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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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Where are the Conservative Critiques of Family Court?

Conservatives, especially religious conservatives go on and on about the collapse of the family, declining sexual morality, and the increasing millennial failure to form families or have kids...

And yet I cannot think of a single major right wing thinker who's talked about one of the top 3 things causing all of this and which, unlike the pill, is a pure matter of public policy and government officials preying on the populace: Family court.

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Just as abortion was sacralized in post-60s as fundamental inalienable right, that women should not be forced to carry to term or have a child and deal with the financial and social burden it represented... and just as religious conservatives the country over started begging and pleading with women to not abort, but instead to have the child, and then give it up for adoption, that "obviously" they should not be burdened personally and financially with raising a child for 18 years over 1 night's sexual concourse... just please don't kill.

A new set of institutions were put in place to recreate every social, financial, personal, and hypothetical legal burden that even the most fever dreamed feminist never imagined a patriarchy might impose over one night's coupling. But for men.

Just as it became sacrosanct that every woman should be able to have sex and escape any possible financial or personal burden, even if she doesn't use protection, nor takes the morning after pill, nor avails her self of first trimester abortion, nor second, nor third, nor gives it up for adoption in the first, second, third or forth year, but in the fifth year, or even the fifthteenth! surrender the child to the state or for adoption with no ongoing legal, social, or financial penalty...

It became equally understood that the very second of coitus (or even without it if the sperm is stollen). That absolutely an child conceived will result in the man's complete legal and financial ruin. That the legal system gains full power over every asset, skill, or income source, he has ever or might ever have, and that if he tries to evade legal """Responsibility""" (as if this something that would ever consider being applied to a citizen of one of the other 82 genders) his wages will be garnished, his assets forcibly confiscated, he may be imprisoned, and in many jurisdictions his passport might even be confiscated.

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And yet Conservatives who claim to be critics of the state and claim to be critics of state intervention in family life... seemingly have nothing to say about marriage and the family being converted from an inviolable religious and moral compact, to a state contract whereby the entire thing can be disolved, and indeed is financially incentivized to be dissolved... except for the part where every asset and dime you might ever make is now at the sole discretion of the state for how it would like to redirect them.

They have nothing to say about a religious partnership essential being converted into a slavery contract. Nor that instead of doing the reasonable "Egalitarian" thing like setting a standard child support amount that all non-custody parents should be expected to pay as a universal obligation (all children being equal) family court judges are instead allowed incredible discretion to assign amounts based on the income or percieved competence of the non-custody spouse... because obviously bieng productive is the worst possible crime in our society.

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This is the great trend of conservative criticism. Point at the decay, (failing families, schools, communities, ethics) but cower from even raising the possibility that the laws and policies which caused the decay might be reversed.

Every conservative laments the decline of the family... none will suggest ending no-fault divorce or reversing the presumption of custody, such that a parent who cannot afford to raise a child on their own is presumed to be the parent less qualified to receive custody, thus removing the incentive for an unproductive deadbeat wife to divorce as a means to take her husband's assets.

Every conservative laments that social institutions used to work better, and that social values are decaying... none will broach returning to the policies and matterial realities that produced those quality institutions.

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Edit/ Addendum: (realized I didn't include this las night)

My solution is the same one that has worked throughout all of history in every institution that's been functional:

The person with the power is the person with the responsibility.

If women are to be empowered to abort whenever they like, surrender to adoption or the state whenever they like, and generally have full control... THEN THEY SOULD BARE FULL, TOTAL, AND FINAL FINANCIAL RESPONCIBILITY.

Family court should not exist.

The names on the bank accounts keep the accounts. Same with the houses and assets. And any joint assets accounts are divided in even... you don't even need a court all these things would happen naturally and the banks, etc. would oversee the pre-arranged division.

80% of divorces are started by women... this would end that very quickly and defacto limit divorce once again to real documentable instances of abuse. Since there would no longer be a financial incentive.

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Out of wedlock births should never result in a court case unless there is a criminal charge of sexual assault.

It should simply be the woman's full and final responsibility.

