American family courts, the First Amendment, and violations of free speech for protective parents and unabated power
When inherent fundamental rights clash with the immediate power structure in place, those rights are the first to fall. Under the direction of corrupt institutions the ideal of inalienable rights becomes a misnomer—since the structures in place have the immediate power to deny you those rights, they are no longer inalienable by instant circumstance.
And so it is with the family courts. Although they co-exist in a land where federal constitutional rights abound, and where such rights are legally controlling, these courts routinely ignore them. The federal “inalienable” right to parent one’s child is barely ever mentioned or entertained. A fundamental right to be believed as a human being who has been abused, the family courts and laws allow a batterer to be believed in domestic violence yet make a victim of abuse prove they are a victim of horrible trauma. This makes no sense and violates all other laws where a perpetrator has to prove they did not perpetrate and not place the burden of proof on a victim. Yet why are family courts under the patriarchal ideologies of women as liars? Why are judges allowed to not be trained in domestic violence, child abuse, and why are they not given psychological evaluations before they can sit on the bench? Those of us who work in the court system know, without doubt, that judges should have a psychological evaluation and desperately need more training to do their job correctly. Yet they have no consequences for being ignorant, unfair, unjust, and biased. They are wolves watching the wolf house – protecting each other while blatantly ignoring laws without anyone holding them accountable. What other profession do we have in the United States that allows an individual to have no oversight so that omnipotent power can be used and abused?
A fundamental right is not to be infringed upon unless that right was forfeited by the person. Thus, for example, a person found guilty of some offense, via due process, can be denied the right to his/her freedom. And yet, federal constitutional parenting rights are violated in family courts all the time. Through no fault or action of their own, parents are routinely stripped of their parental custody rights, and of their free speech rights. Later after months or years of such constitutional denial, a hearing may be held that in itself can take months to complete. In practice, and likely by design, it rarely happens or it is too late to mean anything; usually a “settlement” is extorted from the parent.
In combined attrition, parents are beaten down psychologically and financially, through money spent on attorneys and mental health evaluators, and the continuing abusive denial of their children. During all that time, CPS and social workers, always looking to justify their existence, are constantly yapping at the ankles of parents, ready to pounce upon the slightest anonymous complaint or contrived folk wisdom, eager to interject themselves into the custody proceedings and shift the presumption of parental fitness using hysterical claims, usually against the victim.
Most of them are not trained appropriately and this shows in their behaviors and outcomes. Thankfully absent throughout the years of the intact family, it is when a family is dissolving CPS workers pop up like cow patty mushrooms, and like blowflies that are attracted to the whole mess. Suddenly neglect and abuse is seen everywhere it was never seen before. Their mere proximity, armed with official henhouse gossip, is enough to dirty the reputation of the target parent in the custody actions, again usually the father, irrespective of either the legitimacy of their accusations or eventual findings of innocence. And it is no accident, CPS agencies are overwhelmingly staffed and driven by inadequately trained men and women.
And all this is considered a perfectly normal template, applied to the assembly line of families to be processed through their machine; milking parents of their resources, time, money, and quality of life. Most importantly to the system, it is the money that can be gouged from them, through threats of fines, imprisonment, loss of their children, and public defamation. With such extortionate powers, the money pours into the family court system like water—the attorneys, psychologists, therapists, evaluators, visitations centers, the filing fees, and transcripts costs. Judicial orders and threats move these things along, with police, tasers, guns, and jail cells not far behind for those who don’t play ball.
All these things, traditionally very hidden from public view, provide a backdrop of corruption that would otherwise be prime for public criticism and expose. But the thing thrives in the dark, and can fester only when not being criticized or revealed. Much as a tyrant like Idi Amen was able to get away with atrocities in Uganda, but only while he kept it hidden within his borders, when it spills over into the rest of the world such regimes collapse under their own top-heavy, brittle, and self-justifying existence.
Similarly, the allergic reaction that most family court judges respond with, to anything even approaching public attention or criticism, is a consequence of their guilty knowledge of what they do, and their need to cover it up. Such judges will misuse the power of their office to silence, sanction, remove children from, and even imprison those who dare criticize their system. It makes no difference to them that everything they do is public record by law and a constitutional right of the public to see them. Aware of the zero-tolerance attitude of family court judges to public revelations, savvy attorneys will naturally attempt to game the system by filing motions in these courts seeking to shut down the opposing side’s public speech, motions that in any other court would be considered legally frivolous, and sanctionable.
As they see it, who needs quality control when there are no consequences?
Like cockroaches, the functionaries making up these institutions run for cover when exposed to the light of public attention and will therefore try to subvert any attempt to do so. It is the same dynamic that drives police officers across the nation to falsely assert their right to commit atrocities in public, yet demand that no one be permitted to record them doing it. With the same mentality, family courts have reacted similarly to public disclosure of their normally hidden inner sanctum. With the fortress-like edifice that family courts hold against any review or oversight, the only thing they seem to respond to is public attention and outrage, and have developed ways to keep their violations out of public view. Illegal edicts, threats, and orders often get conveyed to parents in far more subtle ways, ways that lack a formal written record or order that they can be held accountable for. Family court judges will order or threaten parents from the bench, not issuing a formal written order that they know can be appealed or republished to the public. In this way they avoid the disinfecting sunlight of public attention, yet still manage to convey their threats and censorship.
My hope is that there will be a movement across this country to stop family court corruption and expose the truth of what is happening within the walls. That we expose the judges who behave and think they are “gods” with no consequences to their actions of harm to families, but mostly to the children who need “protections” not “patriarchy” when safety from abusers is necessary.