By Reynold N Mason JD

Last week as Americans commemorated 9/11, Muslims across America were conflicted.  Ramadan, this year ended on 9/11.  Good people of the Muslim faith were afraid that any celebrations on their part would be misperceived by angry Americans.  Celebrations of Ramadan were cancelled from Fresno, California to Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  And to compound the matter, the simmering issue of the mosque at ground zero  flared anew because of the proposed Koran burning by a Florida pastor on 9/11.  For months now the controversy surrounding the building of the mosque near ground zero has raged, dominating the headlines and providing fodder for the pundits.  This issue will not just fade away and our leaders, religious as well as political, need to confront it head on.  A few weeks ago, I opined in this space that like all Americans, Muslims are entitled to lay claim to religious freedom, including the right to build their place of worship on private land. But the opposition has been vocal and fringe elements have occasionally crossed the line into violence.

‘Americans are angry’ said one radio talk show host speaking of the mosque controversy, “more than 68 per cent of Americans oppose the mosque at the proposed location”. There were anti-Muslim flare ups in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and in Carlton, NY, where youths harassed worshipers at a mosque and fired a gun disrupting services. Americans are demanding the imam pull up stakes and leave town. Governor Patterson of New York even offered an alternate site on state land. When the governor’s proposal was turned down by the imam, immediately, the motives of the mosque sponsors were looked upon with suspicion.  “Why in the name of commonsense “, asked one pundit, “would the imam want to proceed with the mosque in the face of such angry opposition?”  This must mean the mosque is intended as a triumphal symbol, marking the place of a great Islamic victory over the infidels.   We should bear in mind that the unpopularity of the cause is not the metric by which we measure our constitutional freedoms. The civil rights act of 1964 was even more unpopular. Southern states opposed it, and southern democrats voted against the act in congress 87 to 7 . Southern republicans were opposed 10 to 0.

Americans of every stripe have voiced their concerns.  And while those opposed to the  mosque have a point, (the site is a virtual grave yard of loved ones lost on 9/11)  We  must bear in mind always, that Muslims are under no obligation to  alter their plans just because  we do not wish them to build their  mosque near ground zero.  And they are under no obligation to cotton to the demands that they choose an alternate site.  Rosa Parks was offered an alternate seat on the bus in 1955. Who, in retrospect, would argue, in spite of the cost in blood, that Rosa parks made the wrong decision? Who today would dare argue that those nine black students, who braved angry white mobs and defied governor Orval Farbus to integrate Central High School in Arkansas should have, for fear of reprisals, remained safely at home? Who would today claim that James Meredith, the first black to enroll at the University of Mississippi should have stepped aside, despite the riots that broke out following this historic event?  Americans were even angrier then and a good many expressed that anger in senseless violence.

Those who stand in the way of the mosque are just as guilty as Alabama Governor George Wallace who, in 1963, stood in the way of Vivian Malone and James Hood, two blacks attempting to enroll at the University of Alabama.  America is too large and too diverse a nation for cultural and religious issues to be always resolved smoothly or without conflict.  Neither the mosque nor the Muslims who propose it are a menace to the republic. We can profit from the examples of our own history.  Each conflict in our history has seen America emerge stronger and more cohesive, more respectful of the differences in culture and creed that make us unique.   The issue of the mosque near ground zero is just one more test of yet another part of the great engine of diversity that drives this country. For blacks, it was civil rights and today for Muslims, it is the incendiary issue  of religious freedom that is dividing Americans of every stripe.

Despite pretentions to motivations such as respect for the 9/11 victims, the plain truth is that bigotry has dominated the issue of the construction of the mosque near ground zero. America needs vocal support of the embattled Muslims, not muted voices afraid of political fallout.  Principled voices, if they are raised above the guttural level of this fratricide will be the ones that determine whether the present squabble over religious freedom will be an asset or a liability. As Rabbi David Saperstein put it “We know what it’s like when people attack us physically, verbally and others have remained silent…..”   Simply asserting their first amendment right to freedom of religion is unavailing to Muslims because of the unprincipled and bigoted opposition to the construction of the mosque.  They face foes every bit as determined as the proponents of Jim Crow in the old South.   This is a standing invitation to fair-minded people to heed Rabbi Saperstein’s counsel and prove that religious freedoms in America are safe from assault. If this challenge is met, our freedom will be far more certain, and less vulnerable to attack by the forces that seek to divide us.  We must put ourselves in the position of those who believe differently from us and consider what they must feel when their appeal to the first amendment is rebuffed simply because of their faith.

This crisis has a silver lining.  Unless grounds of religious freedom are fully and often tested and discussed, freedom of religion will become just dogma. Not the living, breathing truth. It will harken back to the dark days of the American past when, despite the often repeated words “all men are created equal” in the minds of most Americans enslaving an entire race could be rationalized.  Like children repeating the 12 times table by rote, we would have no idea of the true meaning of the religious freedom gifted to us by our founding fathers. This crisis presents us another learning opportunity, an opportunity to burnish and strengthen the freedoms we all cherish in the crucible of public debate.

By Reynold N. Mason Esq.

Shane Seyer was 12 years old when his mother dropped   him off at the home of a neighborhood friend for the first time.   She had to work and Shane was not yet old enough to be left home alone.   By the age of 14 Shane Seyer was a father.  The caregiver, an older woman had begun a sexual relationship with the boy that ultimately led to her pregnancy.   The woman, unable to find work to support herself and the baby, applied for welfare (AFDC) [see: War against fathers Part 1].  She was paid more than $7,000.00 for the support of the child before Welfare demanded that she sue the father to establish paternity.  The Welfare Agency brought an action against Shane, now 14 years of age, to establish paternity and compel him to repay to the State the money paid to the mother for the support of his son. They say love begets love. But in Shane’s case love begat an unwanted child.

