Read the article.It's hard to find my two cents on this one. This is an article that needs no further comment, about a
storm that needs no further comment.
But it'll get some anyway.
Not long after the storm hit, we began hearing news reports about looting. People in the
blogosphere and on NPR pointed out the racist aspect of a lot of the news reports. Two photos on the Yahoo website were compared: one photo showing an African-American man taking food from a store was captioned as "a looter taking food"; another showing a white man with his family doing the exactly the same thing was described as "finding food from a local store".
Now, I'm not comparing child support unequivocally with looting in this case. Under normal conditions and in the worst cases it is often an arbitrary policy which defrauds men of their hard-earned money and keeps them from earning a living. But I've never had any quarrel with the
intent of child support, which is to make sure that kids with no access to both parents continue to receive, at a minimum, financial support from both. I do have a problem with the way New York State in particular, and the Federal government in general, thinks the solution to social problems is to continue to pass more laws, and to enforce greater and greater draconian measures to extract money from parents. I also took strong exception to the way they treated me in family court -- as though being a father were some sort of crime.
But a disaster complicates the issue, because clearly we're talking about survival, not just maintaining a particular lifestyle. Is Louisiana's action looting or is it simply "finding" child support payors for children who need them? In the case of the Katrina victims, it depends on the family situation. If Louisiana is like most states, there are probably a few fathers on welfare there who haven't seen their kids in ten years, who are not responsible, and who bring home (if welfare levels are similar to what they are in New York) about $70 every two weeks through public assistance. There are probably also fathers there who have been denied access to their kids for ten years, who are responsible, who bring home $70 every two weeks. There are fathers who are rich and irresponsible, fathers who are poor and responsible, fathers rich and poor who are partly responsible, fathers who pay, fathers who don't pay, and fathers who pay some. There are fathers who care and fathers who don't, fathers who by choice never see their children and fathers who by choice spend every available moment with them, and fathers who
can't see their children despite their best efforts.
Point is, we're leaving it up to the court to intervene for us, when the experiences of hundreds of thousands of fathers have shown that, once we get courts involved, there's no telling what they'll do. The only guarantee is that no one will be happy, and fathers will be deprived of the opportunity to support themselves.
So let the Louisiana state child support enforcement agencies take their pound of flesh out of that state's non-custodial fathers. Let them garnish paychecks, intercept tax returns. Let them do it in the name of Katrina survivors -- as though fathers haven't survived anything and have no needs of their own (including other children they may have). Government agencies take money -- it's what they know how to do. If you're a custodial parent who has survived Katrina, you'll benefit from this measure, and most likely have desperate need of the money. So go ahead and get it. You, along with the Louisiana governor and the Mayor, have the moral high ground (pardon the pun), and liberals as well as conservatives will applaud you and the government cronies carving out this money in the name of children.
But look at yourself next, and ask yourself if you could have handled this situation better before the hurricane hit. The slow and inadequate government response to the disaster is already old news. What if you'd been in touch with your kids' father
before the disaster, knew where to find him, and were on at least speaking terms with him? An informal arrangement in place pre-Katrina would have meant getting some money faster. You wouldn't have had to bother with government bureaucracy, and you would have had relief as soon as it was available.
There's nothing wrong with the Louisiana child support measure on its face. But it's another example of how much better life is when you can eliminate courts and lawyers and work directly with another person. When two parties can enter into an agreement without the intervention of the legal system, it makes them better prepared when a disaster strikes. Responsibility and amicable relations are an essential part of disaster-preparedness.
