"Destroy the family, and you destroy society" (Lenin)

Why is the American family in crisis? Taken Into Custody argues that the most direct cause is the divorce industry: a government-run system that tears apart families, separates children from fit and loving parents, confiscates the wealth of families, and turns law-abiding citizens into criminals in ways they are powerless to avoid.

Taken Into Custody explores:

• Why the "deadbeat dad" is not only a myth but a hoax, the creation of government officials and lawyers who plunder parents whose children they have taken away
• How hysterical propaganda about domestic violence is destroying families, endangering children, and making criminals of innocent parents
• The real causes of child abuse and how the abuse industry willfully ignores them
• What drives the rash of "parental kidnappings"
• How family courts operate as if there is no Bill of Rights, denying parents their constitutional legal protections

Taken Into Custody exposes the greatest and most destructive civil rights abuse in America today. Family courts and Soviet-style bureaucracies trample basic civil liberties, entering homes uninvited and taking away people's children at will, then throwing the parents into jail without any form of due process, much less a trial. No parent, no child, no family in America is safe.

About the Author
Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D., is assistant professor of government at Patrick Henry College and Earhart Fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he is the author of more than eighty articles on fatherhood and family issues and has appeared widely on national radio and television programs.

Stephen Baskerville was recently interviewed by Albert Mohler. As he (Baskerville) points out (in Advice to Young Men: Do Not Marry, Do Not Have Children), the divorce industry

makes it very attractive for your spouse to divorce you and take your children. (All this earns money for lawyers whose bar associations control the careers of judges.) While property divisions and spousal support certainly favor women, the largest windfall comes through the children. With custody, she can then demand “child support” that may amount to half, two-thirds, or more of your income. (The amount is set by committees consisting of feminists, lawyers, and enforcement agents – all of whom have a vested interest in setting the payments as high as possible.) She may spend it however she wishes. You pay the taxes on it, but she gets the tax deduction.

No Risk Too Small

President Bush pushed for the eventual inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. It was a long bet, but an excellent opening move to eliminate the pervasive risks that these nations are under. Considerably lower is the risk brought on by the nations who scuppered their accession. France and Germany, who have always been willing to find a nice bit of heroic looking symbolism, felt that an anticipatory provocation that would ultimately come to nothing to them was still too much anxiety for them to bear.

The meeting here culminated a three-day NATO summit that saw the 26-nation alliance admit the Balkan states of Albania and Croatia but refuse to put the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia on the path to membership in the face of vigorous Russian opposition. Putin, who has threatened to target missiles at the two countries if they join NATO, had made clear he would cancel his trip here if the alliance gave them so-called membership action plans.

Instead, Putin surprised his hosts by showing up uninvited at the NATO leaders' formal dinner Thursday night, once again catching the Western alliance off guard. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had said earlier that day that "we're not afraid of Putin," but Eastern European members fretted that the alliance had essentially capitulated to the Kremlin by deferring talk of Ukrainian and Georgian membership.

Nonetheless, the US wasn’t willing to cower with them under the sofa in the parlor of human development. What Bush couldn’t get, he still managed to impress on the Putin himself. It is, after all, Russia by virtue of its’ power and size that has to continue developing its’ civil society into a durable democracy.

The United States, with Nato's backing, is keen to gain Mr Putin's support for a missile defence system which is to include a radar facility in the Czech Republic - now formally agreed - and a site with ten interceptor missiles in Poland. Negotiations are still continuing with Warsaw. Nato leaders yesterday gave their backing for the Czech and Polish components of America's missile defence plan, and decided to contribute towards expanding the network to cover other parts of Europe that are at present excluded from the proposed protective umbrella, such as Turkey and the Balkans.

Although the Russian leader has spoken out against Washington's missile defence plan, claiming it will undermine the deterrent credibility of Russia's nuclear arsenal, he appears now to be more open about a possible co-operative approach. American officials have suggested, after lengthy negotiations with their Russian counterparts, that Mr. Putin is moving towards a more conciliatory position, provided he receives cast-iron assurances that the system is not in anyway a threat to Russia's stability and deterrence posture.

In the end this they move will slow down the path to a better, freer life to Ukrainians and Georgians, and will convince Vladimir Vladimirovich that the genuine pluralism and democracy that keeps societies from creeping into a state of tyranny and aggressiveness can be slowed, stalled, or even abandoned, even in the early days of their own matriculation into a nation that can truly tolerate individual rights.