And since the love of money is the root of all evil, all heck broke loose.  Shane defended himself by claiming that he was under the age of consent at the time the baby sitter took unlawful liberties with him and became pregnant.   The sitter was charged with statutory rape because the boy was not old enough to consent to the activity, although he admittedly engaged in it voluntarily.  The sitter was unwilling to pursue Shane for child support, but had no choice in the matter.  Under AFDC, she had assigned her right to any future order of child support to the state, and they were hell bent on getting their money back. Shane was hauled into Family Court for child support. And at the tender age of 15 he found himself standing before a family court judge, beads of perspiration oozing from his pores, giving him the appearance of a diver emerging from a dip in the pool.

The tension in the court room was palpable. The boy’s mother was inconsolable. The babysitter and her family sat at counsel table staring straight ahead.  As the judge reentered the court room to deliver his decision, all heads turned and a hushed silence descended on the room that just moments ago was abuzz with the chatter of anticipation.  Everyone had an opinion, and the people in court room divided themselves into two tidy groups, one to the left and the other to the right  of  the center aisle.  One group lining up behind petitioner, the babysitter and the AFDC lawyer,  the other behind Shane  and   his family,( who had turned out in force, ) depending on where their sympathies lay.  The judge, stern and robed  in  judicial black sat down and intoned the usual pleasantries, then in his deep judicial tenor Said “ladies and please be seated”. Never before in the state of Kansas had this issue come before a court.  Much hung on this decision.

“THE ISSUE BEFORE THIS COURT” said the judge, “is whether an underage alleged victim (alleged, huh!) of a sex crime can be held liable for the support of a child born as a result of such a crime…..”  What the court uttered next still echoes in the ears of parents in Kansas and elsewhere.  “If voluntary intercourse results in parenthood,” said the court, “then for purposes of child support, the parenthood is voluntary.  This is true even if the 14 year old boy’s parenthood resulted from a sexual assault upon him within the meaning of the criminal law.” Wow! What this means for all fathers, old or young, is that is that there is no escaping the obligation for child support.   Shane was held liable for the support and maintenance of the child, even though he was a minor and a sexual assault was committed upon him resulting in his becoming a father at tender age of 14. This is not ancient legal doctrine. It happened in the 1990’s and is still the law today.

How would you have ruled had you been the judge? Please limit our comments to 100 words or less.

By Reynold N. Mason Esq. 

Willie Gary is a wealthy Georgia attorney, no doubt about it. He earns over one million dollars per month. When he met an attractive, svelte runner vying for a spot on the US Olympic decathlon team in 2000, he was smitten. The romance quickly blossomed and not long afterwards, Willie and his new flame were sharing a luxury pad.  But things soon soured and the couple separated.  By then there were twin boys whom Willie had fathered.  For his brief dalliance with the mother he was forced to shell out $28,000.00 per month for child support.  As part of the support package Willie had to make the down payment on a house for the boys and his ex- girlfriend, along with her 13 year old daughter by another man and, prepay for four years of college e for the boys.  In addition, Willie made a lump sum payment of $175,000.00 for the support and maintenance of the twins. How in the name of justice could a court hang such financial albatross around the neck of a father?   Mind you, Willie had been supporting the boys in fine style before the ex- paramour decided she could do better before a Family Court judge.

The truth is, this is not child support.  And the judicial hypocrites in black robes well know it.  Most state laws provide that children should be maintained, along with the mother in the circumstances to which they have become accustomed.  That bit of legal absurdity has been used to justify exorbitant awards of child support that bear no relationship to the needs of the children.  Georgia law applicable to Willie’s case provided that children should have the same economic standard of living as a child with parents of similar means living in an intact family.  One wonders how a woman who existed on a nurse’s salary all of her adult life can, in so short a lapse of time, become so accustomed to her new high living circumstances, financed by her paramour, that he  is obliged, on pain of legal lynching, to continue to pay for her lifestyle long after the relationship has soured?  

What happened to Willie Gary is not uncommon.  Many other well-to –do fathers have been snared by the child support trap, as I noted in part I of this series.  What, these drones do with their newly acquired fortunes is anyone’s guess.  The average American family subsists on $50,000.00 per year. So it is difficult to imagine one woman reaping a bonus of $28,000.00 every month disguised as child support.  Any fair-minded person, including fair-minded feminists (that may be an oxymoron) would agree that this whopper of a monthly stipend is excessive and beyond the bounds of common sense.  In the case of Willie’s ex, she contracted squander mania.  Behaving as if she had hit the mega millions jackpot, she made investments, one netting her a profit of $100,000.00, with the child support money.  She went on a wild spending spree that often had her waiting anxiously for the next $28,000.00 installment to arrive.  She had frequent overdrafts on her checking accounts, and past due fees and charges on her revolving accounts. She became so addicted to the easy cash that the court, in a rare episode of judicial lucidity, expressed concern about her spending habits.  Refreshing.  The court was concerned that the mother’s pattern of borrowing from friends to tide her over until the next check arrived would have a negative impact on the boys’ welfare.   The court said that Willie’s ex, in perfect physical and mental health and capable of full time employment had refused to contribute to her own upkeep.  She held a college degree but testified that she had no intention of getting a job.

