Justice is Served: Darren Mack Gets Life Sentence
Background: In June 2006, Darren Mack, a wealthy Nevada father who was involved in a divorce, stabbed his estranged wife to death and then executed a well-planned murder attempt on a Nevada judge. Mack shot and wounded the judge but failed to kill him. According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, when police searched Mack's residence they found he "had bombmaking materials in his bedroom" as well as "several boxes of firearm ammunition." At the time of Mack’s murder spree, I wrote:
“I condemn without qualification condemn the crimes allegedly committed by Darren Mack in Nevada last week. Mack was angered by his divorce and custody case. Some on the not insubstantial lunatic fringe of the fathers' rights movement see Mack as some sort of freedom fighter. Most of the commentary by other fathers' rights advocates seem to be of the ‘he couldn't take it anymore and snapped’ variety.
I don't buy it. Though everyone is focusing on Mack's attempted murder of a judge, everyone seems to forget that he first stabbed and killed his estranged wife. After murdering her, he shot the judge through the judge's third-floor office window with a sniper rifle from over 100 yards away. That's not ‘snapping’--that's premeditated murder. Mack is not a good man trapped in a bad system. He is a bad guy. Because of men like him the system had to create protections for womenand unscrupulous women have misused those protections to victimize countless innocent men. Men like Mack aren't the byproducts of the system's problems--they are the problem.”
It wasn't the rope and a tree that Darren Mack deserved, but it was close enough. Friday Darren Mack--who stabbed and killed his estranged wife as his little daughter played with her toys upstairs--was sentenced to life in prison.
Mack first tried what I called the Mary Winkler defense, making the unlikely claim that he slashed his wife's throat in self-defense. How Mack defending himself against Charla necessitated then driving to the courthouse and trying to kill a judge in a well-planned, methodical way was never explained.
Douglas Herndon, the Nevada judge in the criminal case, explained that he let Mack speak for quite a while before his sentencing, and that Mack expressed "no remorse" for his crimes.
http://www.glennsacks.com/enewsletters/enews_2_12_08.htm
There is MUCH background information left out of this story, but it doesn't surprise me as many of the people involved were more intent upon protecting the way their activities enabled the Darren Macks of our world, then in painting an honest picture of the situation here. The truth was that Darren Mack was enabled, empowered and encouraged in his bad behavior for a looooong time before he finally went off in a public enough fashion to bring down the wrath of the law enforcement community upon his head, a long time.
Mack was enabled by the courts during his first divorce, when he (with the help of a famous feminist attorney and the second wife he would eventually murder) managed to wrestle custody of the children from his first marriage. God only knows what he put his poor first wife and those kids through over the years BEFORE he murdered his second wife in his SECOND custody case.
See because this wasn't Mack's first custody battle, it was his second. That's the critical part left out of the story.
Apparently Mack was vetted through a professional court-ordered evaluation in order to help the court make its decision on his first custody case and he ironically enough passed with flying colors, since he was given custody in that situation.
Again, I return to what I've said dozens of times before "What in the heck do those custody evaluations measure if a nut like Mack can pass one of them?" As say what you will about Susan Smith or Andrea Yates, neither of those mothers had any court ordered custody of their children and I have to believe if their husbands had taken them to court, neither one would have managed to get any sort of legal custody. They would have been filtered out by the roadblocks set up to catch the truly dangerous/unfit parent, but yet the system appears to have set the bar much lower for men to become custodial.
That's one big issue.
Many fathers rights advocates aid and abet men like Darren Mack every day of the week, not even knowing anything about them or their situations. They actively assist them in wrestling custody of children from their mothers w/o even the most superficial knowledge of who they are or if they are decent, fit loving parents, never mind law-abiding citizens.
Regarding the comment about the Mary Winkler defense, this story has it sadly backwards. Actually the Darren Mack case points to the logic behind Mary Winkler's defense. That Mary Winkler felt she wouldn't get a fair shake in court, that the courts would allow her husband to use custody of her children as a club against her.
So she took matters into her own hands.
That's the legacy which gender neutral custody has left us with...
41 comments:
"I have to believe if their husbands had taken them to court, neither one would have managed to get any sort of legal custody. They would have been filtered out by the roadblocks set up to catch the truly dangerous/unfit parent,"
My, what tremendous faith in the face of all the facts!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/05/BA5QVEC2T.DTL
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_13_102/ai_91752307
http://www.ksat.com/news/15586264/detail.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3558637.ece
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_webtriple21.bba9e3.html
http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/10567327
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1014373
And it goes on and on. Too bad all those great "roadblocks" couldn't save those kids' lives.
"Mary Winkler felt she wouldn't get a fair shake in court, that the courts would allow her husband to use custody of her children as a club against her.
So she took matters into her own hands."
That's not the "logic behind Mary Winkler's defense." Neither she nor her defense made any such claim. Though God knows she's tried every excuse except that one, for sure.
But if you're right, then she's even more definitely a perjurer and a premeditated murderess.
And incredibly stupid, too, as she would be running a much bigger risk of losing her kids by going to jail for murder (as she should have) than by going to the woman-centered family court.
This gets more entertaining all the time...
Richard
Hi Richard. I think I remember you here from before...anyway welcome back.
I read three or four of those links you posted and it doesn't change my central point which you appear to have missed. I think you just tried to post as many articles as you could find about women abusing children more then men. AND for the small number of children who do get abused, you could be correct; but there are millions of children in this world (and this country) who are raised by loving mothers. Abused children are a small percentage of the total universe of children.
I will concede your point that woman might abuse children more; BUT that's only because men generally ignore their kids (unless they can make some money off them) so more women then men are caretakers of children.
But my main point was NOT about abuse of children.
It was about how courts, overrun with gender neutralized feminists, are so quick to overlook truly unfit or uncaring fathers and give them custody of children.
That's my point...
I don't believe a female Darran Mack would ever have gotten legal custody.
It's all a numbers game today started by Bill and Hillary Clinton and continuing to this day.
Continuing from above...
Sort of like what they do with sports in college and certain types of jobs, trying to force college/corporations to get as many women into the stats as possible.
Now they are doing it with men and custody.
That's my point and you appear to have missed it.
It's more political correctness run amuck...
Sorry this is so confused but I'm on my way to work and in a hurry.
