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stella41b -> RE: Sperm Donor Ordered to Pay Lesbians Child Support (12/5/2007 4:48:44 AM)
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My viewpoint here isn't going to be popular.. but this is how it strikes me.
The arrangement was very clear. It doesn't matter whether they had a relationship of some sort or not. I mean, if you are breeding dogs and you sell someone a puppy, I would assume you wouldn't just hand over the puppy to the first person who came to your door. You would probably want to know how the relationship forms between puppy and owner and how the puppy adapts to its new home. Consider that for a sperm donor and a child, which to me cannot be compared to a puppy, that concern is increased tenfold.
I see something sinister here, and I don't like it. What I don't like is the way the woman was coerced by the CSA to seek maintenance for the child under threat of loss of income. This not only smacks of Soviet style totalitarianism - rules are rules are rules - but is also a clear and shining example of how modern government has regressed to 19th century thinking. This clearly sets a new sinister precedent - the choice between children and being on welfare benefit.
But here we're not talking about someone playing the system, we're not talking about someone having lots of children to get more in welfare benefit. We're not talking about economic immigrants pretending to be refugees or asylum seekers. We're talking here about ONE child who is British of British parentage.
What is the most important issue here? We'd say the welfare of the child. But no, it's not. Is it then the family unit? No. Wrong again. Is this about money then? Yes, of course it is. Are the interests of the child the most important? No, of course not. Of the family unit? Again, no. This is Britain, a country where yet again we see another example of where the interests of the government, a corporation or some other organization take clear precedence over the interests and rights of the citizen. Why? To save the British government £20 a week.
Now we can go on and argue all day long about parental responsibility and single parents and so on, but this isn't to me the major issue.
I don't care how the media presents this - we either live in a democratic society or we don't. This isn't a grey area to me, it's black and white. Democracy to me is for the people, by the people, and a state which has an obligation to its citizens and such a thing known as state responsibility.
The CSA or Child Support Agency is a special department of the Department of Social Security who's sole purpose is to track down the absent fathers of children of single mothers and force them to pay an arbitrary amount of child maintenance for their children with the sole purpose of getting that single mother off benefits and forcing her into employment. It was set up under Thatcher and is run rather like the Nazis ran the Gestapo, they have their own rules, their rules take precedence, no ifs, no buts, don't give a shit about what circumstances or incomes they come across, the father is tracked down, they decide how much is to be paid, and they have powers to get that money out of the father whether he's got the money or not.
This was set up after the social phenomenon of young women getting pregnant and becoming a single mother just to get somewhere to live off the local authority, which in a society of free market property values was a viable alternative. This comes after years of local authorities telling young people "we cannot consider you for housing unless you've got kids".
Put yourself into their situation. You're young, you're poor, you don't want to have to live with your parents all your life, and you're female, you're not very emotionally mature, and you got a local council telling you that if you got a kid you'll probably get a flat if you're prepared to wait. What are you going to do?
Maybe if Thatcher hadn't sold off all the local authority housing stock dirt cheap trying to raise cash from the citizen to put into the control of banks and their corporate and financial services frineds there would probably have never been a 'single mother' phenomena, there would still be access to cheap social housing, there might not be a need for the CSA and you never know, there might still be a Britiah workforce rather willing to take minimum wages just to work.
But no, this is Britain. Not only do we have a talent for bumbling, fraudulent and incompetent corporate businessmen but we've gone through more than two decades strongly influenced by two really brilliant politicians who walked the walk and talked the talk, but who were unfortunately at the complete mercy of the incompetent idiots and assholes in the City - Thatcher, the iron Lady grocer's daughter and Blair, the well-meaning, frightfully posh but middle class wanting-to-be-cool-and-oh-so-trendy Balir.
I'm sorry, but until I see a British government who's prepared to invest and be responsible to the interests of the people who elect it and start respecting democracy (in the traditional sense) whenever I hear a politician talking about 'child poverty' I'm just going to assume that they're totally confused as to what is a mouth and what is an asshole.
Just my $1.02
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