The real long-term goal that the EU-2 or 3 (whatever it is this week) who can’t seem to wrap their heads around is to deeply engage Russia into the western alliance, and the carrot and stick are the way to negotiating inclusion from a strong position by inviting them into the geographic realm concurrent with the western idea. Appeasing their insincere verbal bravado by putting boundaries on their sphere of direct influence that are beyond their borders actually does more to cut them OUT then bring them IN because it gives them an outer boundary to see as the limits of their empire.
However, as one of the three main legs of the western alliance, there need be no empirial thinking or tone. Should the EU even grow enough of a spine to be a responsible state instead of a kind of ‘lifestyle cartel’ it can continue to be the entrepot of that alliance which represents the only real capacity at influence they have in a serious crisis. While they’re having this model handed to them at little cost, they still seem to be putting preconditions on it, even as they’re trying to figure out if their Union and its’ members would even be willing to engage in real (and not symbolic) statesmanship at all.

For all things NATO as they relate to the Europeans for whom it’s meant to defend anyway, head over to Atlantic Review.

Note to SuperFrenchie Readers

On a fairly regular basis, the webmaster and/or the readers of the website SuperFrenchie leave comments on the comments page with hyperlinks towards the latest post of his (often with few arguments; apparently the SF post says it all and is nothing if not the final word on a given subject). Which is fine with us.

However (regarding the final word on a subject), while SuperFrenchy (and/or his readers) are, as a general rule, allowed to come here, post his/their comments, and leave hyperlinks towards SuperFrenchie and like-minded websites (they seem to do so fairly often, and we have no problem with that), it would seem that the favor (isn't it really a basic règle déontologique not to mention common courtesy?) is not returned.

# SuperFrenchie says:
April 4th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Personal message to racist idiot Erik Svane:
All your posts are automatically moderated and deleted. …

Not only does SuperFrenchie not return the favor (or abide by the most basic rules of common debate), but he relishes the fact that clueless Americans (or their supporters) have not found this out, offering him (and his readers) the opportunity to once again avoid debate while reverting to personal attack ("psychopathy, obsessive behaviour, nervous breakdown, hatred, fascism", etc, etc, etc) or making personal attacks about the people and/or organizations who the person demonized is associated with (directly or otherwise, aka guilt by association), but always — always, always, always — finding an excuse to avoid debate about the facts (beyond the alleged "facts" that those who don't agree with them are retards, racists, fascists, would-be psychopaths, and obsessive to the point of writing a post like this one — which is the way (because it is the only way they know how) that, if they respond at all, they will respond to this post).

SuperFrenchie, incidentally, is someone lucide who believes (should I write, "who knows"?) that Bush is worse than Le Pen, which I suppose is hardly a totally indefensible viewpoint, but shouldn't that be precisely the sort of argument one should allow people with contrary opinions to debate freely (without racist and insulting language, natch)? Then again, I should be writing someone "who knows", someone who knows for a fact, someone who knows beyond the shadow of a doubt, not someone "who believes", n'est-ce pas?

While on the subjects of fascism and mockery and such, it seems hardly inappropriate to quote Jonah Goldberg (emphasis mine) on true fascist society:

contrary voices are regulated, barred, banned when possible, mocked and marginalized when not, Progressive voices are encouraged, lionized, amplified — in the name of "diversity," or "liberation," or "unity," and, most of all, "progress."

Indeed, while bemoaning France's alleged unjust treatment in America, SuperFrenchie relishes the fact that a smart Frenchman like himself has pulled the wool over the eyes of another trusting American — which, as you will remember (in a far more important context than this one), was Bush's original complaint about Chirac; the Bernard Kouchner quote at the end of that New York Times article concerning feelings of having been betrayed by the French government was, incidentally, one SuperFrenchie felt was either: racist; totally unfit for the readers of his blog; had nothing whatsoever (God forbid) to do with wholly-inappropriate (bien sûr!) American anger towards the French (governmental anger or US citizens' anger); or all three. (This from someone who states in the opening paragraphs of his blog (emphasis mine) that "this is also a place to discuss French-American relations, and try to better understand each other’s point of view" and "it’s a blog that … attempts to establish a dialogue about our different perceptions of one another" — see Jonah Goldberg's quote above — while adding that "talking between ourselves [leads] nowhere".)