Men like you appear to be blind in this regard. Although you can recognize political correctness in every other aspect of our lives and the harmful impact it has on our society. Can't you understand that this is more of the same and will have the same harmful impact down the road???? Actually it's having it already...
"I don't believe a female Darran Mack would ever have gotten legal custody."
I think you missed my point, too. It wasn't that women abuse kids more. It was that all those women I posted about WERE essentially female Darren Macks who were allowed to keep the kids they eventually killed while the fathers' efforts to rescue them went ignored by those who were supposed to act as these "roadblocks" that you spoke of.
It will be interesting to see how Mary Winkler's custody bid plays out, as she is precisely a female Darren Mack. Let's see if these "roadblocks" will prevent another tragedy that could easily occur when one of her soon-to-be-teenaged kids pisses her off and her "ugly comes out," as she put it.
Richard
Richard, I must admit that I only read the first three of those links but NOT one of the women in the first three was a "female Darren Mack"...the first case the male step person killed the kid, the second didn't give us any idea whatsoever if the woman even had had sort of court-ordered legal custody and the third was a female step-person...
I didn't read ALL of them I'll admit but I think my point still stands. Darren Mack was 'vetted' through our legal system the first time around. He had a well-known feminist as his lawyer. He was given a psychological evaluation which he must of passed with flying colors since he eventually won custody...
AND he's not the only one.
There have been quite a few well-known and not-so-well-known cases where fathers like Darren Mack have obtained legal custody through our court system. Actually it's very hard to find out the status vis-a-vis custody of children of any man who has been brought to the public's attention, as the media keeps it very quiet.
So, once again, you are wrong, those women were NOT female Darren Macks or OJ Simpsons or any other men I can think of offhand who had court ordered legal custody.
Actually I think the guy in Arizona who was eventually arrested as a serial killer was a custodial father as well...they said him and another man used to ride around staking out their victims while the two year old sat in the back seat...He had Joint Legal and the mother had been fighting to stop his visitation but they wouldn't listen to her...
Again very little media coverage on that issue...
My point is that I have known woman who have been threatened with the loss of custody for smoking or having a live-in boyfriend who smokes. The bar is set very high today for mothers when it should be just the opposite.
It's political correctness run amuck...
Men like you can see it in the handling of the Duke rape case, in college sports, even in vetting for certain jobs like the police and fire depts., all branches of the armed services, professional schools' admissions policies, etc., but clearly you are blind to the very same phenonmenon in our legal system (and instituted by the very same groups of people as well).
I guess it benefits men there. So it's easy for you to ignore it while railing against it in every other situation.
Plus I'll make a prediction: Mary Winkler will NOT get custody of her children. Just like Mary Kay Letourneau (Wash. state school teacher charged with statutory rape) never got custody of her children...many people don't understand this. Because they see Mary Kay Letourneau with her two youngest children on tv, they think she got custody, but she never did. The ONLY reason she sees her second set of children is because she married the father...her first set she sees the oldest because they are adults now and they can't be stopped from seeing her.
So I predict Mary Winkler will never get custody. Maybe some limited form of supervised visitation, if that.
Btw, this information is posted for Richard and Polish Knight.
I rarely read links.
My computer at home is old and takes forever to open them, so it's almost a waste of your time to bother posting them.
A better method would be to pull out the relevant paragraph or two and then post the link with it, so I can verify the information (if I feel the need)...
An even better method would be just to argue on your own and make your case...as just about any side can post dozens of links (with statistics to back it up) about any issue. But a well-thought out response of your own that makes sense to me will be more respected and I'll respond accordingly.
Richard, I checked out those links in your post. Most of these women were not female Darren Macks. One case was an abusive boyfriend that beat child to death in front of mother, and mother was taken cross country by said boyfriend because she was afraid. Another case,it looked like a stupid woman tried to burn boyfriend's clothes and accidently started house on fire. Most of her children escaped except youngest, and the article stated that mother and a neighbor tried to get child out. Another child killed was by a step mother. Another stated that mother left teenage daughter with people she did not know very well, and daughter was murdered. Two cases were suicide/homicide cases, and at least one was mother being abused by father. Only one case had a woman who killed disabled husband and her children could even come close to Darren Mack. Just about every case you cited was where the mother was in an abusive relationship, or someone else killed child, or child killed accidently. I googled fathers who kill children, wives, etc, and there were three times as many articles as there were women. Most of these men had histories of domestic violence, and a lot of these cases were in custody cases. Most of the women who killed had history of mental illness. There are absolutely hundreds of links that show domestic violence statistics of women and children who are murdered. These aren't all on feminist websites either. A lot of these are actual government statistics. I'm not providing links because you can google this information yourself, and I don't mean on MRA and FRA's websites either (or feminist websites for that matter). You and your ilk just do not want to acknowledge that we live in a patriarchal society where men feel that they are entitled to women and children as property. This is the real reason behind the custody wars, and more often than not, this is the real reason behind the murders of women and their children by men like Darren Mack. Women murder their children and spouses as well, but a lot of the times, it has to do with the women being mentally ill, or they are in an abusive situation that they do not know how to cope with. They certainly don't get help from the courts like you seem to think. Of course, women are seen as killing their children more often because they are usually the ones who are the primary caregivers as NYMOM stated. In studies where this fact is acknowledged taken into consideration, it is found that men are far more likely to abuse and kill children than women are. Again, you can google this information yourself, but the information is there if you bother to look for it.
Let's start with your claim that Mary Winkler was supposedly terrified of the family court system that gives a minority of men custody of their children. That appears to be your premise and tell me if I got it wrong.
The problem is that this is not backed up by the facts of the case. Winkler snapped over an argument over some spam Nigerian email and unsupported allegations her husband was an abuser. It's a total non-sequitur.
Ok, now that's out of the way, let's look at your criticism of Mack. You made an effort to portray him as wealthy to imply that paying his ex-wife support shouldn't have been a big deal. The problem with this is that it contradicts your claim that Winkler was scared of the big bad wolf family court system. The same court system that lavished Mack's ex with gold and dablooms. Paradox 101.
