Tennessee moves to split custody evenly in messy divorces

This is another clear sign more sanity is gaining a foothold in legislatures in different jurisdictions around the world. For more links visit the Fathers & Families page here. 

By Mandy Lunn, The (Nashville) Tennessean Eric Kyle, a divorced father of two 
children, would like to spend more time parenting.

By Janell Ross, The (Nashville) Tennessean

A Tennessee bill that would evenly split child custody in contentious divorce cases is drawing national attention and dividing groups along gender lines.

On one side is an alliance of women's groups, some judges and the Tennessee Bar Association, who say the change would make divorces tougher to settle and give abusive ex-husbands leverage they shouldn't have. Spending half of the time with each parent would also impose impractical schedules on kids, they say.

On the other side are fathers' rights groups who say kids get deprived of full relationships with both parents. Courts have too long ignored laws calling for custody decisions to be made in children's best interests, they say, and judges are overly influenced by notions about the mother-child bond.

The state's House Children and Family Affairs' Family Justice Subcommittee is scheduled to meet today to review divorce-related data it requested from the Tennessee Bar Association, as it works to determine whether to send the bill to a second committee that could send it to the full House.

Other states, including Missouri, start from a presumption of an even custodial split unless there has been abuse, said Janet Richards, a law professor at the University of Memphis who specializes in child custody matters. Tennessee would be alone in requiring clear, convincing evidence that one parent is unfit before dividing custody unequally, she said.

"This law sets up a standard of proof that's just short of the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt," Richards said.

Committee hearings on the bill have drawn standing-room-only crowds full of mothers wearing saucer-size lapel stickers that read "Vote no on HB 2916" and fathers wearing everything from military fatigues to business suits.

Right now, parents divorcing in Tennessee — or unmarried parents trying to work out custody arrangements — are urged to work out a plan with a mediator. Under the pending bill, courts automatically would divide children's time equally between moms and dads who are unable to agree unless one parent can prove the other utterly unfit.

The way Eric Kyle sees it, he hasn't been able to properly father his children since his 2005 divorce.

Kyle, who lives in Davidson County, Tenn., wanted his son and daughter to split their time equally between him and his ex-wife, who lives in Williamson County, Tenn. But when Kyle sought an attorney willing to try to negotiate that kind of arrangement, one after another told him the same thing.

"You either have to dirty up your ex and do whatever you have to to get full custody, or you accept what I understand is a pretty standard 80-20 time split," he said. "Of course, it's dads that get the children 20% of the time, in most cases."

Rep. Mike Bell, a Republican and the bill's key sponsor, said he introduced the bills after constituents' complaints and hopes it might encourage more parents to reconsider divorce.

"It's a concern that children are being deprived of one parent or another in most cases in a custody battle," said Bell, who has been married 25 years and has five children.

Opponents want to scare the public with claims about children being shuttled back and forth and attending multiple schools, said Mike McCormick, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based American Coalition for Fathers and Children.

"I say — with the recognition that there is nothing like (this bill) in the country — all it would actually do is require parents to be on equal footing in courts of law," McCormick said. The bill ignores the problems some families have, said Kathy Walsh, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Some parents divorce after years of the kind of controlling, domineering or even violent behavior by one party that doesn't go away just because the relationship ends, Walsh said.

She said the bill could prompt victims to stay with their abusers so they don't have to leave their kids alone with the other parent.

Monica Gimbles said she doesn't think the bill is realistic. She is in the process of finding an attorney to work out custody arrangements for her 5-year-old daughter with her onetime fiancé.

"This is the kind of idea that people come up with when they haven't ever actually taken care of a child, a small child that needs a lot of care and takes a lot of time," Gimbles said. "It just makes the child's life topsy-turvy."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-22-split-custody_N.htm

Agony of the frozen-out fathers

A very rare look at the state of family law in the U.K. and almost supportive of dads left out on the margins.  The author thinks dads in Batman costumes are extremists. That's an interesting commentary on peaceful demonstrators taking direct action against what she now perceives as grossly unfair.  If dads protesting peacefully are extremists what then are Tamils taking over cities and disrupting life, students at the University of Ottawa (substitute Obsequiousness for Ottawa) denying Ann Coulter free speech through intimidation and damage, and better yet terrorists blowing up tube stations.

