Comments

1
Dan's leaving Dow to pick up his slack, eh?
2
There will always be youth offenders. Why not place them in a new, smaller structure that emphasizes counseling and rehabilitation? The larger, more prison-like current jail is not as effective and conducive to rehabilitation. Why wouldn't people want it torn down after the new one is built? Don't see why so many are objecting to this.
4
What a shame to have an overpaid bureaucrat feel compelled to debate the obvious.
5
Thank god we have someone in politics who will stand up for the best way forward in an imperfect world, in the face of idealistic protesters who otherwise have their heads buried in the sand.
6
@3. That would require admitting that single motherhood is huge burden on society and a major indicator of future criminality.

http://lib.post.ca.gov/Publications/Buil…

Ain’t goan happen, bruh. Mama’s on sainthood status.
7
If people are upset enough to engage in direct action, then elected officials should try to make a case for why that action is not justified. I believe County Executive Constantine will have little trouble making that case — especially if he asks the activists what *they* are doing to reduce the rates of violent offenses committed by juveniles.

@4: He’s an elected official, not a bureaucrat.
8
@6
Srsly? Blame the mothers and not the fathers who left them?
You're a waste of space.
9
@8. The fathers are pieces of shit. But nobody is giving them constant accolades either, now are they?
10
Also, mothers who choose to have children as a lone parent, mothers who choose to have children with men who refuse to help raise their own children, and mothers who have children with men without jobs or prospects are not quite as irresponsible as men who abandon their children...but it’s a conscious decision to cripple their offspring just the same. You can’t deny the results.
12
@11 ...Says the guy who throws rocks for a living.
13
The government started paying women to have children outside of marriage back in the 60s, and rates have skyrocketed since.
Government policy should be re-evaluated to see how it is incentivizing out-of-wed births and those incentives replaced with disincentives.
14
"More than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That is an express train right to prison and the cycle continues."
Don Lemon
15
A baby daddy isn't an invisible man, he just doesn't have the resources to provide all the money a woman and children need. I can remember when there were jobs for these men. Not fancy jobs but working at the GE plant and the General Hospital and as drivers on the rubbish truck and so forth. It was East L.A. and the families were intact. It isn't there anymore.

What I see in young men today is a contempt for the jobs available to them without "education" or functional employment support. They might be right but their own answers aren't any better. It is as if once conceived, they are now disposable. This culture likes to imagine an 14 to 18 year old is capable of reasoned judgement. It then spends a lot of derision on these barely grown humans.

The cultural bigotry that prevails in White Society makes a "Mother" a powerless cardboard thing. And what the hell is a "Father"? I had an actual Father and the job description he gave me was, "Giving you the ability to work in a world controlled by men" So I knew the rules, written and not, I also knew enough to control my own worth. It was my mother who equipped me with the internal controls of self respect.

Most of what happens to American Africans is woven by 2 centuries of institutional racism. These people differ so much from our new immigrant African Americans it's a shock to witness the self loathing as so real. More power to Black Lives Matter and Me Too. Let's hope the new program helps because we can't bail fast enough to keep this wreck of the old system afloat.

16
Racism is really bad and all but African American children conceived to and raised by their married parents do very well by all measures, even in this terrible racist country.
America actually works pretty well for folks who give it a chance to.
19
@18: he could. the pro side is pretty easy to argue for, since there is data showing it reduces deaths.

@4: how much should the King Co. Exec. make? How much does Constantine make?
20
@4 Do you know what words mean? Dow isn’t a bureaucrat - he’s elected, dumbfuck.

And. He’s hardly overpaid. He’s an executive of a county of over 2.1 million people and a budget of over $11 BILLION. Dow makes under $200k. Which is a steal for a county that pays a god damned King Co. Sheriff’s Deputy (Michael Miner) $226,756. LA county pays its executives over $350k.

But of course you didn’t not take time to research or think before you spew nonsense.

Do you never get tired of making stupid uninformed statements?

21
@Muffy

How exactly do you suggest that we reduce the number of single mothers in the United States?