That said, what Mack did was murder and attempted murder respectively and unlike Winkler, he paid the full price for his actions. I am cool with Mack's punishment. It's quite clear that men like Mack aren't responsible for the system's bias against men (even as you claim it's biased in their favor simultaneously.) On the contrary, Mack's case was sensational PRECISELY because it was exceptional meaning the system just viewed his ex-wife's death as a tolerable statistic. Whatever meaning you want to imply from this statement, the fact is that if Mack hadn't been ordered to pay such high levels of support, he wouldn't have murdered his wife or tried to kill this judge. The system, and you, have decided these occasional outbreaks are tolerable if not heroic.
I hope I got everyone's comments posted as there was a little glitch in my blog and I might have erased some comments by accident BEFORE posting them. If so, please re-post them.
Anyway, Polish Knight, it just so happens that Court TV, which I watch very frequently, did the Mary Winkler trial this week and it showed a lot more damaging evidence against her husband then I knew about.
First of all he was abusive.
People who were not related to her, so had nothing to gain, testified to that. He was even abusive to his neighbors. Mary Winkler was seen publicly with a black eye and other bruises. Additionally she was isolated from old friends and family by her husband, which is a very common tactic for an abuser.
Also she did not organize that bank scam. It appeared that her husband organized it and had her sign her name to the accounts. Personally after listening to her testify, she didn't strike me as having enough initiative to organize something like that...
AND I'm not arguing Darren Mack punishment or that Mary Winkler should have gotten off so lightly.
Also I NEVER said Darren Mack was wealthy, Glenn Sacks said that.
The beginning of that post was from an article he posted on his blog.
What I'm saying is that Glenn Sacks was wrong to compare the two cases. As they were totally different.
Darren Mack's first case should have been examined a little more closely (after he killed his second wife and shot the Judge) in order to see how he managed to get custody of his first set of kids, how he passed the evaluation and use that examination as a way to instill some roadblocks in the legal system, so a Darren Mack case doesn't happen again.
Maybe we have to hold actual attorneys liable if they help someone get custody who is unfit.
You have a higher standard or should have when you're dealing with children's lives. Assisting some jerk get custody just because he's paying you a high retainer needs to be made some sort of crime.
Additionally we need to hold accountable family members and/or friends, associates, etc., who act as witnesses for parents who are unfit.
There has to be some accountability here. Even Darren Mack's mother was involved and should have been investigated as well as his first attorney. Maybe his second one as well...
Anyway, that's my point in comparing the two cases, not the punishments.
You're missing the forest for the trees here in what I'm talking about...I'm not focusing on two individuals who murdered and what their punishment should or should not be. I'm talking about looking at a system in it's entirety and reforming it...
That's what this blog is about: broader issues. I use these individual cases as starting points for discussion.
Get it????
The other side of the story
Hello NYMOM,
The oldest daughter testified that "Matthew Winkler was a good father and she never saw him mistreat her mother." Your whole blog is about recognizing motherhood so this testimony should carry some weight with you, yes? I read the testimony and I believe you're referring to the pastor losing his temper after being kept awake all night by a neighbor's barking dog. That's entirely reasonable since people who haven't gotten sleep aren't exactly at their best. And finally the black eye was explained away by the wife at the time as being inflicted accidentally by her daughters. Maybe she was covering for her husband at the time but it worked and he's not here now to present his side of this new story.
I concur you didn't say Mack was wealthy. In my defense (pardon the pun), you didn't say it came from Glenn so my confusion is understandable.
Back to time-machines (pardon the pun) and your argument that we should re-examine how Mack got reasonable treatment in his first court case. The answer is simple: He wasn't a murderer at that time. I'm not going to try to explain the space-time continuum to you (perhaps because I don't fully understand it either.)
That said, I once again observe that, statistically, most unfit parents in this country are single mothers. Even if we put aside the statistical fact on criminal offspring, there's also the reality that most women cannot financially support their children as well as men do. Darren Mack probably didn't get "child" support from his first ex. In addition, Mary Winkler got off precisely because women are perceived as likely to "snap" into murderous impulses. How you think this case makes women look more trustworthy as parents is beyond me!
Indeed, I used to date a divorce lawyer who told me stories about women who brought their children in court in rags precisely to elicit sympathy from the court to get more "child" support.
I have often had such arguments with women such as you (but you, admittantly, are unique) and I had a point for them: Most criticism labeled at men today is for being "deadbeats" and "abandoning" their children or, in other words, not paying "child" support. Most men, including myself, are willing to abide by the courts' decision on custody provided the woman is, er, man enough to live up to her choices.
You talk about accountability but financial responsibility is the most important thing for a human being to do and show their children. You know the story about the fisherman giving and teaching how to fish? In these single mother's cases, they aren't doing EITHER!
"Most of the women who killed had history of mental illness."
Not buying it, Anonymous. That's the politically correct characterization of women's violence that's trotted out by the defense every time a woman does something evil because we still havent' recovered from the Victorian era delusion that women are morally superior to men but somehow less than fully adult and responsible, like children. We still look for a "mental illness" excuse for women's evil acts instead of simply calling it what it is, like we do in men's cases. How often are violent men let off with a slap on the wrist because of a "history of mental illness?" Which most of them probably do have, indeed.
And if they were mentally ill, what were they doing with custody of children? Where were these "roadblocks" NYMOM speaks of that supposedly weed out unfit mothers? That's what we were talking about here.
Not buying the business about violent women being "abused" either. That's the other get-out-of-jail-free card that women have been exploiting for a generation now the same way they exploited welfare to death.
I heard Alan Dershowitz discuss this and I agree with him, that women have exploited this defense for so long that probably we'll eventually see a backlash where people will conclude that it's a defense that has been so overused and abused that it shouldn't be allowed at all.
Richard
NY, the Darren Mack case and the Mary Winkler case were not different. Charla Mack got smeared just like Matthew Winkler did, but like feminists pointed out at the time, it didn't matter if she was the world's biggest bitch, she didn't deserve to die.
Which is probably why all but the most rabid feminists have remained silent about the Mary Winkler case, out of an at least grudging sense of consistency.
From what you've said, it seems you've bought Mary Winkler's excuses hook line and sinker. No surprise there. But even if they were true, which I doubt, it clearly was not a matter of self-defense which is the only circumstance in which such a killing should be allowable.
Mary Winkler's own account of the episode is hopelessly contradictory and nonsensical. First her "ugly came out," then she loaded the gun and threatened him with it to "make him listen" while she told him to "be nice and enjoy life," then the gun went off "accidentally."
