I remember reading some years ago that, besides institutional consumers like the police and military, the biggest private buyers of body armor in the U.S. were divorce lawyers and family-court judges. I've no idea where to look to check out that factoid, but it makes sense to me.
There was an odd coincidence of links that I ran across yesterday; though I suspect it is no mere synchronicity, but reflective of a deeper pattern.
The first was the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Leskun v. Leskun:
The emotional consequences of a spouse's misconduct can be weighed by the courts when judging spousal support payments despite Canada's system of no-fault divorce, the nation's top court has ruled.But the landmark decision from the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday stresses that misconduct alone is not a reason to financially support a wronged spouse.
"Misconduct, as such, is off the table as a relevant consideration,'' wrote Justice Ian Binnie. "Consequences (however) are not rendered irrelevant because of their genesis in the other spouse's misconduct."
Sheer sophistry. It's not an issue unless we can make it an issue, legislative word and intent be damned. The awestruck reporter went on to describe the decision as "highly nuanced," which well might be the case, to a J-school grad.
Here's how the courts decide such things: Court hears woman's side; court hears man's side. Court sides with woman. Nuanced enough for you? Try imagining the same verdict with the roles reversed. That doesn't take nuance. It takes powerful psychotropic drugs.
Barbara Kay wrote an excellent column -- not specifically about the Leskun case, but touching on the legal climate surrounding it -- in the National Post (I'm not sure how long the link will last, so I've taken the liberty of reprinting it in full in the extended post section):
The family law system is now systemically colonized by radical feminists. Their goal is the complete autonomy of women (except for financial support), via the incremental legal eclipse of men's influence over women's spheres of "identity" interests, which includes children. Thus the custody issue has become a front line in the gender wars.By no means an exhaustive list, radical feminism is supported by collective rights-dominated law school curricula; feminism-riddled "cultural studies" and the humanities in general; women's studies departments, in reality feminist recruitment and networking centres/ideological boot camps; politically powerful, tax-funded feminist groups who extend strategic mentorship to a wide substratum of women's causes; supine prime ministers and go-with-the-zeitgeist justice ministers; and a critical mass of ideologically aggressive judges, whose juridical archives, bristling with subjective, gender-biased judgments, discredit their vocation and call into question the whole notion of equality under the law.
A few minutes later I ran across a link at A Welsh View titled something like "Wild Courthouse Shootout." I seldom click on items like that, but I had a hunch about it, and I was right. It stemmed from a family court dispute last year in Texas:
Tyler Police have confirmed two people outside the Smith County Courthouse have been killed after dozens of shots were fired starting just before 1:30 PM Thursday.The two killed at the courthouse have now been identified: Maribel Estrada, the estranged wife of the alleged shooter, David Hernandez Arroyo, and citizen Mark Wilson. Wilson is licensed to carry a concealed weapon and fired several shots at Arroyo. Arroyo, however, was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Four other people were injured in the shooting. Those have been identified as a Tyler Police Detective, Two Smith County Sheriff's Deputies and Arroyo's son.
The Arroyos were at the courthouse for a child support hearing said Tyler Police Chief Gary Swindle.
Video here. Warning: Sounds and violence. There's no obvious gore, but there are scenes showing the dead and wounded and the gunman is killed by a police sniper as he attempts to escape.
Now, I don't know anything about this story beyond the news report and particularly can't say what was in the mind of the killer. It could have been that he was a timebomb set to go off at the slightest provocation.
It also could have been that he was driven over the edge by a relentless, corrupt machine dedicated to crushing him. (Family law in both Canada and the States is very similar.) I've read enough horror stories about men caught up in this Kafkaesque system to believe it could happen. Certainly someone who plans an armed attack in front of a courthouse isn't expressing great faith in the future.
Me, I've got no plans to test the hypothesis. I'm not married, have no children, and no desire to change in either regard.
Others might see things differently. So you stalwart Officers of the court might want to start checking out the price of Kevlar underwear.
Oops, I forgot: Private citizens in Canada are not allowed to possess body armor.