Well, SuperFrenchie, what is it? Is it about high-falutin' principles to the tune of "the level of discussion [being as] high" as possible and establishing "a dialogue about our different perceptions of one another"; or is it about silencing your supposed adversaries while (justifying this by) mocking them, castigating them, and calling them names? (The answer, if I'm not mistaken, is: it's both, because the French want to have it both ways.)

Needless to say, the very fact that it is hardly a rare occurrence for the French (or for Europeans) to say one thing to Americans' face (reassuring them of their eternal friendship, calling for dialog, or bemoaning alleged American injustices), whether through official channels or in private day-to-day conversations, and then rub their hands together in glee behind Americans' backs in Schadenfreude is one raison d'être for No Pasarán's existence in the first place ("Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…").

Regarding racism and calls for tolerance and dialog, I would like to quote Jonah Goldberg again (think of adapting the text to replace, say, the word liberals and left-wing with (les) Français or (les) Européen(s), the word race with, say, foreign affairs or French-American relations, conservative with American (conservative or otherwise), and in this country with on this planet):

People have been calling for national dialogues and conversations for decades. It usually works something like this: Liberals say we need a frank discussion about race (or class or gender) in this country, and then they proceed to bludgeon any conservative stupid enough to take them up on their offer.

And I would like to quote John Hawkins:

Everyone always says that they want a national dialogue about race, but what they really seem to want is a national lecture where a liberal mouths politically correct platitudes — and everyone else is welcome to either nod along or shut up out of fear that they'll be called a racist for daring to have an opinion contrary to left-wing doctrine.

In any case, I answered SuperFrenchie's original post (although obviously the answer didn't appear on the page either) as follows (emphasis and a couple of minor changes added):

Personal message (puisque je n'ai pas le choix) to SF from racist idiot Erik Svane:

Most of the comments I have left on your website — I see now that the rather numerous examples were all deleted and that the research, the arguments, and the work was for naught — can hardly be attributed as anything approaching rants (racist or otherwise), but rather as well-thought-out and well-defended arguments such as Mona Charen's, but although this seems to be an example of "the level of discussion [being] very [?] high", these apparently amount to arguments, opinions, and viewpoints which SF and his readers (as well as readers of France's mainstream media) won't be allowed access.

How about Mona Charen [the latest comment automatically censored by SF]? Is she a racist idiot too? (Do you know her at all?) How about Investor's Business Daily?

And are her arguments (in which France is barely mentioned, certainly not in a negative way) nothing but racist?

Is it racist to point out that "North Korea's people suffered a catastrophic famine that took (by the BBC's estimate) one in ten lives in the 1990s and continues to cause desperate suffering to the present day [and that the] state maintains a Stalinist grip at home that forbids even whispering against the "Dear Leader" and has imprisoned and executed countless opponents"?

Is it, in turn, off bounds to point out that concern with alleged injustice in/from America may be exaggerated — and therefore at least somewhat unjust — when twinned with the ignorance of régimes such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and (Saddam's) Iraq, or the minimizing of the latters' misdeeds and/or crimes?

In that case, oui, SuperFrenchie, you are always right and anybody (French or foreign) who follows the politically-correct opinion is always right (not to mention lucide), while anybody who doesn't agree is not only always wrong but always racist, and we will always be having a great débat like the French always pretend to stand by with great principles and — with all the cards in their hand — it is a debate they will invariably win…

[To quote Jonah Goldberg again:

contrary voices are regulated, barred, banned when possible, mocked and marginalized when not, Progressive voices are encouraged, lionized, amplified — in the name of "diversity," or "liberation," or "unity," and, most of all, "progress."]

In the meantime, SuperFrenchie, rest assured that you — unless it is some of your readers — are always assured of being allowed on NP's comments page and, in the process, making publicity for as many of your SF posts as you/as they want…

Thank the American Left

Their gift to the French (left, right and ‘center’) was a cookbook narrative they could follow without critical thinking: Sarko Derangement Syndrome. Charles Bremner:

But there is another way of looking at “Psycho Sarko”. The neurosis may not be on the President's side, but with the French and their mania with him. For months Super-Sarko has dominated conversation. The psychiatrists say their patients bring him up as soon as they hit the couch, so they have coined a new term - “acute Sarkozis”. This means being obsessed by the phenomenon of the President - le personnage mythologique - rather than the real man. From there it is only a small step to seeing that France may not know its President as well as it thinks.