Then she capped off this supposedly unintentional killing by pulling the phone out of the wall so he would slowly bleed to death alone without being able to call for help.
That last thing tells us EVERYTHING we need to know about Mary Winkler.
You think anyone who gives her custody after such a monstrous act indeed should be guilty of a crime?
Richard
Polish Knight:
I know Darren Mack did not murder anyone AT THE TIME he got custody, but I can't imagine that you believe he was a normal man at that time and then a few years later he goes on a murder rampage?
Do you think someone can change that drastically in so short a period with no obvious trauma as explanation????
Clearly the guy was a nut job from day one and yet this was overlooked by a politically correct court system..
That's the issue here and it goes on everyday across America.
The other poster, I'm probably not going to respond to as it appears to be a waste of time. He continues to deliberately misstate the issue here. It's not whether or not Mary Winkler ever gets custody. Probably she shouldn't and I don't think she will...the issue that I'm speaking about is more complex then that.
"And if they were mentally ill, what, what were they doing with custody of children? Where were those "roadblocks" NYMOM speaks of that supposedly weed out unfit mothers? That's what we were talking about here."
Yeah, Richard, where were those "roadblocks" to keep Darren Mack from getting custody of his children by his first wife? And this was before he shot his second wife and the judge. Why? Because he wasn't going to get away with the same old custody tricks he used the first time. This guy had a violent history in both marriages. Of course, it's a FRA's dirty little secret. They know that all a batterer has to do is scream "parental alienation syndrome", and the courts will take the children away from the a fit mother because she is trying to protect herself and her children from these assholes. Where are the "roadblocks" in this case? How come these guys are allowed to exploit this defense? Where's the backlash? And most of these guys are not mentally ill. And even when they are, they still get custody and visitation even when they are a danger to their kids. As for women who are mentally ill getting custody,they most likely got custody by default because the fathers of their children probably didn't want to bother with their kids. Most fathers who fight the mother for custody have a history of domestic violence, and are more likely to kidnap children to get back at the mother, or because they don't want to pay child support, so they get custody, and dump their kids on their mothers, second wife, or girlfriend. Darren Mack is proof of this. In the extremely few cases where the mother is unfit because of mental illness, etc, a lot of the fathers don't want to bother, and a lot of these children end up with relatives or a foster home. Like I said, there are plenty of resources on the web to check this information out for yourself that does not come from MRA, FRA, or feminist websites. So do your homework, Richard, because I'm not buying it.
Men don't "snap", they "support'!
Hello NYMOM,
You chose to tie these two cases together so I will answer accordingly: Since the murder crime occurred later, then it's reasonable that he didn't show any signs of this beforehand JUST AS nobody would have guessed that Mary Winkler was capable of "snapping" and killing another human being with a firearm. Your comparison is actually very useful in questioning whether women should have sole custody when they have a reputation for snapping and being emotionally unstable.
In answer to your second question: There were signs of "obvious trauma": Taking away someone's children AND then sticking them with massive financial support obligations is pretty stressful. Look at Brittany Spears! Your very blog is about sympathizing with women who lose custody yet now you're sweeping the pain of such an event under the rug when it happens to a man. Amazing.
If more women both lost custody AND had to pay a majority of their after tax income to their ex, how many bodies would be turning up?
Finally, I am going to call BS on you and declare that this doesn't happen "everyday". The Mack case was sensational precisely because it was exceptional. On the contrary, since women are now abandoning babies to die in dumpsters on average on a daily babis in the United States, they have been granted legal abandonment privileges. Men are held to a higher standard PRECISELY because they live up to it. More often than not, we don't "snap", we _support_.
I'm going to take a chance and unblock comments so people can freely post on here again. Only because so many comments and emails have been coming in that it's getting confusing to either reply or post the comment.
Of course, as soon as some start acting up again, the block will be back up. So I will warn the usual suspects to not take advantage of this situation.
First of all Polish Knight, re-read the post: it was not me who linked these two cases together, but Glenn Sacks. I posted excerpts from his blog. I linked it at the bottom and then gave my opinion underneath the link.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough; but that's generally how I set up my posts. I either comment before or after some article, usually I use the link as a separation between an article or news item and my comments about it.
Due to a number of comments you have made to me I can see that you are confused about who said what, so perhaps going forward I'll use different colors or something to distinguish between my opinion versus an article I've posted which is someone else's opinion.
Okay...so let's be clear about that first of all. It was not ME who linked these two cases, but Glenn Sacks, your guy.
Second point: Sorry, but it's not reasonable for me to assume that Darren Mack showed no signs of instability and rage beforehand. As has been shown many times in cases like his, there are numerous signs (before the act) of the rage simmering beneath the surface; but everyone chose to ignore them.
So that's why his case is particularly important, as we need to find out the who and the how of Darren Mack getting custody the first time and determine if the persons and circumstancs still exist in the family court system. Then come up with a plan to address it.
That's what this post is all about not whether or not Darren Mack or Mary Winkler are good parents. Okay, I'll give you that: neither of them are and neither should probably have custody of their kids. As I don't have a problem if Mary Winkler never gets custody of her kids.
Okay.
Third and last point: you are right the Mack case was sensational, it doesn't happen everyday. But what does happen everyday is that mothers who are fit, loving mothers lose custody of their children to some marginal men, who should have no more right to custody of children then the men in the moon.
That's what happens everyday.
Like I've said numerous times: children belong with their mothers unless she's unfit in some way...
Sorry but I don't subscribe to this idea that a quick drop sperm deposit entitles men to the same rights/obligations to a child as a mother has and should have unless she voluntarily relinguishs them. Men are held to a higher standard (or used to be) and it should remain so because your investment in children is minimal. Men risk, invest and contribute practically nothing to the enterprise and so this holding you to a higher standard (when it happens) is correct.
Sorry I'm just stating the facts here as difficult as they might be to hear.
Anyway, this is more gender neutral social engineering, poltical correctness run amuck and no matter how many statistics, stories, posts, blogs, you and your friends come up with, I will never change my mind. Biology, history and just plain good old fashioned common sense say otherwise and I don't care how many clown fish, penguins or other weird creatures you produce in your propaganda campaign. I am not buying it.