The gravy train finally came to a stop for Willie’s  ex , but not entirely.  The court reduced the child support payments to $60,000.00 per year,  a mere $10,000.00 more than the average US family of four will take home this year for the toil and moil of two working adults. Collectively, fathers in Willie’s circumstances must hope that this ray of judicial light that illuminated the abuse heaped on fathers paying child support, especially wealthy ones, will gradually shine into the dark corners where, under color of law, fathers are fleeced and put on a fast track to the poor house.   Fair minded people should be morally outraged.   And our legislators ought to move to banish the state of mind that allows a court to couch its decisions in the “style to which she has become accustomed” disguise. But instead, the NCSL, (National Council of State Legislators) in one of its recent annual conferences, offered a primer to state “child support professionals’ titled CS 101.  In that conference, the NCSL suggests that the best way to encourage fathers to pay support is to

1)     Restrict driver licenses

2)     Require employers to report all new hires to the child support agency.

3)     Take aggressive approach such as booting the cars of fathers in arrears, or by publishing a “most wanted” list of deadbeat dads.

They were concerned, they said, with the basic issue of fairness among parents. Give us a break.

The regressive one-sided approach to this issue ignores credible research on the issue of nonpayment of child support. Sanford Braver, an ASU professor who studies the economics of the family found, in one study, that the main reason for nonpayment of child support among men is unemployment.  And in a recent study, the US Census Bureau found two-thirds of custodial mothers admitted that fathers did not pay because they were unemployed.  It is high time we wake up and take a good hard look a system that produces the outcome in the Willie Gary case. The problem is not deadbeat dads, but rather unrealistic, crushing sums of money fathers are forced to pay in the name of child support.

You can read the record in Willie Gary child support case; Gary v Gowns,  cv108224/2005 in Fulton County Court Ga.

By Reynold N Mason Esq.

When it comes to child support in America, common sense has gone to the dogs.  What justification could there be for compelling a father to pay $51,000.00 for the support of one child?   This is not fiction.  $51,000.00 a month is what Eddie Murphy pays to Melanie Brown, for the support of his child.  A simple calculation shows that the mother will have received more than $11 million dollars by the child’s 18^th birthday.  This is not a quirk or an aberration.   Rapper Nas, was forced to pay $350,000.00 to his ex-wife to avoid jail.  In New York, P. Diddy’s court-ordered child support payment of $21, 782.00 is the highest ever in New York.  By the child’s 18^th birthday, the mother will have received over $4.5 million in support payments from P. Daddy.   The list of celebrities trapped in the fangs of this monster is so long that it will persuade even hard-core feminists that the system is abusive toward fathers.  But when the gavel comes down in family court, even the ordinary Joe has  reason for dread.

Consider the case of Major Wingate, a college student and basketball hopeful. He fathered a child by his girlfriend while at the university of Tennessee.  He did not make it to the NBA, so on the advice of his handlers he headed overseas to try and kick start his basketball career.  Wingate played basketball in China, Romania, Puerto Rico and other countries in the hope he would be noticed by NBA talent scouts.  His career sputtering, he returns home and is promptly jailed by a judge because he had fallen behind in his child support payments. The judge was concerned that being such a global traveler he might not show up for his trial.  Child support has driven even the wealthy into penury.   Lawrence Taylor, former NFL great and now a Hall of Famer, was driven into bankruptcy by exorbitant child support.  Once he left the NFL, LT was unable to maintain the high level of child support on his diminished income.  Darryl Strawberry, even while he battled cancer and unemployment was snared by the child support trap.   To avoid jail he was forced to pay $350,000.00 in back payments and another $10,000.00 per month to catch up on arrears on $194,000.00.  At the settlement conference, the prosecutor promised: “If Mr. Strawberry fails to meet his payments he will go to jail.” Strawberry was also ordered to keep up the regular $12,000.00 monthly payments for the two children.

 Child Support  Enforcement : the birth of a monster.

No one questions the deeply rooted and firmly held belief that parents have a moral obligation to support their children.  But the good intentions of federal bureaucrats have gone awry.  In 1996, faced with an increasing bill for AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), the Clinton Administration transformed the system of child support into a penal apparatus, replete with its own bureaucracy of child protective services, support collection agents, social workers and, of course, the courts. This system operates outside the constitutional order and, over the last decade has transformed child support enforcement (CSE) into a tyrant that operates by its own rules.  The original intent of CSE was to recover money paid to needy families to support children of fathers who had abandoned the families or were ‘willfully absent parents’ who were not supporting their children.   The single mother problem was draining welfare funds, especially in the inner cities and swelling the welfare rolls.  The intention was to recover from absent fathers, money paid by the government for the support of their families. This system now called TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) was tied to need, and helped families whose income was not enough to meet family needs.  Mothers were required to have paternity established and assign to the state, any benefits established by a future child support order.  A mother who did not have paternity established had her payments reduced.  The government then goes after the absent parent to recover its money.  This effectively made the state a collection agency.  Billions of federal dollars are available to states that meet federal guidelines for recouping welfare payments from absent parents. In 2006 the Federal  government  paid $4.2 billion to states under TANF. The result is that states now use the program to increase their caseload. In New York, for example, every parent is required to make child support payments through the Support Collection Unit (SCU) and all employed parents must pay through deduction directly from their pay check. 

By this legislative  sleight of hand, New York and sister states have entrapped  willing fathers and brought them into the system intended only for “welfare families” increasing  their caseload and their share of federal dollars for  the increased support collection. The states have become, under this system,  virtual collection agencies taking a cut of whatever they bleed out of fathers, absent or not.  This quasi legal artifice is used to trap support paying fathers, not just “willfully absent’ parents, and bring them into the TANF program, with no eligibility requirements.  All that is now required is entitlement to child support.  The father need not be absent and may even be current on his voluntary payments.   An entire industry has sprung up turning a family matter into a lucrative for- profit business, plunging middle class families into the abyss of CSE and dooming untold number of fathers to virtual serfdom.

