for mothers to divorce fathers. These include a near guarantee of physical custody of children to the moms [and] child support awards set far above the actual cost of rearing a child."

"Once driven from his home and separated from his children, any distraught father who pursues custody becomes a 'cash cow' for the state and its hanger-on's (custody evaluators, psychologists, social workers, divorce lawyers, judges, guardians ad litem, supervised visitation centers, etc.)."

“Baskerville discusses in detail the mechanisms through which dead-broke dads are turned into deadbeat dads by the state.”

“…the state has succeeded in gaining sway over all the members of the postdivorce or never-married family, and only the lawyers and state actors win. The parents and children lose, and society as a whole suffers greatly from the social consequences that accompany high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births.”

“Baskerville recommends…(a) setting reasonable limits on unilateral divorce when children are involved; (b) establishing a rebuttable presumption of equally shared parenting for children of divorce or separation; and (c) restoring and enforcing the fundamental rights of parents to the care, custody, and companionship of their children.“

"Taken Into Custody makes a major social contribution by exposing a massive, yet heretofore hidden, divorce and 'child protection' industry with its negative impact on children, mothers, fathers, and society. If read widely, it has the potential to become a powerfully paradigm-shifting work with an impact on both public opinion and public policy."

[Penguin]

So I assume no-fault divorce caused the fall of the Soviet Union as well?

[RogerFGay]

So I assume no-fault divorce caused the fall of the Soviet Union as well?

Interesting question, although I'm not sure exactly where it came from.

But as a matter of fact, I've traced the reforms to the Soviet Union - have citations to law in a paper I wrote; can give them to you if you want them, or just a link to the paper online. I've also mentioned in an online round-table discussion / debate the Soviet connection. Here's an article that I cited from 1926 in The Atlantic Monthly (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/26jul/russianwoman.htm). If I recall correctly, my point in the round-table was that the national discussion / debate on marriage and fathers in the US was a copy of the discussion / debate at the beginning of the Soviet era - with the specific goal of abolishing the bourgeois institution of marriage.

I've never specifically considered the question whether that had something to do with the downfall of the Soviet Union. But now that you mention it - at least in a general view of things - respect for the institution of marriage is contrary to government control. Well, maybe that's too general a start, but if they'd have respected the institution - there's a requirement for respect for individual rights and freedom - they'd have established a liberal state rather than a communist state - that would likely have thrived and would still exist today.

[DesertFox]

Roger, you make a pert-near airtight case for everything you say, EXCEPT showing that Ronald Reagan personally knew about all this. Reagan was famous for staying "above the fray" and not paying attention to details. He can certainly be blamed for that, but he can't justly be blamed for NOW pulling the wool over his eyes, as they have done with so many hundreds of thousands of people.

At the time you're speaking of -- the pre-Reagan Seventies -- NOW was still considered (even by me) as speaking for the big majority of women. We know by now that that's half-a-universe away from the truth, but we didn't know it then. I'm assuming Reagan thought about NOW at that time about the way I did, and the people I knew then did; and I have no reason to think he deliberately put legislation in place that would wreck families. That goes against everything Reagan ever stood for.

Put him down as a dupe of NOW. That much can be accepted. What cannot be accepted is a condemnation of Ronald Reagan as a far-Left extremist, which runs counter to the grain of everything else he ever stood for in public or private life.

[RogerFGay]

DesertFox: I appreciate the well-thought-outedness of your question, as well as acknowledgment that I got something right. I have to admit though that after some 30+ years of hearing it, I'm a bit tired of heroic politicians who can outsmart the most ingenious criminal dictators in the world, manage the largest economy, and keep the world safe for democracy with one hand tied behind their backs; but are suddenly the stupidest, most naive, easily outsmarted half-wits when something goes wrong. Poor them. It's a bit too late to have Reagan thrown in jail anyway, and I'm not interested in that. In my view, the veil has to come off before people accept that the policy is wrong. Misscharacterizing Reagan as a conservative diety has the adverse effect of producing the illusion that his policy initiatives were all good - even that they were conservative. That's not theory - as you know - I've been at this for a long time.

