The Most Widespread Form of Child Abuse

"Child Abuse," like "domestic violence" and "sexual harassment," is one of those concepts that is becoming about as concrete as the concept of the "widget" in economics - it generally means whatever somebody wants it to mean (and if you don't believe that, then check out Alex Baldwin's book, below, but that is a side issue that I don't want to get distracted about...).

The partial definition of "child abuse" in Black's Law Dictionary includes:

"...a parent's... failure to act that results in a child's exploitation [or] serious physical or emotional injury...."

If one accepts this definition (and I am not sure that I do - how does one define "emotional injury?" how is "emotional injury" measured for seriousness?), then it is hard to imagine a context in which children are more systematically or widely exploited and emotionally (and intellectually!) injured than in the government schools of the United States. Neal Boortz writes in Somebody's Gotta Say It!...

Child abuse is neither always obvious nor intentional.

The most rampant form of child abuse in this country is not only legal, but committed routinely. It is the act of taking what arguably is, or should be, the most precious things in your life - your children - and placing the responsibility for their education i the hands of the government.

There's no escaping the fact that our country has problems... huge problems. I believe, however, that these problems have a common cause - that being the ignorance and stupidity of people whose "education" (if you want to call it that) was inflicted at the hands of government schools.

Year after year, our wonderful government education system cranks out hordes of young men and women who are completely unable to cope with, let alone understand, our culture, our history, our institutions, and what it takes not just to survive but to thrive in America.

We've reviewed the alarming facts already. Average high school graduates cannot tell you the responsibilities, or even the names, of the three branches of government. They can't tell you the name of the vice president, and probably do't kow that there is a designated third in line in the presidential succession.

They can't make change or do basic mathematical computations without a computer or calculator. They can't read apartment leases, balance their checkbooks, or read maps. They certainly have no understanding of capitalism, or free enterprise, and couldn't write a one-paragraph description of what constitutes profit.

{snip}

Would you think I'd finally gone off the deep end if I suggested to you that these government schools really don't exist for the purpose of truly educating your child in the first place? What if the people who developed our system of government-run, compulsory education had other goals in mind?

Allow me to suggest to you that our government schools were designed not to foster excellence through knowledge, but rather to insure that the American masses are relegated to an insipid, dull existence where they have barely enough knowledge and drive to sustain themselves in an anti-individualist society, but not enough of an education to understand how thoroughly our system of government is destructive of individual initiative and th quest for excellence.

Ominous thoughts....

I once taught at a private school in South Carolina. Our tuition was $95 a month per student (on the ten-payment plan). The local public school spent an average of $8,000 per student per annum.

Whenever a government-school student transferred to our school, there was a mandatory one-month period in which they were required to attend after-school care.

Why?

So that their reading skills could be brought up to the same grade level as the students in our school.

Is sending kids to government schools abuse? Probably not. But it is hard to argue with Boortz's points. And it is also hard to deny that keeping kids in government schools ultimately does more harm to their intellect and psyche than does living at home with the strictest of parents.

Since telling kids, "No, you can't have a car," or "You're grounded" is often characterized as "abuse."

Why Feminists Do Not Answer Questions

Have you ever noticed that when you ask questions which challenge feminist dogma, there is never any genuine attempt on the part of feminists to actually answer those questions?

There is plenty of screaming "Sexism!" "Harassment!" Even "Domestic Violence!"

But there is never any attempt to actually answer the question. So I was wondering, why do feminists never attempt to answer the perfectly legitimate questions or dialogue with the perfectly logical points of those who (rightly) oppose feminism?

I think I have come up with a few ideas:

1) Because they already know the answer, and they know the answer does not support feminism.

2) Because they only teach you 14 vocabulary words in a "Women's Studies" program, four of which are some version of the word "Empowerment."

3) Because, when utterly flummoxed by the truth, it is easier to just scream "Sexism!"

4) Because they are too busy trying to figure out of the "i" comes before or after the "e" in "Glass Ceiling" to put additional effort into forming a real argument.

5) Because YOU are obviously under the bigoted, androcentrist misperception that truth trumps politics.

6) Because thinking can give you a headache and make you have crow's feet. It is much easier to simply drink the Kool-Aid and shout, "Yay for the sisterhood."

Poster Mom

Below are two stories that recently appeared on page 9 of the June 2 edition of the Kinston Free Press, from AP wire stories. Given the increasing frequency of stories like these, it is long past time to start rethinking the presumption of the family court that women by default make the best caretakers of kids.