Could the BBC series discussed in the column be a history making or changing program? We'll need to wait and see but it sounds hopeful. MJM

 

 

A new BBC series explores the reasons why fathers lose touch with their children post-separation. Cassandra Jardine investigates.

By Cassandra Jardine
Published: 7:00AM GMT 27 Mar 2010
Comments 16 | Comment on this article

Watching a preview of next week’s BBC series Who Needs Fathers?, I felt ashamed to be a woman. The men on the programme appeared to be loving, attentive fathers – not extremists in Batman costumes. All they wanted was to play their part in the upbringing of their children. But, at every turn, it seemed, vengeful, short-sighted women were selfishly trying to thwart them.


These mothers cancelled contact arrangements, scuppered telephone calls, made false allegations of abuse, and prevented the men taking their children on holiday. “Honestly, I feel like throwing in the towel,” said one tearful father, who sat in his car outside his ex’s front door, waiting in vain for the children to come out. Only an emergency court order won him the day.

Not only did these women want total control of the children – believing their love was enough – they also expected their exes to keep them in the style to which they had become accustomed, while the men lived in cramped bedsits. When one man finally manages to remortgage his own home to keep a working mother in hers, her response is: “OK, so I can book a holiday.”

The programmes not only seek to explain why 40 per cent of fathers lose touch with their children within two years of divorce – the figure is likely to be even higher when unmarried parents separate – but also why this matters. Looking at the confused faces of children being fought over by parents like favourite toys, it was not difficult to imagine what might happen when they grew into teenagers, unsure about their loyalties and identities. Indeed, in the third programme, we see fatherless teenagers behaving appallingly.

The prospects for children who don’t see their fathers are bleak, according to a Unicef report in 2007. Educationally, they do less well. They are more likely to get in trouble with the police, and to abuse drugs and alcohol. They also find it more difficult to form relationships. If Broken Britain – that over-used moral call to arms – has roots, they lie in broken homes.

A third of children are now growing up without parents living under the same roof. Each of the 150,000 to 200,000 separations per year is a source of sadness for the children involved, children who yearn – however unrealistically – for mummy and daddy to live together happily ever after. But those partings can be handled more or less well. “The emotionally healthy 18 year-olds,” says Judge Nicholas Crichton, who works in the family courts, “are those who can say, 'Whatever happened between my parents, I knew I was loved and that I was free to love both parents without feeling guilty.’?”

Too few children are growing up with that balance. Ninety three per cent of children live with their mother after a separation, and half then lose touch with the non-resident parent. That’s a tragedy not only for the fathers, but for the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who would otherwise provide a support network for those children.

Acrimony is unavoidable when relationships end, but some couples, such as Chris and Angela in the first programme, succeed in suppressing their irritation with one another for the sake of their children. Why then do so many children lose a parent to this game of bitterness and revenge?

“Henry” (not his real name), who is seen in the second programme, tells me he blames a court system that is biased against fathers, as well as being expensive, slow and ineffectual. When his daughter was born, Henry wanted to be involved, even though he had subsequently married. In return for maintenance, he saw his daughter alternate weekends and took her on holiday. “She was a massive part of my life,” he says. “Then her mother decided to live abroad.”

He fought the move but, as in 99 per cent of cases, the mother won in court. “All a woman has to say is that refusal will psychologically damage her. There’s a view that whatever is in the mother’s interests is also in the child’s interests, even though nine out of 10 non-resident parents then lose touch.”

Henry did not wish to be one of them, but despite a “mirror order” giving him visiting rights and regular contact, he has had to fight for every glimpse and chat, at a cost of £70,000, putting considerable strain on his marriage. “When we meet it’s wonderful, but it’s hard to slot into a role if you haven’t seen a child regularly.”