Again, sorry. You appear to be a nice enough fellow. Good luck with your life, but you're not going to change my mind on this issue.
This is just a little test to see if removing the comment moderation has taken effect yet.
Of course if debate degenerates because I removed it, I'll just put it back up again.
Thanks.
NYMOM
"Most fathers who fight the mother for custody have a history of domestic violence..."
As determined by whom? The mothers they fought? And what kind of "domestic violence?" Actual violence, or BS definitions such as "financial abuse" or "withholding sex" or other such nonsense that you women have placed under the "domestic violence" label? And what kind of custody? Sole custody, or mere joint legal which is almost the same as noncustodial?
Feminists trot out this vague assertion about fathers who contest custody all the time but can never seem to flesh it out.
"and are more likely to kidnap children to get back at the mother"
I believe NYMOM has said something around here about most parental kidnappings being done by mothers?
"or because they don't want to pay child support, so they get custody,"
Strawman. Who are you to say why fathers fight for their children? Actually, the fact that women throw this accusation around so much sounds like simple projection of their own financial preoccupation in divorce and custody.
"dump their kids on their mothers, second wife, or girlfriend."
Strawman. And if it were true, it's no more wrong than for women to dump their kids on grandma or day care while they work or go to school or date or whatever the hell. And they do it a lot.
"They know that all a batterer has to do is scream "parental alienation syndrome", and the courts will take the children away from the a fit mother because she is trying to protect herself and her children from these assholes."
Strawman. When men start getting custody in large numbers by using PAS, not thru mutual consent, I'll discuss this one with you.
As for doing my homework, I'm familiar with all the propaganda from feminist websites. Thanks anyway.
Richard
"Who are you to say why fathers fight for custody of their children?"
Richard, right back at you. Who are you to say why mothers fight for custody of their children? Who are you to determine what the experiences of a domestic violence victim are rather than the victim herself? Who are you to say why single, working women leave their kids with grandma or daycare? And who are you to say that they do it a lot? Who are you to say that men don't get custody mainly because they use PAS? And you obviously didn't do your homework, because I told you that a lot of statistics are on websites other than MRA's, FRA's, and feminist sites. You obviously don't bother to research anything you say. You don't want to bother because you know anything you say can be easily refuted by a simple google search. You're just pissing in the wind, and your not worth debating.
Anonymous, as I believe I told NY already, in the course of a "debate" it is not a valid response to one's opponent to say "There's a lot of evidence for my position out there. Look it up."
That's about all you've told me, except for some vague, emotional feminist propaganda that I've heard many times before.
"Who are you to say why mothers fight for custody of their children? Who are you to say why single, working women leave their kids with grandma or daycare? And who are you to say that they do it a lot?"
I DON'T say. Unlike you, I recognize that these things are a matter of opinion. And they're as irrelevant as they are in the case of fathers, who just like mothers have every right to fight for their relationships with their children no matter their UNKNOWN motivations.
"Who are you to determine what the experiences of a domestic violence victim are rather than the victim herself?"
Well, this is where the law comes in, Anon. And the law must clearly and specifically define and limit what is meant by "domestic violence." The "victim" can not be allowed to define it any way she wishes, for obvious reasons.
"Who are you to say that men don't get custody mainly because they use PAS?"
It doesn't matter whether some men do or don't get custody because of PAS. The fact is that most fathers DON'T get physical custody, and the ones who do have it mostly by mutual consent. And that's not FRA statistics. That's the US government's statistics.
But this "debate," to use the term loosely, has been entertaining.
Richard
Richard,
American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence
"Ten Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them"
http://www.abanet.org/domviol/custody-myths.pdf
Domestic Violence Myths And Facts
Boston Public Health Commissions
http://www.bphc.org/factsheets/content.asp?page=2&p=0&f=103
These summmarize the basic facts of domestic violence and custody
as well as other things brought up in the previous posts.
Other statistics:
Some of out country's "missing children" are actually being hidden by their mothes to protect them from violent fathers. Conversely, abusers sometimes kidnap their children to punish their partners for leaving or getting them to come back.
(Domestic Violence-A Guide for Health Care Professionals, NJ: March 1990)
Each year 350,000 children are abducted by parents in this country, that is 40 children are abducted per hour. 54% of abductions are short-term manipulation around orders, but 46%
involve concealment of whereabouts of child, or taking child out of state. MOST OF THESE ABDUCTIONS ARE PERPETUATED BY FATHERS.
(Hunt B. (1990) Gentle Jeopardy: The Further Endangerment of Battered Women and Children in Custody Mediation. Mediation Quarterly, 7 (4), 323.
A Canadian study of 32 members from four different father's rights groups. Not one individual interviewed wanted the day-to-day care of their children. They expected their ex-spouses to have primary care while they spoke of "helping". These guys weren't interested in physical custody.
(Carl Bertoia and Janice Drakich "The Father's Right's Movement: Contradictions in Rhetoric and Practice" Journal of Family Issues vol,14,no.4, 592-615 (1993)
One of your own, Pete Kaplan, spoke about the majority of FRA's being more interested in joint legal custody rather than physical custody. It's an insider's view of what FRA's group really want. I read this guy's posting on a couple feminist blogs, and he says the same thing. Most FRA want joint legal custody with physical custody going to ex-wives. That way they don't have to pay as much child support, nor bother with their kids so much. Yet, they can use their legal custody to control the lives of their ex-spouses and children.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharedparenting/message/18838
And you wonder why I don't believe that the majority of men including FRA's do not want physical custody of their kids.
If you look at the info. I posted, it gives you the statistics on exactly what kind of men fight for sole custody, and what kind of men actually get custody, so-called false domestic violence allegations, and the fact that domestic violence allegations, real or false, offer no strategic advantage for women in custody cases what so ever.
And as for most fathers getting physical custody only by mutual consent. So what. Most women get physical custody by mutual consent as well. The fact that there are more women than men with physical custody is because women were the primary caretakers to begin with and most men realize this. These are the men who really care about their kids because they know it's in the best interest of their children to leave them with the parent who took care of them the most. It's mostly the abusive types that want to fight about it, and they don't give a shit about their kids.
Face it, Dick, this whole custody crap dreamed up by you FRA's is just a way to control women and the children that they carried, gave birth to, and took care of the majority of the time. It's called patrarchy, and that's what you guys really want.