Mom Charged with Burning Disabled Child: Injuries Allegedly Inflicted with an Iron

FAYETTEVILLE, NC - A North Carolina mother, with a degree in social work, repeatedly burned her handicapped child with an iron after the young girl with physical and mental disabilities struggled to iron her dress on Easter Sunday, authorities said Monday.

Nia Michelle Brooks, 33, of Fayetteville, has been charged with aggravated assault on a handicapped person, felony child abuse and assault inflicting serious injury....




The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office said Brooks burned her daughter with an iron on both her arms, her left thigh, and her right leg, leaving scars that investigators said clearly came from an iron.

The 11-year old child told investigators that she was burned because she wasn't ironing her Easter dress the way her mother wanted....

Authorities... said [the child is nearly blind and] is mildly mentally retarded.

Runaway Sitter Now in N.C. Jail

RAEFORD, N.C. - A 17-year old babysitter accused of kidnapping a 9-month old child and heading to Alabama is due in a North Carolina court....

[Renesha Shante] Griner is charged with first-degree kidnapping and has a hearing scheduled Monday.

The sheriff says that the rising high school senior convinced a former boyfriend in Opp, Alabama, that the baby was his. Investigators say that the baby's real mother had left the child with the sitter last weekend.

Two observations on these stories:

1) One wonders how many times Nia Michelle Brooks, as a social worker, has presided over the confiscation of the children of others for offenses far less serious than that she inflicted upon her own child.

2) Ranesha Shante Griner demonstrates a couple of truths about the whole "women don't lie about sex" stupidity that is the foundation of the Feminist False Allegation Industry. First, women do lie about pretty much everything, even before they are aware that perjury is encouraged by feminist legal theory. Secondly, it appears that women are perfectly adept at lying, stealing, cheating, and even kidnapping for one central reason - it helps them get what they want. Today, they want a boyfriend, so they lie about being pregnant. Tomorrow, they are tired of the boyfriend, so they lie about "domestic violence."

Solving The Toilet Seat Crisis

I am tired of the continual controversy over whether a man/boy recently left the toilet seat either up or down.

I am also tired of the mainstream media's orgasmic fixation on the apparently poor economy.

I have an idea that will fix both problems.

The government should provide a bathroom attendant to every single household in America. When a person enters, he/she would ask, "How would you like the lid, sir/madam?" Then he/she would fix the lid and wait patiently while you finish. If you took a particularly long time, he/she could also offer you some gum, a magazine, or call an ambulance. Then, when you are finished, he/she will return the lid to its former state. Routinely, the bathroom attendant will clean the bathroom and replace the TP roll, and might be trained to perform other services such as cleaning out that annoying bathtub ring and perhaps compiling a weekly shopping list for the homeowners' toiletry needs. The bathroom attendant would be paid by the government from a pool of the unemployed. Preference would, of course, be given to people with Master's degrees in "Women's Studies" or "World Peace Studies."

Notice all the problems this solves:

1) Unemployment - one attendant per household will literally wipe out any crises with employment!

2) Disputes - the toilet lids always start the same way and end the same way. We pay somebody to keep men and women from fighting!

3) Responsibility - my plan helps us avoid it! Heck, why should anyone have to be responsible for setting the toilet in the state that THEY want it? Since we have all already obtained an entitlement mentality in the U.S. (and we already want someone else to fix the toilet seat for us anyway) and the government already tells us how much our toilets can flush, let's let the government take care of everything for us! It can even replace the TP roll for us! It can spray after we leave! It can take out the trash! It can provide stimulating conversation for us while we, ummmmmm, wait!!!

This plan, if you don't mind my saying so, rocks! This will be the greatest government work program in history and certainly will also be a hindrance to the growth of domestic violence! What do you say?

How this amazing idea escaped inclusion in President Obama's stimulus package is frankly one of the great mysteries of all of human history.

Women Are Far Crazier Than Men!

Check out a document on the World Health Organization's website called "Gender and Mental Health" (http://www.who.int/gender/other_health/en/genderMH.pdf). You have to really scour this document to come up with anything that is a) reasonable and b) understandable - after all, it is authored by UN-type international bureaucrats and therefore they can't really say anything that is politically incorrect (like for instance, "women are crazier than men"), but once you wade through the attempts to normalize mental health between the sexes by counting things (such as criminal acts) that do not directly relate to mental health as if they are in fact, directly related to mental health - here is what you come up with.

1) The primary purpose of the document is to argue that, internationally, more money needs to be spent by non-governmental organizations to improve the availability of mental health treatments for women.