During the whole court process he felt “like the puppet in the hands of a puppeteer”. He says: “I can understand why mothers use whatever power is at their disposal, but there was an imbalance.” Many fathers feel the same. “In order to be considered equal, you have to be twice as good,” says Simon Ramet, who has fought for half his child’s time.

“The courts are still stuck in a 1950s paradigm of mothers doing the caring, and fathers doing the earning,” says John Davies, chief executive of Families Need Fathers.

Women are also more likely to get legal aid than fathers, who have to weigh up the cost of pursuing a case against the fear that the longer they go without seeing a child, the weaker their case for maintaining contact becomes. “As few parents with young children can afford it, access to the law often depends on having wealthy parents. It tends to be a middle-class privilege,” says Sara Feilden, producer for Films of Record, who made the BBC series.

Despite fears that speaking out will harm participants’ contact arrangements, Fielden is glad to have found the brief window of opportunity in which to tell their stories. Last year, it became legal to report on the family courts, but a Bill is going through Parliament that would make it impossible, once again, to film people who have been involved in family legal disputes. “It’s unlikely that we would ever again be able to make a programme about this important issue,” she says.

The men filmed are eager to highlight the shortcomings of an overburdened legal system. Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service), which appoints guardians to represent the child’s interests, is so stretched that it can take nine months to produce a report. When allegations of misconduct are made, contact is rightly refused until they have been investigated. But sometimes they are purely vexatious.

Families Need Fathers is fighting for a number of changes on behalf of all non-resident parents, mothers as well as fathers. These include publication of judgments so parents know what to expect (and may therefore avoid court), sanctions for those who make false allegations, and financial recognition that non-resident parents also have to maintain a home suitable for their children to visit.

The current system finds favour with few, least of all those whose lives are dominated by endless hearings and court orders. “You should be reasonable when splitting up,” says Juliette Thomas, who was brave enough to defend on air her reluctance to allow Alex, her ex, his share of their four sons’ time: she claimed lack of clarity in his plans. Unable to agree, the court process has made the gulf between them wider and Alex resentful.

Family breakdown is not unique to the UK, but some countries seem to handle it better. In Australia, an assumption of shared parenting was introduced four years ago, backed up by family centres where separating couples could be given information and counselling on sharing their children. More children are now staying in contact with both parents as a result.

Dr Mandy Bryon, chief psychologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, tells parents: “Whether you like it or not, you will remain in a relationship with one another as parents of your children.” To prepare for that, she believes couples need to acknowledge the errors in thinking that occur when people are angry and upset, and to anticipate the problems that cause flare- ups – late delivery back, changes of plans, and so on.

“If parents are living together and a child comes back from a visit to the park with the father in tears, the mother will try to reassure both parties. If they are separated she will say, 'Never again.’ The father might ask the child not to tell Mummy. Then, when the child blurts out what Daddy said, the mother thinks something sinister is going on.”

Judge Crichton already sends many parents on courses to learn about sharing. If we adopted a system similar to the Australian one, that would be compulsory before a couple go to court. “A good thing too,” he says, “as the courts are not the best place to sort these matters out.”

Both the Labour and Conservative parties have reviewed the family-law system. Henry Bellingham, shadow justice minister, talks of introducing automatic shared contact, if the Conservatives are elected, and using Sue Start centres for counselling. Looking at the worried eyes of children caught up in disputes that they don’t understand, change can’t come too soon.


'Who Needs Fathers’ starts on BBC Two at 9pm next Wednesday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/7528771/Agony-of-the-frozen-out-fathers.html 

Testamax for Wimps - Its whats needed in Socialist Kanukistan

This is a highly necessary new product for many North American Males especially Ontario Liberals and Socialists.  Most have been turned into eunuchs by strident feminist ideology and they need help. See your Doctor for a prescription if you are pussy whipped.