Oh, and another thing, in the few cases (and I mean few)where the father is having trouble getting custody even though he was the primary caretaker or the mother was unfit, I would expect the guy to empathize with the majority of people who are in the same boat, i.e., mothers. If this guy joined the FRA groups, he would be highly suspect in my book.
NYMOM argues: "Sorry but I don't subscribe to this idea that a quick drop sperm deposit entitles men to the same rights/obligations to a child as a mother has and should have unless she voluntarily relinguishs them. Men are held to a higher standard (or used to be) and it should remain so because your investment in children is minimal."
PK responds: NYMOM, as I've already stated men LITERALLY "invest" in their children financially. You imply (if not outright claim) that men are pursuing custody if only to avoid paying financial support to women even as the women are unable to get the men totally out of their lives because they refuse to provide for their children themselves.
In previous times, it was socially acceptable to own slaves and to demand that they work for you and imprison and execute them if they got too "uppity". Well, the men are getting uppity.
Thanks for the well-wishes and good luck and back at you. I am sincerely flattered you thought well enough of me to say that. I don't expect to change your mind, at least not openly, but to provide you with food for thought.
NYMOM rounds up the usual suspects: "So that's why his case is particularly important, as we need to find out the who and the how of Darren Mack getting custody the first time and determine if the persons and circumstancs still exist in the family court system. Then come up with a plan to address it."
PK responds: You haven't shown me that there was evidence that Mack had displayed murderous impulses before the incident with his second wife and judge. As I pointed out, if society was actually concerned about the children's best interests they would be placed with a parent who can provide for them financially rather than putting them into poverty and hoping to take care of support after-the-fact. It's like tossing a child off of a cliff and then tying the bungee cord off later.
It's ironic that you think the system should look for signs of violence (presumably in men) when it would appear that the judge in this case appears to have regularly generated ire in men from excessive support obligations. Indeed, if men are doing well and are mentally sane then they are viewed as somehow not being squeezed enough...
When the day comes that custody is denied to men for REAL reasons rather than just to get child-support for custodial mothers, that's when the system is going to need to change FAST.
That's strange:
"A Canadian study of 32 members from four different father's rights groups. Not one individual interviewed wanted the day-to-day care of their children. They expected their ex-spouses to have primary care while they spoke of "helping". These guys weren't interested in physical custody.
(Carl Bertoia and Janice Drakich "The Father's Right's Movement: Contradictions in Rhetoric and Practice" Journal of Family Issues vol,14,no.4, 592-615 (1993)"
Yet, you claim that the evil FRA's are out to take away physical custody from mothers.
Thanks for the cite.
"Yet, you claim that the evil FRA's are out to take away physical custody from mothers."
No, that is what the FRA like to say officially, but individual members interviewed said otherwise hence the terms "contradiction in rhetoric and practice". In other words, they don't want to do the primary caregiving, but they want legal custody so they can have vetoe power over any decisions that their ex-spouses make. All this does is cause a lot of conflict between two parents who couldn't get a long to begin with. Why do you think there are these long drawn out court battles between couples?
The feminist positions is that anyone who has primary physical custody should have primary decision making over said child. That is why they advocate sole physical and legal custody to the parent (usually the mothers)who does the primary caregiving. Batterers in particular like to use their legal custody to keep dragging their ex-wives into court as a form of control. All it does is hurt the children and their mothers in the process. Yet, Father's Rights organizations publicly want to advocate to take physical custody away from mothers. Legal custody is often used as a vehicle to take children away from the mothers and put them in sole custody of abusive fathers. If you read some of the statistics that I cited you will see that abusive fathers are more likely to seek sole custody than non abusive fathers. A lot of FRA types have domestic violence backgrounds. Why should fathers, who didn't have a problem dumping most of the care of their children on their mothers when the parents were together, have "equal" authority in decision making in a divorce with the chance to get sole custody later on if said mothers don't do what the fathers want? They drag the mother through the courts with bogus claims of parental alienation (junk science by the way if you bother to read the statistics that I cited). In other words, the abusive fathers are usually the ones who end up with sole legal and physical custody in contested custody cases via joint legal custody than non abusive fathers. Father's rights organizations are all about advocating the custody situation that benefits men the most under the guise of what is in the best interest of the child. If men want to pay as little child support as possible, dump primary caretaking responsibilities on the mothers, and use their legal custody to maintain control over ex-wives lives, father's rights organizations support this. If the men want sole legal and physical custody even though they didn't take care of said children when they were with the mothers, father's rights activists support this. It doesn't matter to them if the fathers were abusive, whatever benefits the men is what they want. People like Richard whine that fathers should be able to fight for physical custody whenever they want to and that most women have physical custody by default. And yes, when fathers get sole legal and physical custody, they tend to dump primary caregiving responsibilities onto stepmothers, their own mothers, and girlfriends. They get credit for their kids primary caretaking without doing any of the work, and they get sole decision making power. Mothers are still usually primary caretakers of their own children when they have stepfathers or boyfriends while relying on daycare or their mothers when they are usually at work. This is a huge difference between cutodial fathers and
mothers. Face it, it's all about what the fathers want, and it doesn't matter if it's in the best interest of the children or not.
Sorry, correction:
American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence
"10 Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them"
http://www.abanet.org/domviol/custody_myths.pdf
"Most FRA want joint legal custody with physical custody going to ex-wives. That way they don't have to pay as much child support, nor bother with their kids so much. Yet, they can use their legal custody to control the lives of their ex-spouses and children."
This makes absofreakinlutely no sense. Do you even know what joint legal custody is?
I means that you can access your kids' medical records and have some input over their treatment perhaps. You can get their school info without mom's permission and have some input there too. And if CPS takes the kids for some reason they'll give them to dad first.
That's it. It has jack to do with residence, jack all to do with support, and precious little in the way of "control." And you think men spend thousands going to court for this? And women actually bother to fight it? Gimme a break!
"Some of out country's "missing children" are actually being hidden by their mothes to protect them from violent fathers. Conversely, abusers sometimes kidnap their children to punish their partners for leaving or getting them to come back."
It's not surprising to see a claim like this in a domestic violence pamphlet or fact sheet, considering who writes them. But do you really not see the problem with it?