It is difficult to justify this as anything other than raw sexism unless it is in fact true that women NEED mental health treatment more than men. In other words, ask yourself, why exactly do we need international initiatives that specifically target women for mental health treatment if it is men who are the more emotionally imbalanced "species" (as the OP phrased it) to begin with?

2) There is a diagram at the end of the document that shows a study of the use of psychotropic drugs as a ratio. Where men and women consume psychotropic drugs at exactly the same rate, there would be a reading of "1" on the diagram. Where men consume more psychotropic drugs than women, there would be a reading of less than "1" on the diagram.

Across sixteen countries, EVERY reading is greater than "1" - indicating that in every country surveyed, women consume psychotropic drugs more than men. And in many countries, women consume psychotropic drugs FAR more than men. In Brazil, France, and Spain, women are under drug treatment for psychiatric reasons at a rate of around THREE TIMES that of men. In the US, Canada, and the UK, the ratio is around twice as high for women.

It is interesting that the argument cannot be made that this situation prevails only in Western countries (perhaps for some perceived slight such as patriarchy, capitalism, or what have you). One arguably second-world country (Brazil) and one arguably third-world country (Nigeria) were included in the study and showed the same imbalance. Further, in arguably the most liberal nation represented in the study, France, the imbalance was highest, approaching four times more consumption by women as men.

I am often asked whether the increase in the number of broken families is the fault of one sex or the other. It is hardly a coincidence that the sex most likely to need psychiatric medication is also responsible for initiating 67% of all divorces in the United States. Of course, a culture in which feminism leavens all thought and convinces women that they really can do anything men can do is also to blame, as such philosophical nonsense sets women up for lives of failure and frustration - compounding the apparently innate emotional brittleness.

Mike Nifong: Feminist Hero!

I have been convinced since it became obvious that Crystal Gail Mangum was lying that Mike Nifong has been getting a raw deal. Since the 1970s in this country, feminists have been telling us that, when a woman makes an allegation of rape, society must ALWAYS believe the woman!


This is what Mike Nifong did! In the face of overwhelming evidence, he believed the woman. Shouldn't feminists be rallying to his side? Didn't he just obey the feminist dictat that has come down for the last 30 years? Mike Nifong isn't a corrupt District Attorney - rather, he is a faithful feminist! Right?

Feminism And Subjective Irrationality

Objectivity - i.e., an ability to make decisions and be informed by facts outside of one's self, has been replaced by subjectivity - i.e., an inability to be moved by anything other than one's own personal prejudices and feelings - in modern politically-correct society. This is why feminism prospers.

Feminism, and all identity-politics, depends on the irrationality of its audience in order to survive. There are literally NO assertions of feminism that are intellectually defensible. Facts disprove all of them, from the so-called "wage gap" that does not exist (when wages are normalized for the actual amount of time a person has spent on the job rather than by the mere age of the persons surveyed, women earn as much as men) to the silly contradictions of feminist dogma (How is it that women are as capable as men, yet need entrance and promotion standards LOWERED so that there can be more women in the military, police, and fire departments?).

This is the psychological/spiritual Catch-22 of feminism. Feminism is easily disproved by facts, but women have been taught by Oprah that facts do not matter - only feelings. So women are not likely to be moved from their feminist stance by disproving feminism's claims, which again, is easily done.

Sadly, our culture has divorced women from the only thing likely to redeem them - wisdom. No amount of logic, fact, or reasoning is likely to destroy the lie that is feminism. Only an individual woman looking at the ruins of a life that could have been - and feeling bad about it - is likely to lead to her redemption.

Unfortunately, by that time, younger women than she will have been captured by feminism's lies.... And the cycle of irrationality, self-centeredness, and destruction will begin again.

What We're Missing in DV Debate

I was recently turned on to the writings of K. J. Wilson and Susan Murphy-Milano by a posted question by a poster who calls himself "MadShangi." His questions about these two feminist writers were so intriguing that it sent me to the library to request their books by interlibrary loan.

While reading Defending Our Lives: Getting Away from Domestic Violence & Staying Safe by Susan Murphy-Milano, a profound thought occurred to me: we are asking all of the wrong questions about domestic violence.




The typical debate on the issue of domestic violence revolves around a few predictable axes: are men or women more often the victim of DV? By how much is DV over reported statistically? How often is DV falsely alleged?

These are important questions, but they are only mildly important when the central question is asked: Isn't DV really just a chimera?