Across the country, bar associations, labor unions, social workers, and collection agencies have all hopped aboard the gravy train.  Their sleek advertisements can be seen on television inviting mothers to avail themselves of collection services, “no fee unless we collect.” These programs, of dubious social value, keep the cash flowing into state and private coffers by draining money from fathers sliding into poverty under the weight of an unfair system.  According to a Preliminary Data Report from the Washington office of child support issued in 2003, the non- welfare cases, divorced and separated fathers, accounted for 83% of the CSE case load, and 92 % of the money collected.  At its inception welfare cases comprised 100 % of the CSE caseload. The report found that “most states make a profit on their child support program”, and are free to spend the money in any way they see fit.  Because of this disconnect, every fatherless child is looked upon as a source of revenue for states strapped for cash.  The scramble for federal dollars, in addition to interest and penalties on arrears, is the engine driving the exponential growth of the CSE behemoth.   This system allowed Ohio to rake in $240 million and California $640 million in 2003, according to the Green Book for the House Ways and Means committee for 2003.

Before the birth of CSE, nearly all support was paid directly from one parent to another without officious meddling by government bureaucrats. The criminal enforcement methods that have become de rigueur were employed only in welfare cases to compel recalcitrant inner city fathers to repay money paid for support of their children under TANF.   These methods, meant for welfare cases, now apply to all child support cases, even though there is no willfully absent parent or refusal to pay support.  For men in general, and for a few women, child support has been transformed from a system of public assistance into penal machinery, bilking willing and able fathers of their hard-earned money, often beyond their ability to pay.  When this happens, the full range of criminal sanctions is brought to bear. These sanctions can crush and paralyze fathers and destroy second families.  Missed payments lead to jail for contempt, loss of driver’s license, asset seizures, garnished   paychecks, tax refund intercepts and even revocation of a father’s passport.  The machinery leaves no stone unturned; employers are now required to file a report whenever a new employee is hired.  In a few jurisdictions a father in arrears may find his car booted.  The burden of alleviating welfare has shifted from the government onto the backs of middle class fathers.  It is a forced march to the poor house, and those who fall behind will be tagged with the vile moniker “deadbeat dads.” One writer has said the constitution never granted the states license to steal, but in 2010, the fleecing of working fathers is occurring before our eyes disguised as the CSE monster.

My thanks to Stephen Baskerville of the Institute for policy Innovation and, to Larry Holland and Jason Bottomley;  their work on this issue has brought important policy questions to light.

by  Reynold  N. Mason Esq.

Over the past week the noise surrounding the building of the proposed mosque near ground zero has drowned out other nettlesome issues on the political scene. Only the Shirley Sherrod controversy eclipsed the squabble over the building of the mosque.  Ironically, Shirley Sherrod, whose father was shot in the chest and killed by a bigot, was herself victimized by the very bigotry and prejudice that led to her father’s killing, and now has given rise the controversy over the ground zero mosque.

After 9/11, prejudice against Muslims has become de rigueur. Many Americans view Islam as somewhat of a cultural pariah, inferior in teaching and practice  to American mainstream mores and, as a violent political ideology. Hate crimes against Muslims spiked in the aftermath of 9/11, from 354 in 2000 to 1501 in 2001.  A good number of Americans view Islamic rules about marriage, divorce and custody as regressive.  We rail against amputation for stealing, and the stoning of an adulterer but we impose the death penalty on criminals. We criticize Islam’s unequal treatment of women, but we treat divorced fathers like serfs, in virtual servitude to alimony drones. American feminists have successfully changed the courts and the law, as well as American attitudes about divorce, custody and child support. Instead of viewing fathers as individuals we make sweeping assumptions and treat all fathers as second class citizens. We incarcerate unemployed fathers who are not able to pay child support. So who are we to criticize Islam for making sweeping assumptions about women? Our cultural elitism is misguided and misplaced. Simply being different does not make us superior.

The Islamic community has just as much right to build near ground zero as the catholic community would have to erect a cathedral at the same site.  Sara Palin is wrong and misguided in her expression of opposition to the mosque.  Islam did not destroy the World Trade Center. A few Islamic extremists did. We do not condemn the entire Catholic Church or seek to drive it away from schools because of a few pedophiles in its ranks. But we refuse to apply the same discriminating logic to Islam. Instead we lay responsibility for the misguided acts of a few extremists at the door of the mosque. Muslims are entitled to the same religious freedoms as every other American. Unless we can demonstrate that the proposed mosque would endanger the peace and safety, then we are wrong for opposing it.

For once, mayor Bloomberg is right. In spite of polls showing New Yorkers oppose the building of the mosque at ground zero, he has taken a principled position. As a representative of all the citizens on New York, he has an obligation to refrain from expressing any preference for one religious group over another.  He is right to ignore calls of those engaged in demagoguery over this fundamental America freedom, the freedom of religion.  It is wrong for Rick Lazio and others seeking political advantage to engage in unprincipled opposition to the mosque.

Democracy is organized anarchy.  There must, of necessity, be dissent, disagreement and dialogue. But the knee-jerk response to the proposed mosque near around zero is based on irrational fear and prejudice, and has no place in the democratic process.  It is that species of prejudice that spawned Jim Crow jurisprudence in the old south that we as Americans would like to forget.  It is high time we heed the lesson of our own history.  America interned its innocent citizens of Japanese descent during world war two because the empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. And in the 1790’s, (as Morton Borden writes in: Jew Turks and infidels) when most Americans were Protestant Christians, 11 of the states denied Jews the right to vote or hold office.  ((Americans should not demonize and vilify all of Islam because it is at odds with many of our cherished American values, such as equality, freedom of expression, the traditional family, and separation of church and state)). The erstwhile speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, in opposition to the ground zero mosque has said: “There should never be a mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.” To him I say, we should never abandon our obligation under our constitution to respect religious differences. This is the basis for true religious freedom that we as Americans have enjoyed. It is unjust and unwise to deny Muslims the free exercise of religion. Opposing the ground zero mosque is a smoke screen, a decoy, behind which we seek to hide our Islamaphodia. It is religious intolerance plain and simple.