These are the conditions that produced the sexual norms conservatives were so fond of In the 19th century and before, if a man got a woman pregnant out of wedlock, that was a her problem. Full stop.

Even if a community thought they could try to force the responsibility on him, he could just disappear a few towns over.

This is what created the intense emphasis on chastity, and the sense of ruin that accompanied fallen women.

THESE ARE OUR TRADITIONAL SEXUAL VALUES AND INSTITUTIONS.

And not a single conservative will just full mouthed endorse a return to how things worked in 1890, instead they gesture at some version of a welfare state that never existed and lament sexual morality is collapsing whilst they use the violence of the state to prop up that immorality

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If the founding father's had been threatened with a coterie of lawyers threatening to drive a wedge between them and their wives, then claiming for themselves the power to divvy up every child, animal and asset whilst claiming for themselves a share (often the lion's share)... The founding father's would have slaughtered them to the last.

I don't think there are any easy solutions here. What do you think should be done if the mother doesn't want to abort but the father wants to just ditch both the mother and child? What should be done for mothers who put their own career to the side to focus on taking care of the home and children, but they find out their husband has been cheating on them? I don't think there are easy answers for those. Maybe family courts as they are are too biased towards women, but I think there is no good alternative.

Father should be able to elect for a "Legal abortion/surrender" where he surrenders all rights and claims to the child, at any point in the child's developement.

If the mother then decides she can't support the child and elects to abort or put it up for adoption so be it.

This is the only solution that doesn't get into absurdities of women somehow having the inalienable right to abort or surrender their child, yet men somehow being bound from the moment they (or their wife's boyfreind) ejaculates.

Couples looking to adopt currently have to wait years and there is a dearth of adoption candidates. Or social problem is not a surplus of children but a surplus of legal and social regulations destroying the impetus to have children

Father should be able to elect for a "Legal abortion/surrender" where he surrenders all rights and claims to the child, at any point in the child's development.

That doesn't equalize things out though.

Consider that without any legal processes the woman takes most of the physical risks. Whether she chooses to carry the baby to term or have an abortion she will have some form of drug, operation, or birth to go through, then whatever physical changes stem thereof. The man in contrast can walk away. She has skin in the game that will impact her no matter what. He does not.

So if you think the job of laws is to incentivize both parties with skin in the game so as to discourage being irresponsible decision makers, the legal incentives should not match. The woman already has a set of built in incentives. The legal system should not be treating men and women equally, because their situations are not equal. In order to equalize risks men NEED to be penalized more heavily either socially or legally.

I can pump and dump my way across the Midwest leaving a trail of pregnant women behind me. A woman can do the same only every 9 months and only by accepting the physical consequences to herself each time. The social impacts are not equal due to the biological issues not being equal.

I can pump and dump my way across the Midwest leaving a trail of pregnant women behind me.

If you could do that, you'd be so extraordinarily handsome and charming that those women probably wouldn't mind, at least on a lizard brain level.

The stopgap mechanism you are looking for here is female mate choice.

Mate, its not that difficult. I'm in my 50's with a beer belly and average looking at best. I still get hit on regularly. Add in small towns with not much choice and its not that tricky.

Don't mistake the online stuff for what its actually like in most of America. Being an average reasonably charming guy with maybe one good quirk and confidence is all you need. In the 1 year after my divorce I dated 23 women between 25 and 40 and i wasn't even looking for one night stands. In my case a British accent helps. I've been hot on by waitresses multiple times on ways i never was back home.

You certainly don't need to be extraordinarily handsome and charming. I'm not. Just average and decently charming. Remember we're not trying to land 21yo super models if we're just trying to sleep our way around.

Oh, I had the foreigner-with-a-british-accent-in-the-states experience before. It helps enormously. But that is different from rawdogging your way through the nation like some dollar store Zeus.

And I would hazard the guess that the type of woman who lets a random stranger at a bar nut in them without protection is too busy to frequent bars most of the time, with all the pregnancies and abortions she'd be getting and whatnot.

Sure it's probably trickier to hit and quit right away, but turn up go on 2-5 dates and move on is probably a much easier path.