Posted by
Lake Level on Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:44:57 AM
Attention all talk show hosts. Stephen Baskerville is on tour promoting one of the most important books of the decade, Taken Into Custody. Below is an excerpt from his Web site http://www.stephenbaskerville.net/.
The divorce regime is the most totalitarian
institution ever to arise in the United States. Its
operatives in the family courts and the social service agencies
recognize no private sphere of life. "The power of family court judges
is almost unlimited," according to Judge Robert Page of the New Jersey
family court. "Social workers are perceived to have nearly unlimited
power," a San Diego Grand Jury concludes. "Absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Total immunity [enjoyed by social workers] is absolute
power."
The divorce regime is responsible for much more than
"ugly divorces," "nasty custody battles," and other clichés. It is the
most serious perpetrator of human and constitutional rights violations
in America today. Because it strikes the most basic institution of any
civilization – the family – the divorce regime is a threat not only to
social order but to civil freedom. It is also almost completely
unopposed. No political party and no politicians question it. No
journalists investigate it in any depth. A few attorneys have spoken
out, but they are eventually suspended or disbarred. Some academics
have written about it, but they soon stop. No human rights or civil
liberties groups challenge it, and some positively support it. Very few
"pro-family" lobbies question it. This is because the divorce regime
operates through money, political power, and fear.
The divorce regime is much more serious than simply
"unfairness" or "gender bias" against fathers in custody proceedings.
It is the government’s machine for destroying the principal check on
its power – the family – and criminalizing its main rival: fathers. The
most basic human and constitutional rights are routinely violated in
America’s family courts. The lives of children and parents are in
serious danger once they are, as the phrase goes, taken into "custody."
Systemic conflicts-of-interest among government and private officials
charged with child custody, child support, child protection, and
connected matters have created a witch hunt against plainly innocent
citizens.
The terror of the divorce regime is not a future
possibility; it is a present reality. The following methods are
currently employed by family courts and other government agents. These
practices are now widespread in America:
- mass incarcerations without trial or charge
- forced confessions
- children forcibly separated from parents who are under no suspicion
of legal wrongdoing and parents stripped of the care, custody, and
companionship of their children without explanation
- government agents entering the homes, demanding and examining
private papers and personal effects, and seizing the property of
citizens who are under no suspicion of legal wrongdoing
- official court records, including hearing tapes and transcripts,
doctored and falsified with the knowledge of court officials and
evidence fabricated against the innocent
- defendants denied the constitutional right to face their accusers
- bureaucratic police authorized to issue subpoenas and arrest
warrants against parents, with no hearing and contrary to due process
of law
- special courts created specifically to process parents for political offenses
- forced labor facilities created specifically for parents
- children instructed to hate their parents with the backing of government officials
- children forced by government officials to act as informers against their parents
- children abused and killed with the backing of government officials
- knowingly false allegations, for which no evidence is presented,
accepted as fact without proof, overturning the presumption of
innocence, and not punished when demonstrated to be untrue
- parents ordered by government officials to separate from their spouses, on pain of losing their children
- parents forced to pay the private fees of court officials they have
not hired and whose services they have not sought or used, on pain of
incarceration
- parents suspected of no legal wrongdoing punitively stripped of
their property and income, sometimes at gunpoint, and reduced to penury
- government officials using the mass media to vilify private
American citizens, and political leaders using their offices as
platforms to verbally attack private American citizens, who have no
right of reply or opportunity to defend themselves
- parents jailed without trial reportedly beaten, in at least one
case fatally, and denied medical attention while in police custody.
I have made these charges in some of the most
reputable publications in
the English language. They have never been refuted. Yet neither have
they been corrected or even addressed by public officials, the media,
or academics.
This site will tell you the truth about the divorce
regime.
It contains virtually all my published works – over 70 articles – on the
fatherhood crisis and the corruption of the divorce industry (except book
reviews and radio commentaries). For better or worse, these are the most
strongly worded writings to appear on this subject in mainstream publications.
I am heavily indebted for the many letters, stories,
documents, clippings, studies, citations, books, e-mail communications,
and telephone calls – collected and sent to me by hundreds, perhaps
thousands of people. It is not possible
to name all these people, and many prefer not to be named.
Stephen Baskerville
March 2007