The problem is that it accepts at face value the mothers' designation of the fathers as "batterers" (which of course justifies their own actions and often gets them assistance from others) while the proper finders of fact have found nothing of the sort otherwise the moms would ahve the kids legally.
Meanwhile it's assumed, with no justification whatsoever, that dads do the same act out of spite instead of protection.
It's not unlike the stat that fems like to throw around (and so do you, evidently) about "batterers" getting some form of custody 70% of the time when they seek it. When in actuality these "batterers" are so designated by mothers surveyed about their cases, not by any reliable finder of fact.
"One of your own, Pete Kaplan, spoke about the majority of FRA's being more interested in joint legal custody rather than physical custody."
Kaplan was saying that too many men give up their kids to easily out of laziness, then later see the kids suffer from the loss and can't do anything about it so they press for joint legal (probably knowing that's the most they can get) to "make themselves feel better."
He's calling for dads to stand up from the git-go and insist on both their rights and responsibilities as fathers, for their kids' sake. NOt a bad idea.
"And as for most fathers getting physical custody only by mutual consent. So what. Most women get physical custody by mutual consent as well."
The point is that this supposed deluge of fit mothers losing custody does not exist.
"in the few cases (and I mean few)where the father is having trouble getting custody even though he was the primary caretaker or the mother was unfit, I would expect the guy to empathize with the majority of people who are in the same boat, i.e., mothers."
Yeah, well, that's about as realistic as expecting the few (and I mean few) involuntarily noncustodial mothers to empathize with those in the same boat, i.e. fathers.
Makes some sense in theory, but it doesn't usually happen. A few posters around here are glowing examples.
From everything I've seen it appears that even primary caregiving dads are mostly open to shared parenting (which most FRA's support) and giving non-caregiving moms a chance to take on more parenting responsibilities post-divorce.
While primary caregiving moms mostly just want dad to go away and send a check please. They're the ones who really want to "take a child away" from someone.
"These are the men who really care about their kids because they know it's in the best interest of their children to leave them with the parent who took care of them the most. It's mostly the abusive types that want to fight about it, and they don't give a shit about their kids."
Nice conundrum you've go going there. If dads fight for their kids, it's because they don't care about their kids. And if they don't fight for their kids and mom ends up neglecting or hurting or killing the kids, it's because the dads don't care about their kids.
Gotta hand it to you woman-firsters, for sheer vitriol you run rings around the MRAs.
We could all do with a little more respect for the fundamental parenting rights of both men and women and a lot less amateur mind-reading and assigning of ulterior motives.
And FYI, FRAs didn't "dream up" any "custody crap." "Controlling women is more feminist propaganda as anything else, as most guys don't give a crap what their exes do.
But our children are another matter. The damn constitutional laws of our country give all parents the fundamental right to and at least equal share of the care, custody and control over our own damn children and they always have, even if this generation seems to have forgotten it.
That's not "patriarchy," sis. That's nature. There were families long before there were government agencies and domestic violence task forces and feminuts defining everything for everybody and purporting to tell everyone what their real motives are.
And before NY jumps in with her usual jingle about natural law and evolution and God and what all,
We're human beings and our evolution has taken us in a far different direction from the lower animals, who have no higher intellect or complex emotions but at least grow up quick and have all their behaviors preprogrammed into their reflexes.
While for us society turns to shit without intact families as we've seen over the past 40 years or so despite the best efforts of fems to reverse millenia of human history and development to prove women don't need anything from men.
Don't like it, take it up with God, nature, evolution, whatever...
See ya.
Richard
Never trust a lawyer!
It pays to read the URL again:
"The views expressed herein have not been approved by the House of Delegates of the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association except where otherwise indicated, and accordingly, should not be construed as representing the policy of the American Bar Association."
That should really be 'nuff said but I can't resist some comments.
Supposed Myth 2 is "Any ill effects of domestic violence on children are minimal and short-term".
Who the hell believes that? Oh, maybe attorneys representing WOMEN who are caught with their hands in the cookie jar after abusing their own children and seeking "child" support perhaps, but I don't know anyone who thinks that child-abuse is no big deal.
Another claim made on the page is hilarious: "Abusive parents are more likely to seek sole custody than nonviolent ones." Gee, since women tend to be the ones seeking and getting custody more often (and have a financial motive for doing so), what does that say about them? Tee hee!
Next the bar association excuses away women who lose custody by claiming: "Mothers who are victims of DV are often depressed [...] can present poorly in court and to best-interst attorneys and/or custody evalutators."
Well! That explains the disclaimer that the lawyers put in their own release, doesn't it? It looks like these womens' lawyers SUCK and they're bashing... the lawyers.
"Myth 9: Parents who batter are mentally ill OR parents with no evidence of mental illness cannot be batterers"
Again, another myth I wasn't aware of. It was probably made up by a lawyer looking to get their client (probably a "depressed" mother who drowns her children in a bathtub or shoots her husband in the back) off the hook.
Richard and Polish Knight:
What the fuck ever, dude. I'll take my own personal experience and the domestic violence statistics over what you two say any day, and since most of these statistics can be found on any domestic violence website, that makes them more valid than anything you have to say. From what I hear out of both of you, I wouldn't be surprised if you have domestic violence on your records.
What-Ever!
"What the fuck ever, dude" translated means "Lalalala! I can't hear you!" Except that they did hear you since they had to make an effort to pretend not to.
For someone who claims to be a mother, you really don't understand children very much. Parenting is supposed to be about the CHILD holding their breath and stomping their widdle footsies.
Sounds like you need a "timeout".
Well, from the way you talk, it doesn't seem like you understand what is in the best interests of a child. But than FRA's don't have a fucking clue anyway.
Dick said, "That's not patriarchy, sis. That's nature. There were families long before government agencies and domestic violence task forces and feminists defining everything for everybody and purporting to tell everyone what their motives are."