Add to it the usual self-distractions of fake issues and causes, the talking in circles, and the imagining that these things make one a public intellectual and the ‘globalization’ of the worst features of these buffoons on both sides of the puddle is complete. It’s just a matter of time before they call it “American cultural imperialism.” One wonders if the European left is even capable of an independent thought.



As if wester money was behind China’s action in 1950, or that the € existed in 1950, and that heroic Serguei cared one wit about it then, or anything like it today...

Snorts, Snickers, and Eye Rolls

In one single photo, you can see the entire basis of the nuanced (sic) debate inside the French establishment (here, France's socialists) — you know, the type of place where one is respectful of others and willing to listen to "the other": snorts, snickers, and eye rolls. That, in a nutshell, is the basis of the political debate of would-be humanitarian Europeans — when presented with contrary facts, evidence, and opinions — and, more generally, of the Left everywhere…

Already in the 1780s, American Imperialism and US Cultural Domination Were Poisoning France's Civilization

Far from being a unique event, there seems to be evidence that the French revolution was inspired by events across the pond, as were the colors of the French tricolor…

I Can’t Wait to Hear the Creative Explanations

French soldiers accused of torture:

The European Union ordered about 1,500 soldiers to go to the DR Congo in an effort to provide safety to civilians and stop thieves plundering the region in 2003, Deustche Welle reported.

Since there were no Americans involved there’s surely no reason to air any of that comforting outrage their great national brain-trust is so famous for yet.

À Demain À Deux Mains

Simplistic Europeans luuuuurve Obama, just as long as they have no idea who he is or if he even has a platform.

Hey, BHL - why don’t the two of you just get a room.

"I swore to myself – and documented this promise in a chapter of my book 'American Vertigo' (review) – that I would never forget the image, when he entered the scene at exactly 23 hours, with his light, dance-like step and the wondrous face of this brown American appeared in the stage lights – an imaginary twin of the illegitimate child of Thomas Jefferson. (...) Is he the first black to understand that it makes more sense to play with seduction than guilt? The first to decide not to be the accusation against America but rather the promise of its new chance?"

Calling him a “white negro” would be perfectly normal on the great, lesson-giving continent of wisdom, but in the United States, we would see that kind of atmospheric racism for what it really is whether someone wants it that way or not: treating a man like an inanimate object because of his appearance. Bringing the point home are comments on the blog asking if Barack Obama is “black enough” laced with the usual obsession with Jews that follows Bernard-Henri Levy around everywhere he writes.

The best thing to do is ignore European culture for about 50 years and see if it actually evolves into something that can relate to the human condition.

Colleges' Basic History Courses: America's Decisions Are Invariably Evil and Gratuitous and Every Adversary Is An Entirely Innocent One

This is the man most colleges entrust the general history of the United States — and, indirectly, the history of the rest of the world — to.



With the help of Mike Konopacki, Howard Zinn is now about to embark on a project to teach kids about "A People's History of American Empire" in comic book/graphic novel form…

Update: Nina May mentions a film Zinn would not know of (and would not be interested in were Emancipation Revelation Revolution to come to his attention)…

For Heavens’ Sake, Please Don’t Publish Any More of them!

The only thing more repellant than a European political type would be finding out what it is that gets his rocks off.

Have you kept your 'garden’ in shape?

60 year old Ilkka Kanerva [pictured here seeming to have gastric difficulty] would otherwise have been scheduled to be ignored.

New Boss Same as the Old Boss

A man running a veggie stand in what was used to be the repressive east meet the new morally repugnant elite that look like nothing more than a better dressed version of the Stasi roaming around in what was the still depressing but least dumpy part of the ‘former’ East Berlin:

He is part of the silent trek of labour nomads who make their way to Prenzlauer Berg early every morning to supply the Germans with fruit and vegetables, flowers and wine. From the prefab housing estates in the east come the Vietnamese, from former West Berlin the Turks; their arrival goes largely unnoticed. "People here sleep long," says Uygur with a thin smile. Around nine they start appearing at his tram stop, gripping takeaway coffees. The women so beautiful! The men sporting well-groomed designer stubble, not unshaven for lack of time like our shopkeeper. Uygur says they are probably as old as he is, but they seem like children to him. So carefree. So chubby-cheeked. And so uncompromising. They scrutinise his fruit and ask, "Where do these bananas come from? Are they organic?" And when he says "Fresh from the wholesale market" they put them back. Everything is so different in Prenzlauer Berg. Disappointment churns in the pit of Yunus Uygur's stomach, and in his mind a question has grown: Can good people be bad too?

