Our government has a dirty secret which it's hiding from its own citizens and the rest of the world: the fact that it has thousands of political prisoners incarcerated in every part of the nation due to violations of privacy prohibited by our Constitution.
Starting now, NCPForce! will begin referring to non-custodial parents jailed for child support arrears as political prisoners who should be afforded concern and relief -- both nationally and internationally -- on par with other victims of government abuse around the world.
We also urge other fathers' rights /non-custodial parents' rights activists and organizations to adopt this policy in all their public statements, literature, web pages, and media as a show of solidarity and to demonstrate to our government that we are bringing our fight to a new level.
Reasons for Our Policy
The arrest of non-custodial parents and their incarceration in debtors' prison ranks with political oppression in foreign nations which our own government condemns. It is no less evil than the gulags of Communist Russia where individuals were shut away in prisons for non-crimes such as free speech and religious beliefs.
Like the fanatical rule of the Taliban, the system of family law in the United States functions on blind assumptions and ignorance which contradict our Constitution and the very set of principles this nation was founded on -- that men and women should be free from government intrusion into their personal lives.
Yet despite these founding principles, we find ourselves in a situation two hundred years later where our federal and state governments have positioned themselves to interfere with anyone's life once a personal relationship breaks down. This family law system, which should keep intrusions to a minimum considering our Constitution, is anything but unintrusive. Instead, it has evolved into a monstrous machine which deprives people of their children and possessions; which targets an entire class of people to strip them of a right to appeal; which entraps its victims through enforcement measures; and denies, through financial terror, a right to legal counsel.
And this is why those who become imprisoned as a result of the machinations of the family law system are not merely debtors, or simply serving time in contempt -- they are political prisoners, just like other unfortunates around the world who find themselves in gulags because their government is out of control.
The Road to Political Prisons
The nightmare of political oppression can come out of the blue in America. Any day of the week, one party to a personal relationship can enter a family court and file for sole custody of a child. Once such a request is made, the machinery of our family law system kicks into place and the other parent -- who is about to become a non-custodial parent -- is put on the defensive, at first not fully understanding the incredible powers of federal and state government now arrayed against him.
But these powers become painfully understood as soon as the non-custodial parent learns that he is now only a "visitor" to his child, and can become a criminal if he dares to see his child at any time outside of the court ordered "visitation" time. The reality hits further home when the non-custodial parent receives the first demand for child support and is told that he or she will be incarcerated if they fail to make payment.
The non-custodial parent, even at this early introduction to the family law system is in a precarious position. He (or she)is likely to be searching for a new home; may have trouble at the workplace due to the emotional strain; can be struggling to be a good parent during limited visitation time; and laboring to pay for the best legal counsel so as to insure that he (or she) maintains what little right to their children they have left.
Any small, random, unforeseen incident from this point on places the non-custodial parent on the road to criminality. A car breakdown which costs a substantial amount of money to repair ... loss of a job ... illness ... a rent hike from the landlord ... decreased wages ... an accident -- any of these events can cause a non-custodial parent to go into child support arrears.
In most cases, when faced with the decision of paying an attorney, or, paying child support, keeping a roof over one's head, and feeding oneself, the non-custodial parent is likely to cut loose his or her attorney. And with this very basic survivalist decision, the non-custodial parent becomes open to the whims of family court judges who are, in many cases, of unethical character and low morals.
Alone against wolves, the non-custodial parent faces more deprivations which go unchecked as our government steps in, more and more, as an advocate for the custodial parent. The non-custodial parent faces harassment from child protective services, guardian ad litums, and child support agencies which haughtily set out to monitor non-custodial parents' lifestyles and tell them exactly how to spend their incomes.
With the full backing of the government, courts will dig into payroll checks, military pay, disability pay, tax returns, court settlements, lottery winnings -- whatever they can get their hands on -- to ensure that the non-custodial parent is spending the way they want them too. And at the same time, these same powers will tell non-custodial parents that they have no right to expose their children to their religious traditions, or take them on vacation, or to have any kind of input in their schooling; they will also tell the non-custodial parent that they should not smoke or have an occasional drink, or whether or not they can start a new relationship.
In most cases, non-custodial parents gives up completely and becomes an ATM -- a cash machine which pays support for a "child" to which he or she has no real relationship. But in many cases, non-custodial parents reach a crash point where they can longer meet our government's inhuman demands, or they refuse to do so.
Targeted Political Abuse
The abuses outlined are specifically targeted against an entire class of individuals based on a simple criteria: our government singles out those whose personal relationships have fallen apart with the intent to engage in social engineering.
Our government will claim, time and again, that it is trying to protect America's children and that it is attempting to reduce poverty. But these claims are false, as demonstrated by our government's behavior.
First, our government ignores much research which shows that children benefit from a healthy relationship with both parents, and continues to make sole custody orders standard practice; itallows move-aways; and it fails to enforce visitation orders. Our government also wounds children psychologically and exposes them to embarrassment by incarcerating one of their parents for financial debts; such imprisonment also cuts children off from a healthy relationship with the politically incarcerated parent.
Second, our government's policies are harmful to children in families where non-custodial parents have remarried marriages or forged new relationships. Children of these relationships are cast down into the role of second-class citizens when our government indiscriminately redistributes a non-custodial parent's income to a custodial parent's household. With such a large number of divorces and second marriages in the United States, the number of second-class children is steadily increasing.
