From the Desk of Karl Denninger

October 20, 1999

Dear Vice-President:

I read with considerable interest your commentary picked up by Associated Press regarding "deadbeat Dads".

Didn’t you really mean "deadbeat parents"? How about "malicious parents"?

Or better yet, how about some recognition of the real problems in the federally-incented systems today that break apart families and disenfranchise parents – usually fathers – in these situations?

Let’s face some facts, shall we? The huge majority (more than 80%) of those who don’t pay child support are either unemployed, incarcerated, or, believe it or not – deceased. Second, studies show that twice as many non-custodial women refuse to pay ordered support than men on a percentage basis.

But both of these realities belie the true problem – that parents are routinely stripped of their right to be a parent following separation or divorce. They are stripped of this right by a government out of control, taking what it feels like from one person and giving it to another, while disregarding every principle of Constitutional Government that exists.

Fundamental rights are not something that can be justly removed without first proving that someone has violated a duty of citizenship or injured another. Yet that is precisely what most men face today in divorce court.

I, personally, prevailed in protecting my parental rights – at a cost of $300,000. How many men, Mr. Gore, don’t have $300,000? Do you have an extra quarter of a million dollars laying around to give to lawyers for such a fight – a fight instigated by your wife, over your objections, and for which you must pay – or surrender your children?

Is it any wonder that men are fed up with these tactics and refuse to play "nice"?

Mr. Vice-President, you have completely missed the boat. Worse, you have miscalculated in a serious fashion the sense and outrage of American men on this issue. There are seventeen and a half million men just like myself out here in America today. I can guarantee that every one of us decided who we will not vote for as President in the 2000 elections on the basis of your recent statement.

Your democratic challenger, Bill Bradley, is even worse. Senator Bradley authored the now-famous federal law that prohibits a person who is wrongly assessed child support (ie: the man assessed is later proven not to be the father of the child) from recovering one thin dime of the money he has had forcibly extracted from him. This is true, under the law that bears the name "The Bradley Amendment" – even when that money was obtained under false or fraudulent pretense and even if the mother knew she was pursuing the wrong man. Scratch another candidate from the list of possible contenders for the Presidency.

What you have done, Mr. Vice-President, is commit 17.5 million Americans to vote for the Republican candidate – regardless of their stand on any other issue.

For us this has become a single-issue presidential campaign, and I can assure you that I, and 17.5 million other American men, feel precisely this way.

Can you, or Bill Bradley, survive 17.5 million votes for the "other guy"? Are you certain enough of your candidacy’s success to flush well over 10 percent of the electorate’s support down the political latrine?

Can you repair this breach?

It is possible.

Were you to do that I, and other children’s and father’s rights activists and organizations across this nation, would whole-heartedly endorse your candidacy.

May you make the correct moral and ethical choice for our nation’s children.

Sincerely,

Karl Denninger