There are quite a number who appear to be afraid of pundits like Ann Coulter speaking in Ottawa and elsewhere. They whine they are "offended" by her straight forward, shoot from the hip rhetoric.  I think Michael Moore is a vacuous gas bag but I just change the channel if he starts to annoy me. I wouldn't even go to the effort of protesting because he simply isn't worth it. It just goes to show the bed wetters at Ottawa U are afraid of her.

I think much of what she says is her own dark humour, and one ought not to take it seriously. She does what she thinks is necessary  to get attention, publicity, and  notoriety as a necessary ingredient to sell her books and get folks to read her column. I may not agree with all her views but I support her right to say it especially against the scourge of Islamofascism. I do love the way she annoys the leftards and pushes their buttons. It is great sport to watch!

The campus wimps are aligned with the feminists, Muslims, Unions, anarchists and in all likelihood the fascist machinery of the Human Rights Commissions who are their target audience to find someone offended.

This ugly suppression of free speech as occurred at the University of Ottawa is the face of Liberal Fascism.

Professionals seek help of Nanny State ~ Put limits on custody complaints, group urges

 The attempts by the professionals in the divorce industry to get nanny state intervention in their professional capacities is noteworthy.  These people do what they do because they chose to and they went in this direction because the money is good.  They perform these services in the most personal of any human interaction, family breakdown. The assessments relate to, in most cases, severing a child's relationship with one of their biological parents.

These assessments, as has been noted in the column, are expensive and can bankrupt the family, in most cases the father. They are done because dads want to stay in the lives of their children but it is a very tall mountain they must climb. Family Court Judges, Canada's most prolific negative social engineers, give mom physical custody in a 9-1 ratio.  This applies even if dad was the main care giver prior to separation and divorce. It can be defined as a form of gender apartheid.

Many of these lawyers and assessors are aligned with the Violence Against Women (VAW) industry, a billion plus dollar enterprise across the country and not without its own corruption.  There are about 569 DV shelters in Canada funded by taxpayer dollars. Not one provides services to men.  These centres are the heartbeat of modern 3rd wave feminist ideology focusing on women as an underclass of perpetual victims controlled by a patriarchy. This nebulous but apparently all consuming monster is male and dads are male.  What enters into all the arguments with respect to dads getting physical custody is some form is DV.  It is the vampire in the closet dragged out to denigrate good fathers.  It is the Lifeboat Feminists main weapon and is part of the indoctrination process at these shelters even if no DV has occurred.

Many of these shelters are referral agents to lawyers and assessors/counselors. These people have a vested and pecuniary interest in maintaining good relationships with the shelters because of the income stream. These shelters all require their clients to sign non-disclosure agreements to never utter a word with respect to their stay.  What deep and dark secrets are they keeping and what are these shelters afraid of. We know they harbour criminals, runaways, drug addicts, those hiding from  refugee/immigration issues and indeed some women who are actually abused.

" Nick Bala, a Queen's University law professor. (editor note: a feminist sycophant)

The report suggests three options, based partly on legislation in a handful of U.S. states.

-Require that a judge approve any disciplinary complaint, ensuring that it is more than merely an attack on the assessor's conclusions.

This will add to the workload of judges who are already biased in the extreme based  on their decisions noted earlier. Since when do we need another trial or session to determine whether one of the professionals acted appropriately. If the Assessor or lawyer has acted appropriately they have nothing to fear but heaven forbid they should get court protection from an already highly probable biased judge. This is absurd in the extreme.

-Require that the complaint be approved by both parents, again making it less likely the grievance will be just another appeal by the losing party.

This is ridiculously unreasonable. There will be no agreement between the parties based  on the fact the decision will likely favour one of them and on a balance of probabilities (9-1)benefit mom. All this does is further the adversarial, winner take all approach and does nothing for the children caught in the middle.

-Set up a vetting process within regulatory bodies that would throw out vexatious complaints before they are formally investigated.

