terdShat
terd
Men
The hidden half of domestic violence
A Child's Best Interest
Please forward as far and wide as you can
Child's Best Interest
was involved in an appeal to the TN Supreme Court
of a custody matter on constitutional grounds. Today we received word that
they used their discretion to not hear the case.
The main reasons we feel
they did this is because they are cowards, and
this case was going to end their ability to abuse parents and children.
Constitutional law, when properly argued, states that trial judges don't
even have jurisdiction over fit parents, let alone the ability to issue
any orders except under very narrow circumstances. Hear that again, they
do
not have jurisdiction, cannot throw a parent in jail for having lunch with
his child at school, cannot limit her to every other weekend contact, and
cannot make one pay the other a windfall profit (child support) for keeping
your child from you.
Now they are probably
searching for an attorney to conspire with, to
improperly argue constitutional law in a hand-picked case, and allow
them to continue to abuse parents and children. Parents must raise
constitutional arguments at trial and take them all the way to their state
supreme
court.
One of the things
slowing down state supreme courts from addressing the
constitutional questions is the public isn't yet aware of the strengths
of their parental rights, and how this is intertwined with other rights
issues.
This is explained in the below paper.
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A well regulated Militia
My specialty is
constitutional law as it applies to family law. This
encompasses such areas as marriage, abortion, child rearing, divorce,
child custody and support, and domestic violence. It's a broad field with
huge problems in it, and most of the public is unaware of the battles
occurring here.
One of the lesser of
these huge problems has crossed over to an area the
public is knowledgeable of and concerned about. This is the 2nd
Amendment right to bear arms. Three recent legal cases demonstrate what's
happening. The Massachusetts News in a May 2001 story reports that a
mother in a
divorce matter filed 26 criminal cases in 3 courts alleging the father
was violent. The mother underwent psychological tests and they stated she
was "experiencing numerous psychological problems". The result?
A judge
issued a permanent restraining order against the dad, where he must surrender
all guns and ammunition. For life.
This summer in the
Tennessee case Stillwell v. Stillwell a mother
requested that a dad be prohibited from possessing a firearm around his child.
The trial judge granted this as a lifetime order. This dad must have been
abusive or leaving loaded guns around? Nope, the order is based on dad
being a diabetic and once had an insulin reaction that led to an
automobile accident. The firearm provision was overturned on appeal, but
there is
no way to know how many other such orders never were appealed.
In the recent federal
case United States v. Emerson a young doctor in a
divorce action, a dad, had a restraining order issued against him. This
automatically and fully extinguishes all 2nd Amendment rights, even
though from the legal record it appears he was no danger to his estranged
wife. He was found to possess one pistol, which he already owned, and now
faces a
5 to 10 year jail sentence if convicted. "We are hopeful that we will
have the opportunity to bring Mr. Emerson to justice." Bill Mateja
assistant
U.S. attorney prosecuting the case.
The common thread in the
above is regular men, similar to your brother,
dad, or you, losing their 2nd Amendment rights in family law cases. But
they
are losing much more than this. All of them lost their children, and no
doubt much of their wealth. And two of the three can easily face long-term
jail sentences.
There are two basic
reasons this happens. Family law judges have
virtually unlimited power as soon as they gain jurisdiction over parents.
They
can gain this for many reasons, including as a Tennessee state senator
recently found out to his chagrin, his 16yr old daughter complaining to
authorities that he had abused and neglected her when issuing discipline for she
being in a car accident and not being truthful with the police.
The second reason is the
media has been perpetrating a subtle but
effective demonizing campaign against men. "Violent attacks by men are the
primary
health risk to women in America." Do you think that statement
is
true? If you do, then you have fallen for an amazing disinformation
campaign. It
might be true in Afghanistan, but in the United States the primary
health risks to women are smoking and lack of exercise/proper nutrition, and
for injuries it is falling down and car accidents. Men, the natural
protectors of women and children, are correspondingly down at the bottom of the
list of risks or injuries to them.
So with unlimited power,
and an unaware and possibly hostile public,
family law judges are able to inflict great harm on parents and children, and
constitutional rights in general. There must be a concerted effort to
inform the public and reverse this.
Besides the clear
connection between the 2nd Amendment and family law as
shown in the preceding examples, there is another possible nexus, this
with even more substance and value. The 2nd Amendment contains the clause,
"A well regulated Militia". This is understood by many to mean
the
National Guard. Up until the early 1900's that would be correct, but then,
"Through the National Defense Act of 1933, the Army National Guard was
created as
a new component of the United States Army." There should be
little
question that today the National Guard is an Army reserve component, and there
is
no militia of able-bodied citizens in the United States.
To some extent that is
debatable, but the National Guard has tanks and
planes, and they deploy overseas. Even if the bulk of their members
are citizen soldiers and they are used locally in times of civil unrest,
they are a professional fighting force, and have only the most tangential if
any relationship to a citizen militia.
Rights do not exist in a
vacuum. If not used they atrophy and are taken
away. In modern times citizens have only three major uses for
firearms. Recreation, self-defense, and collective-defense. The latter two
are
the significant ones, and of them only self-defense is exercised as a living
right by American citizens today. That means for practical purposes the
bulk of the defense of the 2nd Amendment turns on what can arguably be
accomplished by medium calibre (non-magnum) revolvers.
Weapons such as a scoped
30-'06 or military style AR-15 are rarely if
ever used by citizens in self-defense circumstances. These are
collective-defense weapons, and lacking a real world use or potential
use of such, are very vulnerable to being prohibited. Recreational use is
not
enough. The NRA has 4 million members, and they will always be on the
defensive against firearms being confiscated that don't have a real
world need. It is a certainty all such weapons will be removed from
citizen
possession over time. Those on the front lines in the defense of any
right against government incursion, surely knows this to be true.
With due respect and
full support of the United States military, it is
exactly the opposite of what the founding fathers envisioned. They were
very concerned with a standing professional army, and this is why they
advocated for a citizen militia. The problem isn't a large standing
army, which today we need to operate highly technical equipment in far away
locations, it is the lack of a balancing citizen militia.
A militia composed of
the citizenry, is that a scary concept? If it is,
this reflects the times we live in. There's too much dependence on
government, and this is unwise as seen in family law, "We are hopeful
that we will have the opportunity to bring Mr. Emerson to justice."
Mr.
Emerson is a medical doctor and father, presumably a great asset to society, and
the federal government is seeking to jail him for 5 to 10 years. This is
not an isolated incident.
The citizen militia, if
it comes to be, would not have as members those
who live in isolated compounds and seek to avoid paying any income taxes.
No, it would be done by hunters, members of shooting clubs, and other good
persons. These folks are law-abiding and fully participate in society,
and by accident or design they've always been preparing for a
collective-defense role. But if such a need presented itself, today there
is no mechanism
or structure to accomplish it.
An adult extension of
Boy Scouts, where law-abiding citizens can be
certified and trained in collective-defense and search and rescue
operations, would be a very wise initiative for Americans at this point
in history. A true citizen militia is the best guarantee one would never
be needed. Minuteman Scouts is a concept to be pondered.
Daniel Lee
Good Luck, Caring Dad
http://www.custodyreform.com
Dedicated to the idea that the "rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting" is a basic human right for all parents of divorce, and should be passed into law everywhere.
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JUNE is Domestic Violence Against Men Awareness Month