Pity, that.
Barbara Kay, National Post June 21/06:
"For Heaven's sake, a man is cheating on you, you do what every wife in this country does: You take him to the cleaners. Get his house, car, kids -- make him wish he was dead."Those were the words of a female assistant district attorney explaining to a Texas jury in 2003 that there was no need for defendant Clara Harris to have resorted to murdering her philandering husband (she drove his new Cadillac back and forth over his body before horrified onlookers -- when family law already offered such excellent legal remedies for revenge.
"Make him wish he was dead"? Addressing 12 mainstream men and women it was utterly crucial not to offend, the prosecutor took for granted their complicity in winking at overt anti-male bias in the justice system.
Note also that she ranked "kids" last amongst men's assets, furthering the popular myth that separated fathers disengage easily from their children.
In fact, non-custodial fathers' loss of their children causes them fathomless anguish. Herein lies a paradox: We know that fatherlessness is the single biggest predictor of criminality for boys, and low self-esteem for girls, leading to a variety of social failures. Nevertheless, no significant swell of political will has yet materialized to bring more balance into post-separation childcare.
Family law in the U.S. and Canada today continues to serve up the "make him wish he was dead" option to women, who win sole custody in 90% of disputed cases. Non-custodial fathers are perceived as money machines with occasional babysitting privileges. Mothers can flout court orders and block access with impunity, but fathers are immediately and disproportionately criminalized by failure to provide often-ruinous "child" support (mothers are not accountable for expenditures). Cocaine dealers -- half of whom, ironically, are fatherless -- serve 20 days out of 30-day jail sentences; a father in support arrears serves the full 30.
Echoing the fate of all political revolutions, reform of the patriarchy began as a campaign for equality -- then the pendulum swung too far, ending in rigid CorrectThink, the suppression of heresies and wholesale blame of the Other (men) for the delayed realization of Utopia.
The family law system is now systemically colonized by radical feminists. Their goal is the complete autonomy of women (except for financial support), via the incremental legal eclipse of men's influence over women's spheres of "identity" interests, which includes children. Thus the custody issue has become a front line in the gender wars.
By no means an exhaustive list, radical feminism is supported by collective rights-dominated law school curricula; feminism-riddled "cultural studies" and the humanities in general; women's studies departments, in reality feminist recruitment and networking centres/ideological boot camps; politically powerful, tax-funded feminist groups who extend strategic mentorship to a wide substratum of women's causes; supine prime ministers and go-with-the-zeitgeist justice ministers; and a critical mass of ideologically aggressive judges, whose juridical archives, bristling with subjective, gender-biased judgments, discredit their vocation and call into question the whole notion of equality under the law.
To illustrate, just a few examples:- Supreme Court of Canada chief justice Beverley McLachlin: "We have to be pro-active in rearranging the Canadian family"
- Former justice minister Martin Cauchon: "Men have no rights, only responsibilities"
- Feminist psychologist Peter Jaffe, a social-context educator of family court judges: "[J]oint custody is an attempt of males to continue dominance over females"
- National Association of Women and the Law: "Courts may treat parents unequally and deny them basic civil liberties and rights, as long as their motives are good"
Their efforts have not gone unnoticed. "Feminists have entrenched their ideology in the SCC and have put all contrary views beyond the pale," lawyer and civil libertarian Eddie Greenspan has said. Liberal MP Roger Galloway, who chaired the 1998 Report of the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access, has commented that "Justice, if it occurs in a divorce court, is accidental".
It's a trickle-down process. Elites like Status of Women write the script. A social services "gofer" reads it, then asks a child in an assessment interview (the following was read to me from an actual transcript): "What's the best thing and the worst thing about your father no longer living [at home]?" The best thing? Why this leading question?
Fortunately children don't read or care about feminist scripts. As the "worst thing", that particular pre-adolescent girl responded, "I don't have a father." And the "best thing"?
"Nothing."
Next week, I'll continue my series on anti-male bias with a look at solutions: what children, fathers and 90% of Canadians want, but feminists are determined they won't get.