Guns win, lock stock and barrel

     by Reynold N.Mason  Esq.

June 28 2010 will go down as a historic day for both supporters and opponents of gun rights. The Supreme Court handed  down its long awaited decision in the McDonald V Chicago case.  Otis McDonald the plaintiff in the case, lives is a bad Chicago neighborhood.  His home and garage have  been burglarized more than six times.  According to Mr. McDonald, the gang bangers have taken over the neighborhood.  But he could not keep a hand gun in his home much less on his person.  He sued the City of Chicago and he finally won.  The Supreme Court finally has said, what for two hundred years it has dodged, ducked and avoided. Yes, the 2^nd Amendment means what it says, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.  So why did all those smart Harvard lawyers in the City of Chicago not know that little tidbit of constructional wisdom?

The fact is that the lawyers and all the politicians knew that we all have a right to own a hand gun. They simply like to take the easy way out.  The City of Chicago and all of its minions should read Justice Thomas’ concurrence.  The Founding Fathers believed in the right to own guns and, to make sure that big brother did not take away our right to own a gun, they enshrined that right in 2^nd Amendment to the constitution. That was a few hundred years ago.  Then Blacks were freed and former slave holding states passed laws  aimed at preventing former slaves from owing firearms. The majority in McDonald reached the right conclusion but dared not call a spade a spade. They danced around the issue with convoluted logic only the Chicago boys could understand.  But Justice Thomas told it the way it was. He wrote:

The overarching goal of pro-slavery forces was to repress the spread of abolitionist thought and the concomitant risk of a slave rebellion. Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the extent to which fear of a slave uprising gripped slaveholders and dictated the acts of Southern legislatures. Slaves and free blacks represented a substantial percentage of the population and posed a severe threat to Southern order if they were not kept in their place. According to the 1860 Census, slaves represented one quarter or more of the population in 11 of the 15 slave States, nearly half the population in Alabama. The Southern fear of slave rebellion was not unfounded. Although there were others, two particularly notable slave uprisings heavily influenced slaveholders in the South. In 1822, a group of free blacks and slaves led by Denmark Vesey planned a rebellion in which they would slay their masters and flee to Haiti. The plan was foiled, leading to the swift arrest of 130 blacks, and the execution of 37, including Vesey.

That was back in the days when Nat Turner walked as a freeman. That could not be allowed to happen.  Dred Scott had been overruled and blacks were finally US citizens but they did not enjoy the privileges and immunities of US citizenship.  So the Congress passed the Privileges and Immunities Clause. This meant that blacks could now keep and bear arms, a right every white citizen took for granted. Southern Whites were fearful.  Justice Thomas writes:

The fear generated ....led Southern legislatures to take particularly vicious aim at the rights of free blacks and slaves to speak or to keep and bear arms for their defense. Teaching slaves to read (even the Bible) was a criminal offense punished severely in some States. Virginia made it a crime for a member of an "abolition" society to enter the State and argue "that the owners of slaves have no property in the same, or advocate or advise the abolition of slavery.  Other States prohibited the circulation of literature denying a master's right to property in his slaves and passed laws requiring postmasters to inspect the mails in search of such material.    Many legislatures amended their laws prohibiting slaves from carrying firearms to apply the prohibition to free blacks as well. (declaring that "it shall not be lawful for any free person of colour in this state, to own, use, or carry fire arms of any description whatever");  Florida made it the "duty" of white citizen "patrol[s] to search negro houses or other suspected places, for fire arms.". If they found any firearms, the patrols were to take the offending slave or free black "to the nearest justice of the peace," whereupon he would be "severely punished" by "whipping on the bare back, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes," unless he could give a "plain and satisfactory" explanation of how he came to possess the gun.

This fear, writes Justice Thomas ……led to "systematic efforts in the old Confederacy" to disarm the more than 180,000 freedmen who had served in the Union Army, as well as other free blacks.  Some States formally prohibited blacks from possessing firearms.   Others enacted legislation prohibiting blacks from carrying firearms without a license, a restriction not imposed on whites.  Additionally, "[t]hroughout the South, armed parties, often consisting of ex-Confederate soldiers serving in the state militias, forcibly took firearms from newly freed slaves." ….Take, for example, the Hamburg Massacre of 1876. There, a white citizen militia sought out and murdered a troop of black militiamen for no other reason than that they had dared to conduct a celebratory Fourth of July parade through their mostly black town. The white militia commander, "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, later described this massacre with pride: "[T]he leading white men of Edgefield" had decided "to seize the first opportunity that the negroes might offer them to provoke a riot and teach the negroes a lesson by having the whites demonstrate their superiority by killing as many of them as was justifiable." None of the perpetrators of the Hamburg murders was ever brought to justice.

