Friday, October 30, 2020

The Trial Of The Chicago Seven

I saw the new movie The Trial Of The Chicago Seven this week. Fantastic! The story  revolves around  the trial of seven defendants, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden for inciting riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. The new Nixon administration chose to prosecute despite the fact that the outgoing Johnson administration had concluded that the rioting was started by the police.  Hayden, hardly some no name radical, had recently been a pallbearer for Robert Kennedy who had been assassinated while campaigning for the presidential nomination. 

The movie has an equal number of hilarious and disturbing parts. On the funny side was when Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin dressed in judicial robes one day during the trial.  The judge ordered them to remove the robes only to find out they were wearing police uniforms underneath. 

On the disturbing side is when one defendant, Bobby Seale who co-founded the Black Panthers, was bound and gagged during the trial by the judge. The movie has Seale gagged for a brief time but the reality was far worse. He spent three days of the trail tied up and gagged. The entire movie is like that. It is a nearly unbelievable depiction of the judicial system but the reality of the trial was far worse

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Feminist View Of Alimony

Feminists are often the most vocal opponents of alimony. Which makes a lot of sense because alimony in all but the most unusual circumstances treats women as less capable than men. Additionally, it often burdens second wives with the cost of alimony to a first wife. 

Unfortunately, many feminists do not understand that the reality of alimony does not reflect their modernist views. In an article on Mom's For Shared Parenting, it is stated that:

Thankfully, family courts are slowly turning this around, with lifetime alimony all but gone, judges (especially female judges, who fought their assess off for their own professional success, and have little sympathy for women who chose to perpetuate this sexist model) increasingly expect both parties to be responsible for both the financial and time cost of child rearing, as shared parenting is moving through state legislatures around the United States.

I wish. The problem is that no one knows how many people are subject to lifetime alimony because data is not kept on it. 

Think how crazy it is that I am paying lifetime alimony. The custody evaluator ruled that parenting was joint during the marriage, although joint custody was awarded the children spent the vast majority of time with me post-divorce, my ex-wife has never spent a dime of her earned income pre or post divorce on the kids, she divorced me, she took the majority of marital assets,  and she clearly committed crimes during the divorce. It is surreal, it is wrong. 

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Interpreting Suicide Statistics

People read what they want into statistics. For example, statistics show that men who are divorced are  nine times more likely to die by suicide compared to divorced women. Why is not so clear so everyone just makes a guess and usually that guess aligns with their own experience and worldview. 


The author of an article in Psychology Today quotes: 

Dr. Kposowa, a sociologist at the University of California–Riverside, suggested that society has undervalued the strength of paternal-child bonds, and thus underestimated the traumatic effect of severing those bonds through our typical custody arrangements. Further, we fail to appreciate the catastrophic financial impact of divorce on men, and the anger and resentment engendered by losses of both property and status in the wake of a divorce settlement. 

but also states:

I suspect that something else is afoot. Couldn't it be that the personality and social factors that contributed to the failure of the marriage also contribute to excess suicide risk afterward? Couldn't the risk factors for divorce in men be related to the risk factors for suicide in divorced men? Female dissatisfaction with the marriage is a stable predictor of an eventual divorce. Perhaps we should consider marital behaviors that might lead to such dissatisfaction.

which is just an opinion. 

I, quite unsurprisingly, think that a combination of financial obligations (alimony is paid by the man in 98+ of cases), loss of contact with their children, and the crime rewarding nature of our family court system lead more men than women to commit suicide after a divorce because they are most often the victim. No one has the evidence to prove or disprove that in general but it is certainly true, and supported by the evidence, in my case.

Saturday, October 10, 2020

The Future Of Civil Marraige

Why do we have marriage? It is time that more people asked themselves that. For civil marriages, it provides or various benefits and costs which differ from the non-married. Benefits include certain tax advantages, social security benefits, legal decision making and inheritance. Disadvantages include certain tax disadvantages, legal obligations to the spouse, and legal and financial costs stemming from  dissolution. 

In this day when marriage can be between any two people regardless of gender and many companies extend marriage-like benefits to domestic partners, one wonders why we need civil marriage at all. 

Eliminating civil marriages would be a huge benefit to society. The tax and legal codes become much simpler and fair. People could still get married but it would be as part of a religious or private commitment ceremony. Husband and wife would be just terms anyone could use as they please. 

My guess is that  more and more people will choose to not marry which in turn will cause a general weakening of the benefits of marriage until at some point marriage as a civil institution will fade away. That will be a good thing. 

Saturday, October 3, 2020

The History And Future of Marriage

I ran across an informative and quite humorous video on the history of marriage along with some speculation on its future. It is well worth watching. 


"Law 142 of the Code of Hammurabi (ancient Babylon) states that if a wife could demonstrate that her husband neglected her while she had no guilt, she had the right to take her dowry back and regress to her father’s home."

was a lot better than paying alimony till death as I have to!

Reddit discussion here