Funny you would bring up nature. Government, laws defining the institution of marriage and families are all based on man made traditions for centuries and still are. It's called the patriarchy. Nature on the other hand, from the beginning of the human race, gives physical custody of a child to the parent who gives birth. It doesn't make a difference if the father is present at the time or a thousand miles away. Nature has made it so that the only physically recognizable parent is the mother. Nature has made it so that a child's closest bond is with it's mother. Nature has made it that a child could not survive without a mother's breastmilk. In the case of the mother's death, only another woman could breast feed the child, and it didn't matter if the father was present or not. The natural family was the mother and the child. Fathers are a social construct. It goes against nature to take a child away from it's closest bond, and that is it's mother. In the cases where women retain physical custody, it is because the
natural bond is recognized. Most men realize this, and that is why most mothers retain physical custody by default,i.e., through mutual agreement. It's only in the disputed custody battles where most men don't want to recognize a fact of nature. Don't like it, take it up with God, nature, evolution, whatever.
Sorry, Anon, that's all very well for rabbits and squirrels but like I already pointed out we're human beings with vastly different and greater needs which I hope I don't need to spell out for you.
The "natural family" for us was never mother and child. Evolution did not take us down the path of the "mother's breastmilk" being all a child needs for optimal development. Ever since mankind emerged it's mattered a whole damn lot for a pair to bond and for the father to be there.
As in, if dads weren't there for protection and provision the moms would likely not survive to give any breastmilk at all, nor would the kids survive to drink it.
What goes against nature for us humans is women striking off on their own with small kids and pretending that they can meet all of those kids' needs themselves.
Even now you can see this evolutionary drama played out all around you, all over the world. On average kids raised in the biological pair bonds that nature intended thrive and succeed, while those who aren't fall into the largely matriarchal morass of poverty and aimlessness and other dysfunction.
A child's closest bond is not necessarily with its mother. One of our children is more closely bonded with my wife, the other with me, which is a pattern I see in many if not most families. But neither of us would be so absurd as to claim that the one with the weaker bond does not matter to each child. We know that we each bring elements into the parenting equation that the other can't.
But we also would never destroy their home out from under them in the first place. They count on us.
So don't like it, well, you know...
Richard
It figures, Dick, that you can't see the hypocrisy in your own argument. You mention nature, and it's okay. I mention nature, and you bring up squirrels and rabbits.
FYI, in ancient societies, women did not depend entirely on their husbands for protection and provision. Men brought a lot to tribes with their hunting, but this was shared with the whole tribe. Also, a lot of hunting was done communally where the whole tribe, i.e., men, women, and children participated and ran herds of animals over the cliffs. This one activity brought in more meat than any one group of hunters.
Also women were the gatherers. In times of a hunting shortage, the tribe survived more on the gathering activities of the women than on the hunting acivities of the men. In fact, more than half the tribe's nutrition came from the gathering of women. Women and their children were not dependant on any one male breadwinner, and the tribe was there to help out in the loss of a spouse. Also, women in ancient tribes depended more on other women than they did men. In a shortage of men, women could and did hunt. Some women and older children would stay behind to watch the children while the women would go hunt. It's called cooperation. And by the way, in modern homes where there are "pair bonds", if there is a lot of conflict between the parents, children do not thrive. They actually do a lot better in single mother homes. Also, in single mother homes where the mother is financially secure (and not dragged to court by a vengeful ex all the time nor denied child support)and where there is little or no conflict between the mother and non custodial father (no abuse from ex-husband)children do as well as two parent homes (ones where there is no conflict between the parents. Children thrive in an environment where their "primary caregiver" usually their mothers
are allowed to thrive, and it doesn't matter if it is in a two parent home or a single mother home. All those statistics that supposedly point out how terrible children do in single mother home are usually made up of mothers who poor, abused, uneducated or have some kind of substance abuse or mental illness issues, or where there is a lot of conflict between the parents. These are not the majority of single mothers. Most children in single mother homes do as well as a two parent home with no conflict between the parents. Sorry, but poverty and dysfunction are causes from the patriarchy. You can blather all you want about this being feminist propaganda, but this is the truth, and nothing you say is going to convince me other wise.
Oh, by the way, children do far worse in single father homes than single mother homes when things like income and level of conflict between parents is taken into consideration and is not an issue.
Oh, by the way, Dick, the child that you say is closer to you than your wife. Is that your wife's kid, or is he or she a child from a previous relationship where you lied and used abusive, sneaky, underhanded, tactics like "parental alienation" in order to get custody from the kid's primary caretaking mother (who was more than likely the parent that your child was really close to)? I mean, your in the father right's movement, so you must have the usual baggage that these losers have somewhere in your background.
"Most children in single mother homes do as well as a two parent home with no conflict between the parents."
Research done in various countries among various ethnic and socioeconomic groups disprove this claim. I already provided a link to the most extensive summation I've yet seen of the research, from the Australian National Observer.
"children do far worse in single father homes than single mother homes when things like income and level of conflict between parents is taken into consideration and is not an issue."
Children ON AVERAGE do not fare worse in father custody than in mother custody. The caveat being that girls do better in mother custody and boys in father custody. Which is why, of course, that boys have a harder time post-divorce, since most of them come of age under the primary control of females who do not understand the male psyche or the unique challenges boys face as they grow into men.
"Sorry, but poverty and dysfunction are causes from the patriarchy."
Typical liberal feminist baloney. "Patriarchy," if that's what you want to call society based on the two-parent family, does not cause poverty or dysfunction. It's been proven to be the best preventative of both, and that's why it emerged with humankind in the first place and it's also why our leaders are desperate to get us back to it although they probably never will.
Two-parent families will continue to take care of their own and produce children who become assets to society. While losers will mostly continue doing what losers do and nursing off the government and wondering why they don't move up.
And sorry to disappoint but the wife and I did it all the outdated way. Married, no previous marriages, both kids are ours. I'm not technically an FRA although I sympathize. It was originally my wife who got me interested in gender issues. She's also an FRA sympathizer, since she has a background in psychology and sociology and she experienced PAS firsthand as a child.
Anon, it looks like you're well-versed in NYMOMology and it's what you want to hear and, like every woman-firster, you're going to hang on to it till the damn ship goes down. Be my guest. I'm going to buzz on out of this thread now since it's been done to death already. Sorry for your situation, by the way.
Richard
"Sorry for your situation, by the way."
Sorry for your wife's. Women who are FRA sympathizers have blinders on their eyes. Pandering to the patriarchy and all.
"I'm going to buzz on out of this thread now since it's been done to death already."
At last, something we agree on because it gets old after a while.
Adios, Dick, it was interesting while it lasted.
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