Organized terrorism like that perpetuated by Tillman and his cohorts proliferated in the absence of federal enforcement of constitutional rights. Militias such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, and the '76 Association spread terror among blacks and white Republicans by breaking up Republican meetings, threatening political leaders, and whipping black militiamen. These groups raped, murdered, lynched, and robbed as a means of intimidating, and instilling pervasive fear in, those whom they despised.  Although Congress enacted legislation to suppress these activities, Klan tactics remained a constant presence in the lives of Southern blacks for decades. Between 1882 and 1968, there were at least 3,446 reported lynchings of blacks in the South. They were tortured and killed for a wide array of alleged crimes, without even the slightest hint of due process. Emmit Till, for example, was killed in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The fates of other targets of mob violence were equally depraved.  The use of firearms for self-defense was often the only way black citizens could protect themselves from mob violence. As Eli Cooper, one target of such violence, is said to have explained, " '[t]he Negro has been run over for fifty years, but it must stop now, and pistols and shotguns are the only weapons to stop a mob”.  Sometimes, as in Cooper's case, self-defense did not succeed. He was dragged from his home by a mob and killed as his wife looked on.

The type of violence and intimidation endured by Mr. McDonald and countless other victims of Chicago  bandits, is nothing if not terrorism.  It makes its victims feel just as powerless as freed blacks facing southern lynch mobs.  It is a wholesale violation of their constitutional right to deny them the right to own a gun for self defense. The issue in McDonald was whether the court would uphold our right to own a hand gun to defend ourselves and our families against the kind of violence  the 2^nd amendment was designed to put a stop to.  Five wise, courageous men answered a  resounding,  yes.   Those who oppose owning handguns do not have to purchase one.  But at last, they can no longer keep the rest of us from doing so. Ali Cooper was right. We  have been run over for fifty years, but it must stop now, and pistols and shotguns are the only weapons to stop a mob.

Note: Several of the passages in this article are form Justice Thomas’ opinion in McDonald v Chicago decided June 28, 2010

by Reynold N. Mason Esq.

Gender Fairness and Immigration: sponsoring an illegitimate child

I detest the use of the word “illegitimate” to refer to a child whose parents were not married when he or she was born. But this distinction is critical when petitioning for a child born out of wedlock; as such children are now referred to in the law.  Despite the decreasing legal relevance of illegitimacy, an important exception may be found in the nationality laws of the US, which discriminates against illegitimate children in the application of immigration laws, particularly in cases where the child's connection to the country lies only through the father.

Fresh out of law school in the early 1980’s, I confronted this issue head on when I decided to file an immigration petition on behalf of my half-sister, my father’s illegitimate child.  Initially, an illigitimate child could only be sponsored by the mother.  The father could not sponsor his illegitimate child under the law  in 1980. To get around this problem, I filed the petition through my mother as the stepmother.   But that was not the end of it. For the next 18 months I scurried about getting affidavits from old friends and neighbors who knew my father and could speak of his relationship with his daughter.  I had to establish to the satisfaction on the INS that my half-sister was part of our close family unit and, that my father had close emotional ties with his daughter.  This was a near impossible task because in the Caribbean we do not file taxes as this is understood in the US. My father had never filed a tax return in his entire life. There is no health insurance and most fathers support their illegitimate children not simply by doling out cash, but by supplying the child’s other needs.  So copies of money orders, medical records or insurance records were out of the question.  Complicating my petition even more, was the fact that my half-sister did not carry my father’s surname; the Catholic Church routinely declined to name the father on its baptismal certificate if the parents were not married.  Seeking any legal loophole to get our petition approved by INS, I happened upon a case called Matter of McMillan; in that case, a petition by a step-mother on behalf of her husband’s illegitimate children, twin boy’s, had been denied. I read on looking for something to hang my hat on.

Matter of McMillan

The McMillan twins had been born in England. Abandoned by their natural mother, their father sent them to Grenada where they were raised by their paternal grandmother.  I, my father and all my siblings were born in Grenada.  I read on, fascinated.   INS denied their petition, McMillan appealed, and the BIA (Board of Immigration Appeals) for the first time ruled that:  Persons who become stepchildren through the marriage of a natural parent prior to their 18th birthday fall within section 101(b) (1) (B) without further qualification (i.e., there is no need to show a close family unit). It turned out that McMillan was from my own village and the twin boys had been my playmates growing up.  This remained the law until the Child Citizenship Act was enacted in 2000, allowing fathers, like McMillan, to petition for their illegitimate children. Still the father of an illegitimate child must satisfy a number of criteria that mother’s of illegitimate children are not required to satisfy.  This unfairness in the law has been challenged as a violation of the Equal protection requirement of the 14th Amendment. But so far the Supreme Court has turned back all challenges.

States have broad power when it comes to making classifications but  they may not draw a line which constitutes an invidious discrimination against a particular class.( See Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535.)   The end result is whether the distinction between fathers and mothers of illegitimate children is a rational one.  The court has held that congress is entitled to decide whom it shall let in and under what conditions.  The court in the recent past has, however, come down on the side of illegitimate children. It has held that illegitimate children may not be excluded from sharing equally with other children in the recovery of workmen's compensation benefits for the death of their parent. (Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety  Co.,  406 U.S. 164  (1972).)  And has said that under this decision, a State may not invidiously discriminate against illegitimate children by denying them substantial benefits accorded children generally.  The Supreme Court in March agreed to hear and decide if mothers and fathers may be treated differently in determining whether their illigitimate children may claim American citizenship. The case involves Ruben Flores-Villar, who was born in Tijuana, Mexico, but was raised by his father and grandmother, both American citizens, in San Diego. His mother was Mexican, and his parents were not married. Why should fathers of illegitimate children be denied the right to file for their children when mothers are allowed to do so with little or no restrictions?  Courts have no problem garnishing the paychecks of fathers of illegitimate children for child support.  They should allow these same fathers to sponsor their children.


 

By Reynold N Mason Esq.

The Obama administration has filed a legal challenge to an Arizona law that imposes penalties on businesses that hire illegal workers.  This is not a challenge to the notorious SB 1070 that led to protests and boycotts when it was enacted in April.  This law known as LAWA (legal Arizona workers Act) has been in effect since January 2008.  Georgia Colorado and Oklahoma have similar laws. Many see this challenge as an attempt by the Obama administration to reassert itself into the immigration debate, and wrest control over immigration policy from states that, with increasing frequency, are enacting what can be termed anti- immigrant laws.