Third, our government fails miserably to protect children in other areas outside family court. America's schools are under-funded, perform poorly, and are dangerous crime-ridden institutions. Due to a lack of regulation, our children are exposed to a daily diet of violence, sex, and general mayhem on television. Our government also tolerates the mass marketing of unhealthy foods to children. Healthcare standards for children is also one of the worst in the western world, as America has one of the highest rates of infant mortality. And our government, through its refusal to legislate a livable minimum wage, keep children and their parents (regardless of marital status) in a constant state of poverty.
All of these failures result from our government's subservience to big money interests. But since our government will never admit its failures, it engages in a massive operation to make its flawed policies work with a criminal disregard for civil and human rights. It does so by blaming failed marriages and failed relationships for societal decline, and puts forward false remedies such as child support enforcement and debtors prisons, all designed to make their political policies somehow work.
Political Prisoners vs. The Favored Class
Thus we have political prisoners, who serve as the sacrificial lamb for government misbehavior. But we also have a favored class of individuals who are allowed to live out their lives with the full benefits of first class citizens.
Married parents, or other parents who have never entered the family law system, are allowed to function without the government policing their child-rearing or spending habits. When these parents face hard times -- such as the loss of a job, or a pay decrease -- the entire family tightens its belt and cuts back on consumption. There is no government body determining how much should be spent on children of such families; such personal, private decisions are denied to non-custodial parents.
Women, in general, have a right, protected by our government, to choose whether or not they wish to become parent, with the ability to terminate an unborn child's life at one's pleasure. Indeed, our government even protects elective late-term abortions, which are carried out in a brutal and sickening fashion every day in clinics across America. But a male has no such rights and starts down the road to political prisons if he is not all that enthused about an unintended pregnancy which results from a consensual sexual encounter. An American male has no reproductive rights if he doesn't want a child, and also has no rights if he wants a child and his female partner wishes to have an abortion. That a favored class exists in the area of reproductive rights flies in the face of our Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under law regardless of gender.
Entrapment & Coverup
In addition to abusing a targeted class, our government actively entraps targeted individuals into a situation whereby they can become political prisoners and engages in a massive coverup worthy of the worst dictatorial regime.
To enforce its failed political policies, our government regularly suspends driver's licenses, seizes passports, and revokes other licenses to do business. It also forbids a non-custodial parent from have child support amound adjusted retroactively. It does this whether or not a non-custodial parent has fallen on hard times and needs to recover from financial hardship, or is acting in willful resistance to government oppression. In either case, such enforcement measures steadily increase the number of individuals who may be sent to political prisons at any time. But for the non-custodial parent facing economic hardships, these enforcement measures are nothing more than entrapment.
It is hard to find many governments -- even in the worst dictatorships -- which actually railroad their citizens into becoming political prisoners. But with regards to its family law system, the United States is doing a pretty good job of this.
Furthermore, our government is engaged in a coverup of its incarceration of political prisoners in the way it reports the numbers of non-custodial parents jailed for child support arrears.
When a non-custodial parent is jailed for failing to pay child support due to the loss of a job, for example, the reason for imprisonment is officially recorded as "contempt". And when a non-custodial parent is jailed after refusing to pay child support for child who has been alienated, the reason for imprisonment is also "contempt". In this manner, non-custodial parents are bunched up with countless other contempt cases of which a broad majority have nothing to do with family law.
Our government does this not so much for convenience as for the sole purpose of covering up the numbers of individuals politically imprisoned by the family law system, for non-crimes, to serve time in debtors' prisons which are forbidden under federal law and repugnant to our national traditions of liberty.
Hypocrisy
America has long been a champion of civil and human rights around the globe. So it is unfortunate that our government now engages in the taking of political prisoners and the subsequent coverup of these operations.
Our government engages in this behavior while at the same time criticizing nations like China for its family law policies. It also creates favored classes at home while criticizing Islamic nations for laws which might seem to favor one gender over another. And it runs a steady campaign of condemnation of countries like Venezuela, which it accuses of creating rights abuses to further political ideologies.
By engaging in the same types of bad behavior which it publicly condemns, our government damages the cause of freedom around the world and loses credibility in its international affairs.
It's Time to End Political Imprisonment in America
It is time for our government to end the taking of political prisoners to enforce its failed family law policies. And it is time for fathers' rights groups / non-custodial parents' rights groups to send a message to our leaders in government and the mainstream media that our eyes are now open to the abuses we face. We must now -- in a unified fashion -- begin calling abuses what they are. With one voice and one resolve, we must make it known that when " deadbeat" hate speech is used, what they really mean is political prisoner.
Starting today, NCPForce! will refer to all individuals arrested and imprisoned for child support arrears as political prisoners. Changes have already been made to our AVENGER PROJECT section which lists slain non-custodial parents Brian Armstrong and Wilbur Streett as political prisoners.
We urge all fathers' rights groups / non-custodial parents' rights groups to adopt this policy in all written and verbal communication, so as to expose our government's wrongdoing on an international scale.
Please copy, distribute, and post for widest readership.
In coming weeks, NCPForce! will be initiating grassroots campaigns to call attention to political prisoners in America.
-- The Volunteers of NCPForce!
February 3, 2010
