Saturday, July 27, 2019

Analogies

My situation is so unreal I often turned to analogies when telling others my story. Here is one I thought of this morning.

Imagine you are selling your house. Now imagine that the buyer's real estate agent fraudulently changes the purchase price from $500,000 to $50,000. You have absolute evidence this was done. You contact the county attorney and law enforcement but no one seems to care. You go to court and the judge rules that you have to pay the other party $30,000 every year until you die. The judge tell you he knows the real estate agent personally so he is punishing you for coming to court.

If you think this is unrealistic or somehow not analogous to my situation, you are wrong. It is truly that bad.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Women in National Security Roles

As in many areas of our society, women are under-represented in national security roles. Unlike Spring, who used to argue that a woman not only shouldn't but couldn't be president, I think it it is terrible that women are under represented in executive offices, politics and national security or anywhere else for that matter. Even as a kid, I could not understand how anyone could oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. 
Mieke Eoyang

However, what I do not like is when a proposed solution to a problem is not only superficial but actually makes matters worse. The great thing about the article cited above is when the two female national security experts discuss the effects of banning women from combat roles.
ALLAM: Women still face many obstacles. For one, they're only now starting to see the payoff from being allowed into combat roles, earning battlefield experience that could help them advance to defense leadership. Eoyang again. 
EOYANG: What we're starting to see now are the first generation of women who entered national security after those bans were lifted being old enough to be senior in this field. This is an inflection moment.
So banning women from combat roles is a cause, a huge cause, of there being less women in national security roles. Of course this is true!. There are some who would like to create quotas for women in national security but that will never work. Once the gender gap in military fatalities is eliminated so will the gender gap in national security roles. I know people are often uncomfortable thinking this way but such thinking is just sexism.

Saturday, July 13, 2019

Is Lifetime Alimony Slavery?

Perhaps there is no greater emotionally charged claim regarding lifetime alimony than to equate it to slavery. In Florida a claim that lifetime alimony is akin to slavery was lambasted.

Claim: Forcing people to work for the rest of their life for someone else is pretty much the definition of slavery.

Counter claim: It is only a financial burden. And the recipient has earned it because she (98% of the time it is a she) took care of the kids and ran the household. Think of it more like a pension.

My take:  Although some women may have been the primary parent during the marriage it certainly isn't true of all and in my case was absolutely not the case. (The custody evaluator ruled parenting was joint) As for running the home, for every family where the women is the primary cleaner of the bathroom, there is one or more where the man is the primary cutter of the grass and remover of snow. Again, in my case, I did the vast majority of housework whether that be traditionally female or male work. Another issue is that often the person receiving alimony could have worked but simply chose not to work or chose to be underemployed because it was easier. There was never an agreement whatsoever in my marriage that Spring not work. She just avoided it because she could get away with it. She used me. The biggest issue in my my opinion is that lifetime alimony is equivalent to quitting a job and still receiving the salary until you die. That is bizarre.

It is ironic that in the 1960's NOW (the National Organization of Women) sought  to end alimony because it assumed that women were incapable of taking care of themselves.
(Betty) Friedan, by contrast, sought at-will, “no fault” divorce, where either party would be able to leave a marriage at any time. She also advocated for a one-time equal division of property in divorce because “as feminists . . . we didn’t believe women should ask for alimony” since alimony implies that women might put themselves in a dependent position in marriage.
Without alimony’s crutch, it was hoped, more women would pursue careers in case their marriages fell apart.
Unsettling the safety of marriage is an economic backbone of efforts to cultivate an ethos of independence among women: Education and careers would provide the safety that marriage no longer would.
Sadly NOW's position on alimony today reflects the the view that women need to be taken care of by men. So much for the ideology of their founders.

Legally the matter of whether lifetime alimony is slavery is not all that clear. The 13 Amendment states:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The United Nations bans involuntary servitude other that for those drafted into the military and after being convicted of a crime. It even states:
Each Member shall ensure that all victims of forced or compulsory labour, irrespective of their presence or legal status in the national territory, have access to appropriate and effective remedies, such as compensation.
So legally I am actually due compensation. I won't hold my breath.

My biggest concern isn't even alimony per se, it is that the most common way to obtain it is to commit the crimes of  perjury and fraud. Often, like in the case of Spring and her lawyer Nelly Wince, obvious crimes. Family court has become so corrupt that it is often just an arena to criminally obtain as much money as possible. Justice be damned. 

Saturday, July 6, 2019

Gender Equality and Alimony Can’t Logically Co-Exist

Gender Equality and Alimony Can’t Logically Co-Exist by Brian Brewington in Medium is a great article out the fundamental issues with alimony and gender equality.
If a woman expects to be paid the same as a man, there should be no part of the job that’s designated for the men she works with. Simply put, if we’re equals, which I truly believe to be the case — then why on earth would a woman ever be entitled to half of a man’s assets or more after they get divorced? 
There’s this saying you often hear spoken during alimony negotiations, that has always troubled me. The whole “in order to maintain a lifestyle she’s become accustomed to” argument. If that lifestyle she had become accustomed to, was solely provided by a man, when her and that man get divorced — she’s also divorcing that lifestyle she was accustomed to.
I agree wholeheartedly. Alimony is is based on the idea the sexist idea that women are unable to take care of themselves and must be provided for by a man. Truly a bizarre concept.