The administration is arguing that immigration policy should be national and uniform not a patchwork of different state and local laws.  But because of a failure of the Federal government to pass effective immigration laws, states have moved into the breach and have been passing increasingly restrictive immigration laws.   After the failure of the Bush immigration plan in 2007, 1562 immigration laws were either passed or considered by states, compared with only 300 in 2005 and just 570 in 2006.  With Immigration now off the legislative agenda, perhaps until after the November elections, states have lost patience with the slow pace of Federal immigration reform and have taken matters into their own hands.   In Border States, where the impact of illegal is most acutely felt, laws have been enacted limiting access to state services, such as welfare and driver licenses to legal residents only.   Passions are at fever pitch on both sides of the issue and the Administration, sensing an opportunity, has decided to throw its lot in with those who want more liberal immigration laws.  The problem for Obama is that in poll after poll Americans have expressed overwhelming support for the Arizona law and, in other states,  voters  are demanding passage of similar laws. 

Oklahoma, Colorado ,Texas and Georgia to name a few, have laws on the books every bit as tough as Arizona’s.  Residents of a small city in eastern Nebraska voted Monday to banish illegal immigrants from jobs and rental homes, defying an earlier decision by the city’s leaders and setting off what is all but certain to be a costly and closely watched legal challenge. In Fremont , a meat-packing town of about 25,000 people, unofficial results from The Associated Press late Monday showed that 57 percent of voters approved a referendum barring landlords from renting to those in the country illegally, requiring renters to provide information to the police and to obtain city occupancy licenses, and obliging city businesses to use a federal database to check for illegal immigrants (NYT, June 21, 2010.)

So why does Obama swim against the rising tide of support for stricter immigration laws?  Why challenge the Arizona law now, when it has been in effect for over a year and a half?  Clearly, he has made a political calculation.  His failure to deliver on his campaign promise of immigration reform has left Hispanics disillusioned and disaffected.   He fears that he will lose their support which has reached critical mass in larger states such as Texas, California and Florida.  The question raised by the administration’s imposing itself into the immigration quicksand  at this juncture is, should the court uphold the Arizona law, then other states would know for sure they can pass laws restricting immigration in their jurisdictions.  It would have been wiser to let the ACLU, the NAACP and other groups carry water for the administration. Obama has everything to lose and nothing to gain by challenging LAWA at this juncture.

There is a very good chance that the law will be upheld.  LAWA, ironically, was signed into law by Janet Napolitano, now Obama’s homeland secretary, when she was governor of Arizona.  It requires every employer to use E-verify, a Federal data   base,  that can check authority to work. And employers who hire illegal workers are fined and, may lose their business licenses for a second offense.  The law has been challenged and been upheld  by  the  9th Circuit Court of Appeals.( Arizona contractors et al  against  Janet Napolitano).  The problem for the administration is its inaction and perceived indifference to immigration policy over the last several years.  Standing mute in the face of more than 1500 laws regulating  immigration, allowed states to make immigration policy helter skelter.   Under the supremacy clause of the US constitution, Federal law supersedes any state law that is inconsistent with or interferes with enforcement of Federal law.  But not if the Federal government has stood by idly.  Inaction or indifference gives states the right to pass laws to protect their vital interests where the Federal government has failed to do so.

Furthermore, states can pass laws so long as they are not an obstacle to the working of Federal law.  And herein lies the problem for the administration.   Federal authority is not absolute. States can pass laws that are in line with the Federal law.  LAWA is nothing more than Arizona doing the job of that Federal  government should be doing to enforce its own employer sanctions, which penalizes businesses for hiring illegal workers. The Federal government, from time to time, will raid a meat packing plant or a car wash but, by and large, it does not enforce its own laws. In this situation, the Arizona law is perfectly constitutional.  Were a state to pass a law regulating air traffic or setting up new minimum wages, it would clearly be superseded by Federal law because the FAA is all over the issue of air traffic; its investigators  appear at every airline accident; their intention to exclude the states from passing any law regulating aviation could not be clearer. That is not the case with immigration.  States across the country are frustrated by the do-nothing attitude of the Federal government, and have taken immigration enforcement into their own hands.  LAWA is an aid, not a hindrance to the federal objective to reduce the demand for illegal labor.  In 1976, The Supreme Court upheld a California law prohibiting the hiring of illegal workers.   In that case, Decanas v Pica, justice Brennan said:    “courts have never held that every state enactment that in any way deals with aliens is a regulation of immigration and thus, per se, preempted by the supremacy clause…..” In addition, the Federal government under the 287(g) program allows state  and local law enforcement officers to arrest and detain illegals on behalf of the Federal  government.

The Arizona law, while it does regulate the hiring of illegal workers is consistent with the purposes of Federal law.  It is a valid exercise of Arizona’s authority to regulate the hiring of illegals within its own borders because the Federal government has failed to act. The law has already been upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and similar laws have, in the past, been upheld in other states. The Obama administration, I think, will be disappointed by the outcome of their challenge to LAWA.

By Reynold N. Mason Esq.