A process like this would have to be completely transparent which is highly unlikely. They may well be making arbitrary decisions without a proper hearing to protect their own hides, as is the case with all self governing bodies,  and may be leaving incompetents and Charlatans doing harm to children.  The Durham Children's Aid Society  (so called child protection) used the services of a bogus PhD, named Greg Carter,  to perform assessments and then when found out he was a fraud defended their use of him.

His bogus assessment was used by a judge, which favoured the mom, to deprive a dad of his children. Another assessment by a qualified person had a different outcome. The corruption in the industry, including child protection,  is wide spread and runs deep.MJM

 

 

 

 

 

Put limits on custody complaints, group urges

Assessments

Tom Blackwell, National Post  Published: Monday, March 22, 2010

Canadian law must be changed to make it far more difficult for disgruntled parents to file disciplinary charges against psychologists, psychiatrists and other health professionals who do assessments in child-custody cases, says a group of leading lawyers and therapists.

The complaints submitted to professional bodies by the losing side in custody battles are turning experts off the important work, the group says in a discussion paper. The result is a "major social and legal problem," it says.

The group urges changing the rules so disciplinary bodies can only consider complaints from such parents if they have been first approved by the judge in the case or by the other, winning parent, or have been screened to weed out frivolous grievances.

"The family law justice system is seriously undermined every time a vexatious complaint is made by a parent to the college," said the paper signed by 11 psychologists, psychiatrists, lawyers and social workers. "It feels like a professional sucker punch and has no correlation to the skill, experience and savvy of the assessor."
Earlier this year, the Ontario Medical Association's board directed its staff to work with other professionals to push for changes to protect members against such complaints.

A parents-rights organization, however, says people embroiled in emotional disputes often feel the assessor is biased against one side, and need some recourse to question their professionalism.

Kris Titus of the Canadian Equal Parenting Council said she has heard from parents about psychologists or others who will spend a whole day with one parent in their home, and an hour in a "sterile" office environment with the other.

Or, in some cases, parents suspect the assessor appointed by the court is a "hired gun," inclined to reach a predetermined conclusion.

"When you're dealing with children, where every decision made is essentially going to affect someone's entire future, there has to be strict regulation of assessors," Ms. Titus said. "There are some assessors we have heard multiple complaints about."

The experts are appointed jointly in custody cases to interview, observe and sometime conduct psychological testing on family members to help determine who is best able to care for the children of divorces. The work can take months and cost the parties up to $75,000.

The lobby group is not looking to gain "immunity" for assessors from disciplinary charges, only to curb the high number of spurious complaints, said Nick Bala, a Queen's University law professor.

The report suggests three options, based partly on legislation in a handful of U.S. states.

-Require that a judge approve any disciplinary complaint, ensuring that it is more than merely an attack on the assessor's conclusions.
-Require that the complaint be approved by both parents, again making it less likely the grievance will be just another appeal by the losing party.
-Set up a vetting process within regulatory bodies that would throw out vexatious complaints before they are formally investigated

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=2710042#email#ixzz0j1b7ZP80
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Staff "denied access" to family court by returning soldier who was denied access to home and children

Real fathers for justice Press Release 19/03/10

Staff ‘denied access’ to family court

This morning at around 5am a lone activist barricaded the entrance to Darlington county court with a motorcycle chain.

The action was to highlight an injustice meted out in the family courts to a serviceman who had recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Real fathers for justice can confirm we were approached for assistance prior to this stunt by a serving soldier, he wishes to deny staff access to the building the way they have assisted his estranged wife to deny him access to his home and children.

An Rffj spokesman said:

“Although we were not directly involved in this stunt we have sympathy with this father and fully understand why he chose to break the law.”

“We suggested if he was determined to protest that as today was St. Joseph’s day, the patron Saint of fathers, it would be an appropriate day to take peaceful direct action”

“The father in question is a serving soldier so cannot be identified, we will call him Clive.”

Clive asked us to prepare the following statement as to the reasons he took the action this morning.