We can't stop people from having sex.
We can't force people to use birth control.
We can't force women to have abortions.
We can't force couples to get married.

You can call for personal responsibility all you want, but unless you're willing to take children from their parents and have the state raise them then there's really nothing you can do.

You're really good at pointing out problems, but not so good at offering Solutions.
If you do happen to have a solution, I'd love to hear it.
22
21

When every child is born the SS of the father goes on the birth certificate and the IRS gets a letter; if the father is not supporting the child the IRS deducts $400 a month (adjusted for inflation over time) every month until the kid turns 18. Or 21.
If the father is a minor the parents pay until he is of age.

The money goes into a fund to support orphanages.

Within a very short time men would start learning how to use condoms.

23
@22

Most women I've had sex with never knew my social security number.
24
@22

Also, why $400.
It seems kind of arbitrary, doesn't it?
For someone who makes $16,000 a year, it would be a lot; but for someone who makes $160,000 a year it would hardly be a drop in the bucket.
25
@22

One more thing.
We actually already have a system that's very similar to the one you suggest.
It's usually called child support, and it isn't run by the IRS. In my home state, the agency that handles child support cases is called the Friend of the Court.
Lots of men pay child support, and I've actually known a few women that pay child support as well.
Guess what?
We still have single parents.
26
DNA testing will make it easier to identify dead beat dads.
If society gets serious about making 'fathers' support their children a way will be found.

Sure; it could be a sliding scale.

The IRS is way scarier than the Friends of the Court.
Again, we are getting serious about fathers supporting their kids.

If men have a substantial cost to pay for fathering children they are not going to support they will figure out how to limit their exposure.
They may be sorry pieces of shit but they are not stupid.
Hit them in the wallet and you will get their attention.

The other side of the coin is capping welfare assistance after one kid, cutting mom's incentive to keep pumping out bastards.
27
@26

Are you suggesting that the government should create a national DNA registry?
That sounds kind of big government to me.
You see, you can test a kid's DNA all you want, but if his father's DNA isn't on file somewhere, you're never going to find that deadbeat dad.

As far as capping welfare assistance after one child goes, that's going to punish the child as much or more than it's going to punish the parents.
Sorry, but I'm not cool with that.
28
Mom can tell the authorities who the dad(s) are or could be, and now that you mention it the monthly support payments can start as soon as mom knows she is pregnant.
If 'dad' won't help pay the pre-natal medical expenses he can start paying the IRS.

If children are suffering because their parent(s) won't care for them remove them.
Remember, we have a well funded orphanage system now.

And reform adoption laws to place the well being of the child first, instead of treating them like the property of the people who spawned them.
Then more families would be willing to adopt.
30
@28

Certainly remove children if parents won't care for them.
What if a parent can't care for them?
I assume that you understand the difference between won't and can't.

What if the mother doesn't know the father or potential father's real name?

The solutions that you are suggesting are already in place, and the situation still exists.

You also mentioned earlier that the IRS is "way scarier" than the Friend of the Court.
You do realize that the Friend of the Court has the ability to take deadbeat dads to court and send them to jail, right?

Again, all the solutions you have suggested already exists in one form or another, and they haven't stopped the problem.
31
There is very little or no stigma attached to men who do not support children they father.
The woman/girl is usually left to her own devices to have an abortion, or have the kid, or whatever; without expectation that the male will financially support anything.

And 'child support' as it currently exists, leaves a lot of women/children not getting what the court ordered.

The first step is recognizing that males have a responsibility to financially support the children they father, and then to set mechanisms in place to make that happen.
This will give men some incentive not to father children they do not intend to care for.
And that is not the world we live in at present.
32
@31

"The first step is recognizing that males have a responsibility to financially support the children they father, and then to set mechanisms in place to make that happen."
We already have, and we already do.
If that is the first step, then the first step has already been accomplished.
What's the second step?
33
@32

My understanding of this thread is a bit foggy, but it looks to me like Kinkaid's proposed solution is a new Sexual Intercourse tax levied on Those People, enforced by whatever means is most expedient.

You don't really need to argue with that kind of idea.

Please wait...

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