The divorce regime is the most totalitarian institution ever to arise in the United States. Its operatives in the family courts and the social service agencies recognize no private sphere of life. "The power of family court judges is almost unlimited," according to Judge Robert Page of the New Jersey family court. "Social workers are perceived to have nearly unlimited power," a San Diego Grand Jury concludes. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Total immunity [enjoyed by social workers] is absolute power."
The divorce regime is responsible for much more than "ugly divorces," "nasty custody battles," and other clichés. It is the most serious perpetrator of human and constitutional rights violations in America today. Because it strikes the most basic institution of any civilization – the family – the divorce regime is a threat not only to social order but to civil freedom. It is also almost completely unopposed. No political party and no politicians question it. No journalists investigate it in any depth. A few attorneys have spoken out, but they are eventually suspended or disbarred. Some academics have written about it, but they soon stop. No human rights or civil liberties groups challenge it, and some positively support it. Very few "pro-family" lobbies question it. This is because the divorce regime operates through money, political power, and fear.
Praise for Taken Into Custody
"Since unilateral divorce was adopted in the 1970s, millions of innocent parents have lost their fundamental right to raise their own children to an array of government officials and "experts," such as judges, lawyers, psychotherapists, social workers, child protective services, child support enforcement agents, mediators, counselors, and feminist groups. Dr. Baskerville documents injustices to children and fathers that might otherwise seem beyond belief. He exposes the distortions and fabrications propagated by the divorce industry to rationalize confiscating children from their parents. This is must reading for everyone who loves children, family, or justice."
--Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum
“At long last, Stephen Baskerville in Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage and the Family, has made the case for the critical importance of fathers in bringing up children. His view, that fathers are the victim of discrimination in the court system in this country, is absolutely correct. Hopefully this book will begin a counter revolution so that fathers will be seen as essential to raising a family. The only successful families, by and large, are those with BOTH parents and children. This book has long been needed, and Dr. Baskerville is absolutely the right person to have written it.
--Paul M. Weyrich, Hon. PhD, Chairman and CEO, Free Congress Research and Education Foundation
“Taken Into Custody exposes the corruption of the divorce industry – lawyers paid to destroy marriages, courts who do their bidding, and bought state legislators. It is must reading by millions who lost access to their children, but also by church leaders whose support is essential if Stephen Baskerville’s reforms are to have a chance. The danger of gay marriage is trivial compared to the carnage of divorce explored here.”
--Michael J. McManus, President and Co‑Founder, Marriage Savers
"Baskerville has exposed a major abuse of power that is not only responsible for destroying families and for the social disorder that ensues from that. It also rationalizes massive government spending and violations of our constitutional freedoms by courts, bureaucracies, and other arms of the state. Today's social crisis is not the product of impersonal social forces to which we must resign ourselves. It is the logical culmination of the modern state's perpetual drive to create problems for itself to solve. This book powerfully reveals the interconnected threats to the family, accountable government, and freedom."
--Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
“A brave scholar willing to break the conspiracy of silence on key family issues, Stephen Baskerville exposes the legal abuses now common in the nation’s divorce courts. Such abuses often strip entirely innocent fathers of basic constitutional rights in proceedings that saddle them with heavy support payments for children with whom they are denied meaningful contact. Much-needed reform can only come through the kind of sober analysis this book provides.”
--Bryce Christensen, author of Divided We Fall: Family Discord and the Fracturing of America
“No-fault divorce, in practice, means unilateral divorce. When one parent is divorced against his will, that means the state must enforce the separation of that parent from his (or sometimes her) children and home. That means the state will intrude in the most personal areas of the family’s life, in effect, obliterating the distinction between public and private. These are the key insights of Stephen Baskerville’s important new book, Taken into Custody. Everyone concerned about the condition of marriage and children should read this book.”
--Jennifer Roback-Morse, PhD, economist and author, Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World
"Stephen Baskerville's Taken into Custody powerfully depicts the myriad cruelties and injustices currently being visited upon American fathers."
--Glenn Sacks, columnist and talk radio host
“This book is a tremendous and much-needed report on how family courts and government policies are harming children.
--Phyllis Schlafly, syndicated columnist
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
STEPHEN BASKERVILLE, Ph.D., is assistant professor of government at Patrick Henry College and president of the American Coalition for Fathers of Children. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and is a Fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society. The author of more than eighty articles on fatherhood and family issues, he has appeared widely on national radio and television programs. He has been featured in profiles and write-ups in Human Events, Reason magazine, the Gannett newspapers, Enter Stage Right, News with Views, Men’s News Daily, Fathering Magazine, the Washington Times, Townhall.com, the Ottawa Citizen, and elsewhere.
Most of his articles on family issues are available at http://www.stephenbaskerville.net/articles-bydate.htm.
From Welfare State to Police State
ReplyDeleteBy Stephen Baskerville
Welfare reform in the United States has shifted the role of welfare agencies from distributing money to collecting it—not from taxpayers but from divorced fathers. Despite the stereotype of the “deadbeat dad” as a wealthy playboy squiring around his new trophy wife in a bright red Porsche, federal officials have acknowledged that most unpaid child support is uncollectible because it is owed by fathers who are as poor as or poorer than the mothers and children.
http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=52&articleID=668
ET has obtained court documents that demonstrate that Robert Halderman, the man arrested for allegedly attempting to extort $2 million from David Letterman, was required to pay significant monthly child support and alimony payments.
ReplyDeleteThe "48 Hours" producer is required to pay $6,800 per month in alimony and child support to ex-wife Patty Montet, with whom he has two children. In May of 2011, that figure will drop to $5,966.66.
Both Halderman and Montet challenged the amount of the monthly payments in 2007 and 2008 court battles, but a judge ruled both times that the payments were required to stay the same.
The couple divorced in 2004.