“I am a decorated soldier and have recently completed a 6 month tour of duty in Afghanistan; I also served in the conflict in Iraq.”

“I recently returned from duty fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan to find that judges at Darlington county court had granted my wife a non-molestation and an occupation order of the marital home, this was all done ex parte in my absence whilst serving Queen and country overseas.”

“My wife has since moved her new lover in and has been denying contact to our 2 young children.”

“If this is how the courts treat a serving soldier based on a false allegation, imagine how they could treat you.”

“All my wife needed was to say there was a ‘perceived fear’ of what I may do when I found out about her affair, the judge said because I was a soldier I was ’obviously violent’ he then granted her an occupation order and has denied me going within a mile of our home.”

“I’d prefer to be fighting the Taliban than fighting the legal system, they operate in secret behind closed doors and the judges remain unaccountable for their actions.”

“I’ve already seen a Cafcass officer who has told me I’m looking at an occasional hour with my kids in a supervised contact centre, probably for at least the next 6 months.”

“Due to the sheer frustration and the delays in dealing with my case, I feel I have no other option but to protest in this way, so I decided to give the Judges a taste of their own medicine and ‘deny access’ to their court.”

“Perhaps while they are waiting for the chains to be cut, they might reflect on the damage they have done to my children in denying them contact with their father.”

“We spend billions of pounds fighting the Taliban; they have killed hundreds of my colleagues.”

“The family courts are responsible for at least as many deaths through fathers deprived of hope, taking their own lives, yet we actually support them through our taxes”

He was quite upset, but went on to say;

“The Taliban sneak about and plant I.E.D's  (improvised explosive devices)  in the cover of darkness. These bombs not only kill soldiers but maim and kill children. I would say that family courts are just like the Taliban.”

“I left my family to serve my country, and to help other families live a life of freedom in Afghanistan.”

“My children have been maimed for life, just for like those children in Afghanistan that are caught in I.E.D explosions. They may not have lost limbs or have scars, but they have lost a father who loves them .“

Notes to Editor:

Real father for justice (Rffj) is a breakaway group from Fathers 4 justice and was formed in June 2005.

Rffj last hit the North East headlines on father’s day 2008, when Simon Anderton spent 3 days protesting on the Tyne Bridge Newcastle, after spending 4 days incarcerated for the peaceful protest he was later cleared of any wrong doing by a jury in Newcastle crown court.

Rffj campaign for accountability and transparency in family law, for the rights of a child to have a loving and meaningful relationship with both parents post divorce or separation.

Contact Mike Kelly on 07782 440072 or email info@realfathersforjustice.org

http://rffjni.blogspot.com/2010/03/real-fathers-for-justice-press-release.htmlhttp://rffjni.blogspot.com/2010/03/real-fathers-for-justice-press-release.html

The Bigger the Government, the Less You Are Needed

Thanks to Chris Jones for the heads up on this column.

It is a significant analysis of the roles of individuals and organizations as the government assumes more responsibility toward its citizens.   As a person directly impacted by some of these events I can speak to their veracity.  Men, even though they are the majority in politics and, therefore, responsible for lawmaking are further marginalizing themselves and the rest of us by creating entitlements which create nanny state hand holding.

The more their chivalry overrides the family jewels given to them as a sign of biological differences, the more they create benefits for those they view as inferior, and the more they then create reliance of these same people on government largess. Note I use the word "inferior" and not victims.  If a politician felt people were equal they would not require the level of intervention now in place.  These programs require more civil servants and more money to run. For politicians it is a never ending make work project as more people, receiving the benefits, require more help in cutting through the red tape. This keeps riding offices busy directing traffic of the would be recipients.

Men who have been through the family law regimes in many western democracies know full well the outcomes of not being needed as fathers, an important role that develops self esteem for being needed and this is just one of the many areas spoken of by the author.