Reagan's involvement in marriage and family policy lasted pretty much through his entire political career. He did set out to change it. And both as governor and president, he had some of the most well-educated advisors and a huge staff to call on. What you're saying he avoided knowing what he was doing for several decades - which I would characterize as implausible denial. We should also have no doubt historically, that NOW has always been understood to be a radical left-wing group at the very least. In looking for support, Reagan would also have known about much larger women's organizations, considered more conservative, who opposed NOW. And we must acknowledge that it was Reagan himself, not some flunky whose name he didn't know, who appeared with NOW to support the legislation in congressional hearings - when it was opposed by the majority in congress; easily understood to be an area that doesn't belong in the federal jurisdication. Are you accusing Reagan of being so stupid that he didn't know that?

Once again - I don't really care about Reagan. People round here can build all the alters to him that they want (even though I find worship of any politician - doesn't matter who - downright creepy). But for the good of the nation, and the world, it must be acknowledged that his welfare reform initiative (i.e. marriage and family reform) was one of the worst, most corrupt things that has ever happened to the US of A. A similar sentiment is expressed in my 2004 article: Ronald Reagan's Mistake (http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/g/gay/2004/gay061304.htm).

[DesertFox]

No doubt it was, given that all you're saying is so. But I don't worship Reagan or any other human being. You are mischaracterizing the Right by thus using that tone and that term.

Reagan was smart about fundamental principles. He never was a policy wonk. No one else that I know of ever accused him of being one, but the whole thrust of your attack on him is policy wonkery. You attribute to him talents he never had and never claimed to have. That he got a policy wrong isn't news; like all politicos, he made as many (or more) bad mistakes as he got things right.

It happens, though, that the things he got right were gigantic by comparison. I mean, he was the onliest president to take on the Soviets head-to-head, he had to persevere in the face of huge and very nasty onslaughts, and he won. He also fixed the economy in such a way that it's enjoyed its longest winning streak (by far) in history. Rightly or wrongly, those two achievements obscure pretty-much everything else. Those were won by his strict adherence to fundamental principles. To obscure them behind a bad policy on the domestic side isn't just to Reagan.

The facts should nevertheless be openly spoken of, as you are doing. We should make every effort to see even (or especially) our heroes as they were rather than as we wish they had been.

[RogerFGay]

I wasn't trying to be personal re: worshipping Reagan. Just know that he's something of a Republican (considered conservative) icon. Republican presidential hopefuls knew this and evoked his name all through the primaries. And "round here" there's a special forum dedicated to honoring Ronald Reagan.

You can view Reagan however you wish. I didn't think of my 2004 article until the end of my comments. After thinking about it, it would have been a good response to your initial comment. Is this what you are advising me to do: Ronald Reagan's Mistake (http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/g/gay/2004/gay061304.htm) ?

[DesertFox]

Roger, thanks for that link. That article is simply outstanding. It strikes exactly the right note.

[RogerFGay]

OK. Like I said. I'm not out to destroy Ronald Reagan's memory. As I put it in the article, I don't think he'll rest well until the big mistakes are fixed. That's one way to put it.

Here's another take on Reagan. I presented at a conference of the Children's Rights Council near DC back in the 90s and visited some congressmen, bureacrats, and Clinton staff while I was there. On the last day of the conference, I was approached by a guy who had worked for Reagan - CIA, Secret Service, or something. I don't remember. Anyway, he offered to give me a ride to the airport. (Side note: I was really tired by then and fell asleep in the car on the way. I suppose it could have been a more interesting ride.)

So the guy starts telling me about Ronald Reagan and his years as president. His story was that Reagan was completely obsessed with the Soviet Union and the commies. Everything at his disposal had their attention turned on them. He just didn't care, and didn't think about anything else. That doesn't explain how the enormous job that was done in marriage and family reform happened, but it is a story. Another piece was the leadership of a congenital liar by the name of Ronald Haskins. He headed the Republican Congressional staff (house ways and means) on welfare reform. Before working in Washington, he as a North Carolina State U. assistant prof. in psychology who'd written an Al Gore type report for DHHS on child support reform. So - by the time he's embedded and steering development of welfare reform bills, you can start blaming Congress. Haskins remained during the 1990s, while Clinton took credit for the bipartisan supported continuation of the Reagan reforms.

[RogerFGay]

While I'm naming names: Former chairman of House Ways and Means Dan Rostenkowski, who was eventually evicted for corruption. Killed himself after that I think. And psychopath New York Democrat congressman Tom Downey who pushed child support reform ruthlessly until the good people of his district threw him out. After that, he went back to his law practice and continued lobbying for child support reform - apparently looking for a chance to get back into Congress. I'd like to remind all incumbants who think their opinions have to fall in line for their survival to think of Tom Downey - he lost, and he never found a way back in.