Whether DV occurs a lot or a little - ultimately, it is all fake. Whether it is a male vs. female or female vs. male problem, it is all fake. And no matter how many times someone intentionally makes up a lie about it (and statistics and experience suggest that is more often than not), it is all ultimately a lie, even when it meets factual legal requirements.

Murphy-Milano's book begins by the story of her own life. As a child, she became acquainted with very real violence first hand. The stories of her seeing her mother's head being banged into an iron bedstead are harrowing. One can only imagine how horrifying it was to see one's mother taped up, beaten to a pulp, and apparently only inches away from life support in a hospital. And then, there was the murder.

Her father, an Illinois policeman, murdered her mother and then killed himself, leaving a note saying,

"To whom this may concern. This is business only. I did what I had to do. No one leaves me and gets away with it...."

One can only imagine the very real emotional trauma experienced by a little girl who watches her mother go through a nightmare such as this, and then comes home one day to find both parents lying dead in the home.

But up to now, I have related very real crimes: assault, battery, murder.

But in Murphy-Milano's book, directly opposite the page which contains this sentence:

"My father had shot my mother in the back of the head at close range..."

... is a chapter titled "Recognizing Domestic Violence."

We move from the clearly definable lines of assault, battery, and "shot my mother in the back of the head" to nebulous concepts like "wife abuse" (which I learned was the "most common" crime in the U.S.) and "domestic violence."

"Oh," say you, a typically-informed member of the general public, "they are the same thing!"

Really now?

Because in an attempt to define "domestic violence" (and let's face it, if it looked like what happened to her mother, would it really need defining?), Ms. Murphy-Milano proposes such answers as:

* Name-calling or yelling.
* Using angry expressions or gestures.
* Humiliation, either in public or private....
* Accusations of infidelity....
* Constant questioning of the other person's judgment or decision-making abilities.
* Threatening to leave....
* Ignoring or minimizing the other person's feelings....
* A desire to have sex for the wrong reasons.
* Insistence that you do things his way.
* Clinging to you constantly....
* Unpredictable behavior.

Then she plainly states, "Domestic violence is a combination of threats, control, insults, and insane jealousy."

Notice how glibly and blithely she glides from "he shot my mother in the back of the head" to "clinging." As if the two were first cousins. As if the two were even remotely related by species.

Why does she glibly and blithely so glide? Is it because she is such a raging idiot that she does not comprehend that there is a difference between the two? Or is it because she is manipulating her audience with the first story in order to gain acquiescence on her minor points - "clinging" and "angrily gesturing?" Are we to consider her serious? Honest? Sane?

Now, don't get me started, I see the Catch-22 she is pleased to place men (notice the masculine pronouns) in. Both "threatening to leave" and "clinging to you constantly" are domestic violence? Who exactly determines what the right reasons are for having sex? Why is insisting on having his way domestic violence, but insisting on having her way is assertiveness? And unpredictable behavior? Who on this planet is more unpredictable than a woman who is under the tender ministry of PMS? Murphy-Milano is good enough to warn us that "unpredictable behavior can become life-threatening!", so take heed, men!

Like I say, don't get me started on the utter childishness of all of this.

Except that the nonsense that is this book is now the law in most of the 50 states of the USA.

Now, don't get me wrong, it isn't the law in the sense that some legislator voted on it. But rather it is the effective law, as enacted from the bench in thousands of domestic relations courts throughout this land. Because the ideology of Murphy-Milano's book informs thousands of feminist organizations and women's shelters who are responsible for the continuing legal education of judges and lawyers everywhere.

Nobody denies that Murphy-Milano's father was a criminal, and that what he did was a crime. But what exactly is the relationship between "he shot my mother in the back of the head" and

unpredictable behavior... [and] ignoring or minimizing the other person's feelings?

Yeah, I know, this is how ghastly murderers act prior to their murders. I get that. I also get that this is how everybody on earth acts on alternating Wednesdays and Thursdays. They do it before having a bath, and after eating cucumbers, and in some strange concurrence with swimming. So we can, by the same logic that makes "unpredictable behavior" and "ignoring or minimizing another's feelings" either DV or the precursor thereof, design a new DV statute which reads

Any person found to have eaten cucumbers or to have engaged in the sport of swimming at any point in the past 30 days may have his movement restricted and his access to wife, children, and home denied...

... because studies have conclusively shown that all abusers have engaged in swimming and eating cucumbers. There is certainly as much correlation between cucumber consumption and domestic violence as there is between anger and domestic violence.