The above men are now financial drones to supply their ex's with child./spousal support while relegated to visitor status to their children if they are lucky.  Eventually our meaning will have to come from supporting the ever growing size of government who we have let take over our lives.MJM

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

by Dennis Prager

Among the things left and right, religious and secular, agree on is that one of the few real needs human beings have is to be needed.

When we are not needed, life feels pointless.

The need to be needed is universal. Men need it; women need it. The sexes may feel needed in different ways, but the depth of the need is the same. Many women feel particularly alive when needed by their young children; many men feel worthy when needed by their family and/or their work. That is why most women navigate difficult emotional straits when their adult children leave home and assume independent lives, and why most men find it so crushing to lose their job -- not necessarily because of loss of income, but because of the loss of meaning that comes from no longer being needed.


Only when we are needed do we believe we have significance. Give a boy a special task -- just about any task -- and he blossoms. Give a girl a person -- in fact, almost any living being -- who depends on her, and she blossoms.

Of course, there are also myriad unhealthy ways of feeling needed. If an unwed teenage girl has a baby in order to feel needed, it is usually a bad thing for her, for the child and for society. If a boy joins a gang to feel needed/significant, it is bad for him and society.

Though not consciously intending to, over time, the left destroys people's ability to be needed and, therefore, to be or feel significant.

As I regularly note, the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. One can add: The bigger the government, the less significant the citizen -- especially men.
This is easy to explain because it is definitional. The more the state does, the less its citizens are needed to do. One well-known example is the way welfare robbed so many men of significance when women and their children came to depend financially on the state.


And it goes further than that. In order to feel significant, men not only need to have others depend on them, they also need to depend on themselves, on their own work and initiative. But that, too, is destroyed as the state gets bigger. Fewer and fewer people work for themselves (which leads to, among other things, the disappearance of that quintessentially American ideal of the risk-taking entrepreneur).

It gets worse. As being needed and significant shifts from the individual to the state, the state increasingly determines who is needed and who has significance.

That means, first of all, politicians. Obviously, whoever controls the ever-expanding government has the most significance in a society.

Another significant group in the leftist state are media people. They are significant in a non-leftist state such as America, as well. But there is a huge difference. Since American media are largely independent of government, there are a far greater number of significant media people in America than in the much smaller world of consolidated state media in Europe or Latin America. There is nothing like the BBC or French Radio and Television in the United States. Therefore, no one in American media is nearly as powerful as are the heads of the BBC or RTF. So the American state cannot anoint who is significant in media.


Another significant group in the leftist state is intellectuals. They, too, are largely determined by the state, which funds nearly all education and intellectual life. One reason intellectuals in America and Europe are so often estranged from American culture is that intellectuals have rarely had the fame or significance here that they have had in Europe. There are no American intellectuals who have had the celebrity or influence that Jean-Paul Sartre did in France, for example.

So, too, artists take on greater prominence as the leftwing state grows. And they, too, are funded and celebrated by the state.

In the ever-expanding state that the left creates, the vast majority of individuals lose significance in that they are simply less needed as the state takes over many of their roles. Fifty years ago, the men of the local Rotary Club had prestige and societal significance. So did fathers. So did clergy. With the ascendance of the left and the expansion of their state, much of their power and societal significance has eroded.

Now, as the state expands further into health care, the same will happen to doctors as power and prestige are transferred from them to the heads of dozens of new government health regulatory agencies. Over time, neither you nor your doctor will fully decide your treatment.


Indeed, over time, if the left has its way and the state keeps expanding, you will also not decide what temperature to keep your house or how to get to work. Nor will you be needed to educate your children (that is already the job of the state, and much of Europe now bans home schooling), or to raise and discipline your children (the state will ensure you are doing it correctly, and spanking is now illegal in 25 countries). Fathers will be needed primarily (and after divorce, only) as providers of child and spousal support.

In short, you will be needed essentially for one thing: to finance the one thing that is truly needed -- the state.

http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2010/03/16/the_bigger_the_government,_the_less_you_are_needed?page=full&comments=true