The solution to America’s immigration problem is simple. In fact, it is staring us in the face. But politicians lack the political will to do what is necessary to solve the problem. We all agree that what drives illegal immigration is the attractiveness on the American job market. The availability of work, even at low wages, is  attracting  illegal immigrants like moths to a candle. Extinguish the candle or draw the drapes shut and the moths stop coming.  Congress recognized this as far back as the 1980’s.  The IRCA (Immigration Reform control Act of 1986) was congress’ first stab at removing the “Help Wanted” sign which is the engine driving illegal immigration.   The IRCA made it illegal to hire undocumented immigrants and imposed fines on employers who did. The idea, in theory, was a good one but it was flawed in its execution. There is a simple fix for our immigration problem, and it is this:

1.     Use e-verify to determine if a person applying for a job is eligible to work.( E-Verify is a web-based system operated by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) which enables an employer to verify employment eligibility of job applicants and their Social Security numbers. www.tnpassociates.com/glossary1.php)

This would do away with the phony document problem and, since it is done electononically, there cannot be any claim of discrimination because of “accent” or foreign appearance.

2.   Retain employer sanctions and hit hard at businesses that evade  e-verify.

3.  Crack down on smugglers and deport criminals

4.  Grant amnesty to illegals who are law abiding and who come forward, register and get fingerprinted and cleared, as senator Schumer proposes.

5   Finally, deny public benefits, such as driver licenses and other social services to those who remain or enter the country illegally after the cut-off date.

Past immigration failures

The issue of immigration is an emotional one infected with the poison of electoral politics.  Politicians will not act because they fear a backlash from Hispanic voters over whom they desire to retain their influence.  On the other extreme, there are those who oppose tougher immigration enforcement on the ground that it singles out Hispanics and encourages racial profiling.  Liberal organizations like the ACLU and NAACP oppose tough measures on human rights and civil rights grounds. And big labor, always seeking to protect the interest of its members, oppose relaxing labor laws to let in more workers.  ((The pull and tug of these political interests, has our congress in a political straight jacket)).  Like a deer caught in the headlights, congress is paralyzed in the face on onrushing doom.   And doom is what we face unless we act to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across our southern borders. Opposition to employer sanctions and challenges to the law made what was otherwise a promising start a complete failure.  There were claims that employers would  demand documents proving eligibility to work in the US, only  from persons who looked or sounded foreign;  that  businesses would play it safe and not hire Hispanics  or people who  speak with a foreign sounding accent.  More problematic was the fact that employers had no way of telling whether papers submitted by a worker were genuine or fake.   And an employer who honestly believed papers presented were genuine, could find himself facing large fines if it turned out the documents on which he relied were, in fact, phony.   The document requirement of the 1986 law gave rise to a cottage industry in fake documents.  Illegals, unable to show employment authorization simply purchased them on the market.

European Countries fine businesses for hiring illegal workers.    

A 1990 study by the GAO found that 78% of employers wanted improved verification since it would eliminate fraud and eliminate fines for honest mistakes.  Simply run the applicant through the federal data base and a get definitive determination of his /her eligibility to work.  The GAO in a survey of EU countries in 1997 found that fourteen of nineteen countries surveyed had employer sanctions.  Since then Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have passed laws penalizing businesses for hiring illegals.  Even Australia, surrounded by the Pacific, has made it a crime to knowingly hire an illegal person to work or refer an illegal for work with another business.

Faced with excessive and unsustainable immigration, maintaining the status quo is not an option.  America must put aside political partisanship and take bold and decisive steps to bring immigration under control.  As every recent poll has shown, Americans want and support comprehensive immigration reform. Their frustration with the laissez- faire attitude of the federal government has led states to take matters into their own hands. This is counter-productive because what is needed is not a patchwork of laws, like that of Arizona’s or Oklahoma’s, but a national immigration solution.  “Every sovereign nation has the right to decide who may cross its borders”. It’s high time America started acting like one.

By Reynold N. Mason Esq.

Atlanta, June 08, 2010 - Women gained the right to vote in 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment. But until recently this did not translate in to into significant political power. Since 1971 when Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to in congress, there have been just 260 women in the house and senate. Just 33 women have served in the senate, almost all of them since the 1990's. In 2007, a Baylor University study found that Thirty-three (33) percent of Americans think most men are better suited emotionally for politics than women.  Fifty-four (54) percent felt that young children suffer when the mother works and Forty-one (41) percent say it's God's will that women care for children. These attitudes pose challenges for women running for political office.  There has been a slow but steady march of women into the seats of power in Washington and throughout the fifty states. Prior to the 1990's most of the women who served were appointed to fill their deceased husband’s vacant seats. But with the Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton competing for the two highest political offices in the US in 2008, the contributions and talents of women have taken center stage. Attitudes about women in elective office have seen rapid change.

Today, 92 women hold seats in congress, 17 percent of the 535 seats available. A record 17 women serve in the Senate, and 75 women serve in the House. The number of women in statewide elective executive posts is 72, while the proportion of women in state   legislatures is 24.4 percent. There are six women serving as governors, and four hold attorney general offices.   As of February 2010, of the 100 largest cities in the United States, 7 had women mayors: Baltimore, Md.; Fresno, Calif.; Tampa, Fla.; Stockton, Calif.; Glendale, Ariz.; Chula Vista, Calif.; and, Houston, Texas. And 249 women serve as mayors of cities with populations over 100,000, http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/a/women_milestone.ht

Eleven states hold primaries today, and women are contending for high political office is several. In California, Nevada  and South Carolina women are leading in the polls ahead of Tuesday's balloting. In California, which has two women in the senate, two more are leading in races ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Meg Whitman a former CEO of eBay, in the race for governor, and Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard  CEO, is favored to win the republican primary for the right to face another woman, Barbara Boxer, in November.  In Arkansas, Sharon Angle leads in a three way race for the Republican nomination, and in South Carolina, representative Nikki Haley is favored to come out ahead in the democratic primary. After today’s primaries women may be poised to increase their numbers, power and influence on the American political landscape. Many hope that’s for the better.