Except for one thing: women are not neurotic about cucumbers. Well, most of them anyway. And herein lies the tragedy that is feminism - feminism has provided the forum for the most neurotic and emotionally damaged of women to project their neuroses upon the rest of us. Apparently one woman's neurotic, irrational fear of a man raising his voice or gesticulating when he talks translates into a reason to undermine, or even destroy, the whole institution of marriage and even society itself.

"Domestic Violence," as it exists in the law, is simply a projection of the fears of neurotic women. Their "perception" of fear or danger or being "controlled" has no more correlation with reality than does the schizophrenic's perception of pink, flying elephants. It may be very real to him, but it is not real.

To this extent, the whole Domestic Violence Industry and subculture functions as a representation of feminism itself - all modern feminism is really just an attempt to project and objectify (make real) the subjective and neurotic fears of women: fears that they will not be treated well, fears that they cannot do all that men can do, fear that they are weaker, fear that they are not strong enough to chart their own course.

I have argued dozens of times that the concept of "domestic violence" is to the law what the concept of "widget" is to economics - a thoroughly empty word willing and able to be filled with whatever meaning a person might desire. But let's be honest for a second. If "domestic violence" is what Ms. Murphy-Milano says, then we are all domestic abusers. Both plaintiff and defendant, child and parent, husband and wife. Any person who has ever thought his own needs superior to those of another is guilty, and must be imprisoned forthwith.

This can't be serious, except that it is. Men are in jail right now whose crime is "failing to take their spouse's feelings into account."

I have sat in on over 100 domestic violence protective order (DVPO) hearings in my state. Only one of them alleged what an average man on the street would even recognize as "violence," and then so oddly that one was left with the feeling that he had happened into an episode of The Twilight Zone (The complainant claimed that her husband beat her with a riding crop, then admitted that she bought the same from a porn store for that very purpose - turns out she was into S&M play, and then simultaneously claimed to have been burned with hot coffee, beaten with a rod, strangled nearly to death - all without the benefit of any bruises. Thankfully, Ms. Murphy-Milano set me straight on this one when she wrote that one is always to "be supportive.... Believe her. Don't say 'That's impossible' or 'I find what you are telling me hard to believe.'"). Yet I have only ever seen one DVPO that did not result in a finding of civil liability, and often arrest.

What the general public doesn't know, and probably doesn't want to know, is that "domestic violence" has nothing to do with "he shot my mother in the back of the head" and it has everything to do with "failing to regard her feelings."

One who was being less than charitable might assume that Murphy-Milano's view of what constitutes "domestic violence" is informed less by a real concern for finding a cause and effect relationship than by a desire to treat all men as if they are abusers, and all relationships as if they are inherently abusive.

I know, that is taking things too far. I'm a conspiracy theorist....

"The nuclear family must be destroyed... Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process." Linda Gordon

"We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage." Robin Morgan

"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire." Robin Morgan

"All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women.... All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey." Marilyn French

"All men are rapists and that's all they are." Marilyn French

"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage." Sheila Cronin

"Men's sexuality is mean and violent, and men so powerful that they can 'reach WITHIN women to f**k/construct us from the inside out.' Satan-like, men possess women, making their wicked fantasies and desires women's own. A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, even if she does not feel forced." Judith Levine

"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." Andrea Dworkin

You get the idea.

So here is my theory: anytime that you are in a courtroom and you are listening to a "domestic violence" hearing, and there are no charges of assault, or battery, or what have you, you are listening to a lie whether or not the legal elements are met.

You are listening to the institutionalization of a lie. It is a lie in one of three ways:

1) It is a lie because it suggests that there is no difference between "he shot my mother in the back of the head" and "he failed to take my feelings into account."

2) Or, it is a lie because it intentionally blurs the line between "he shot my mother in the back of the head" and "he failed to take my feelings into account."

3) Or, it is a lie because it is the product of a neurosis that is genuinely unable to see the distinction between "he shot my mother in the back of the head" and "he failed to take my feelings into account."

What we are missing in our discussions about DV is this: we treat the category itself as if it is legitimate, and we argue about how to properly apply the category.

But listen, if I beat you, I get convicted of assault. If I shoot you in the back of the head, somebody utters the word "homicide."

But when I hear "domestic violence," what am I actually hearing?

After reading Murphy-Milano, I think I am hearing "I feel victimized, but I don't have any evidence to prove it."

I am no longer going to argue that a certain percentage of claims of "domestic violence" are false. They all are false. One hundred per cent of them.

Because any claim that is real will be called "assault," "battery," or "murder."