Yes Yunus, they certainly can. Don’t worry. They’re working on their own extinction.

Prenzlauer Berg is plainly not what it thinks it is, not even regarding its much-celebrated fertility. Here only 35 children are born each year per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 45; that is less than in Wilmersdorf

To put this in context, Wilmersdorf has been looked down upon as a place populated by retirees and people who do something for a living, but they really aren’t the ones who really need a little extra fiber.

Ah Those Loving, Peaceful, Friendly Europeans

Bigoted hypocrites...
And they think we should be looking up to them for some reason.

Socialist Party enraged at increase of French troops in Afghanistan

Le parti politique préféré des talibanlieusards.

Sarkozy said he would go out and get missing growth with his teeth

He really said that. He must have been talking about those calcium treatments.

The fact of the matter is that this country is just one big death cult. With regards to the world at large, the French want out.

Aggravating factor: If the world is going to more or less follow in the direction of an American inspired globalisation, the French would rather snuff it. Maybe someone should help them.

One More Sign of an Overbearing, Empirious Super-State

All meddling is local.

A Brussels ruling has banned local services longer than 30 miles to ensure drivers don’t spend too long at the wheel.

As a result, drivers have to pull in as they hit that limit and order everyone OFF their bus.

They then change the route number on the front and invite passengers to jump back ON before resuming the trip.

Maybe they can call it an "environmental" measure.

Some of Them Don't Even Seem to Have any Blood to Give

The usual slander about what it means to be a conservative have little changed. Caricatured as tightwads, uncaring, wealthy, and venal, George Will recently reminded us how the data show the opposite to be the case. It’s also worth noting that the non-Washington Post reading public read all about this 16 months earlier.

If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:

• Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

• Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.

• Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.

• Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.

• In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

• People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

On the surface of these facts there is also a sort of forboding to be found when it comes to our sophisticated continental friends as well. If no-one else in this world believes that government must attend to the management of human life, it is the Europeans, the very people who conceived of every variant of socialism, communism, fascism, and today’s Gramscian Brave New World-like statist neediness.

I can’t also think of any place which is so developed, yet has so much helplessness, nihilism, and social anxiety. If anything dooms a people, it is just that.

My Anglo-Saxons are better than Your Anglo-Saxons

While the term “Anglo-Saxon” is used in France as a way to extend the B-word (Boches!) to the non-French, many Boches themselves see it as a compliment since it reflects well on them, and is often considered a global export on the order of, say, Champagne.

From the “Social Europe Journal” of all places, we find historian Heinrich August Winkler quoting historian Gerald Stourzh.

When we speak of the European Union as a community of values, what we really mean is that Europe is a community of states that embrace Western values. No one expresses the difference between Europe and the West as incisively as Viennese historian Gerald Stourzh when he writes, ‘By itself, Europe is not the West. The West extends beyond Europe. But Europe also extends beyond the West.’ The West’s identity as a community of values comprises the great Anglo Saxon-influenced democracies of North America, the United States, and Canada, as well as Australia and New Zealand, and, since its founding in 1948, Israel. Large parts of Europe, by contrast, have not shared in the development and adoption of values and institutions typically associated with these nations.

Never mind the little white lie about the European Union being the height of the Enlightenment. It’s not, especially what it promotes by example.

But even in this context I’m trying to figure out the angle of the insult, but I think it could be this: while some in the Francophile yack-space use the phrase as a way of distancing outlying events from their presumed nationally shared world view, what they’re really trying to say is that their better than someone else, and if not, they are otherwise special and not to be compared with those wild and crazy Anglo-Saxons wearing horned helmets and eschewing the codpiece of the civilized man. Instead when they call something “Anglo-Saxon” they want you to think of this as if Asterix and Obelix were still fighting off the dreaded European foe (albeit a “Latin” one). It’s auto-tonsil-hockey, and history demonstrates otherwise. In fact the best indicator of just who it is who will manage to make the worst out of enlightenment ideas, turn them on their head, and convince you that their new brutal -ism is okay, is being a European thinker.

P.S. – This edition of the journal also features Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who warns the notoriously deaf European left that Capitalism actually works if you can stand it. He points to some reasons to hold your nose, but one thing I respect greatly about him is his defense of the free market model and where it fits into a free society.

As if the fixation with the US wasn’t enough, they also include a chart with reasons why they’re better than Americans. Some of their factors in their recitation that singles us out include a “robust, state run media”.