VAWA distorts reality, erodes Americans’ civil rights
by Mike Spaniola
Mainstream media has a fixation with “missing woman stories,” going from one such case to the next with equal pugnacity. The case of a young woman now missing in Aruba has received intense coverage for more than 60 days despite a lack of substantial new developments.
In that same two-month span, based on an average of U.S. workplace fatalities, 770 men have met untimely and often violent deaths working in construction, transportation, law enforcement and other hazardous occupations.
According to the U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 1, 5,575 workers died in the United States in 2003; female fatalities accounted for 8 percent of the total. No one expects affirmative action or a Violence Against Men Act to bring true equality to the workplace, but nor should federal legislators be considering renewal of the deceptive Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Ironically, curbing workplace violence against women was the initial push behind VAWA. That rational allowed VAWA to be passed under the Interstate Commerce Act, which provides federal funding and oversight in overcoming obstacles to interstate trade.
When the multibillion-dollar VAWA was first passed in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, critics pointed out that relatively few women experienced job-related “assaults and violent acts,” a key category used in arguing for federal protection under the commerce act. In fact, only about 2 percent of all assaults and violent acts involved women. Incidents in this category include “violence by persons, self- inflicted injury and assaults by animals.” The figure remains about the same today.
For men, however, the overall figures continue to be horrific. In 2003, the latest statistics available, 4,683 men died on the job. That’s an average of nearly 13 men a day, weekends and holidays included. Nearly 70 percent of those deaths were white males, and those ages 35 to 54 fared the worst, accounting for 42 percent of workplace deaths. VAWA’s architects seem to condone a millennia-old social norm: men are expendable.
Quite unfortunately, VAWA’s reach extends far beyond the workplace. Its powerful tentacles stretch into the private lives and homes of citizens, acting with a capricious zeal that readily endorses police state tactics.
Renewal of VAWA should be as troublesome as concerns over civil rights and renewal of the Patriot Act. VAWA initiatives, which have cost taxpayers an average of nearly a billion dollars annually, are dismantling our right to due process while forcing authoritarian group-think on law enforcement officials and health-care providers.
VAWA prescribes the lowest threshold of evidence and proof and ignores penalties for false charges and perjury. Today’s domestic violence laws can force a man from his home without notice and with little more than the clothes on his back.
Government agencies and private charities are funding a radical feminist political agenda rather than rational solutions for family violence prevention and treatment programs. The ACLU caterwauls over the rights of terrorists but has no concern for injustices related to politically expedient statistics that involve men.
Many “irrefutable facts” cited as the basis for VAWA come from sources that are neither verified nor refuted, including anonymous respondents and confidential surveys. In her commentary, “VAWA: Bad Research Leads to Bad Law” (July 21, 2005) 2, columnist Wendy McElroy wrote: “Consider the 'feminist' issues of rape or domestic violence. Studies that address these areas are often released in combination with policy recommendations. Indeed, they sometimes appear to be little more than a springboard from which advocates can launch a campaign for more law.”
We have an obligation to speak up when we see injustices, and the latest version of VAWA ignores the many diverse voices calling for common-sense dialogue and reform. VAWA initiatives too often have the real effect of destroying families and making trivial the pain of the victims of domestic violence, both men and women. In the least, VAWA should be gender-neutral (and, therefore, constitutional).
But domestic violence is now big business, providing significant revenue for attorneys and law enforcement, social services and judicial agencies. The system hides behind a stereotype of heinous abusers, but the reality is a myriad injustices. Men have been made bankrupt defending themselves against false accusations, and they have lost their children, jobs, friends, and homes and even taken their own lives as a consequence.
In his book, Darkness at Noon, author Arthur Koestler wrote of the Soviet police state in which those who stood accused were guilty and claims of innocence were viewed as acts of subversion. Today’s domestic violence industry operates in a similar manner: the system prosecutes you until you've confessed.
Mike Spaniola
# # #
1 http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0193.pdf
2 http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/mcelroy/2005/mcelroy072105.htm
Mainstream media has a fixation with “missing woman stories,” going from one such case to the next with equal pugnacity. The case of a young woman now missing in Aruba has received intense coverage for more than 60 days despite a lack of substantial new developments.
In that same two-month span, based on an average of U.S. workplace fatalities, 770 men have met untimely and often violent deaths working in construction, transportation, law enforcement and other hazardous occupations.
According to the U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 1, 5,575 workers died in the United States in 2003; female fatalities accounted for 8 percent of the total. No one expects affirmative action or a Violence Against Men Act to bring true equality to the workplace, but nor should federal legislators be considering renewal of the deceptive Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Ironically, curbing workplace violence against women was the initial push behind VAWA. That rational allowed VAWA to be passed under the Interstate Commerce Act, which provides federal funding and oversight in overcoming obstacles to interstate trade.
When the multibillion-dollar VAWA was first passed in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, critics pointed out that relatively few women experienced job-related “assaults and violent acts,” a key category used in arguing for federal protection under the commerce act. In fact, only about 2 percent of all assaults and violent acts involved women. Incidents in this category include “violence by persons, self- inflicted injury and assaults by animals.” The figure remains about the same today.
For men, however, the overall figures continue to be horrific. In 2003, the latest statistics available, 4,683 men died on the job. That’s an average of nearly 13 men a day, weekends and holidays included. Nearly 70 percent of those deaths were white males, and those ages 35 to 54 fared the worst, accounting for 42 percent of workplace deaths. VAWA’s architects seem to condone a millennia-old social norm: men are expendable.
Quite unfortunately, VAWA’s reach extends far beyond the workplace. Its powerful tentacles stretch into the private lives and homes of citizens, acting with a capricious zeal that readily endorses police state tactics.
Renewal of VAWA should be as troublesome as concerns over civil rights and renewal of the Patriot Act. VAWA initiatives, which have cost taxpayers an average of nearly a billion dollars annually, are dismantling our right to due process while forcing authoritarian group-think on law enforcement officials and health-care providers.
VAWA prescribes the lowest threshold of evidence and proof and ignores penalties for false charges and perjury. Today’s domestic violence laws can force a man from his home without notice and with little more than the clothes on his back.
Government agencies and private charities are funding a radical feminist political agenda rather than rational solutions for family violence prevention and treatment programs. The ACLU caterwauls over the rights of terrorists but has no concern for injustices related to politically expedient statistics that involve men.
Many “irrefutable facts” cited as the basis for VAWA come from sources that are neither verified nor refuted, including anonymous respondents and confidential surveys. In her commentary, “VAWA: Bad Research Leads to Bad Law” (July 21, 2005) 2, columnist Wendy McElroy wrote: “Consider the 'feminist' issues of rape or domestic violence. Studies that address these areas are often released in combination with policy recommendations. Indeed, they sometimes appear to be little more than a springboard from which advocates can launch a campaign for more law.”
We have an obligation to speak up when we see injustices, and the latest version of VAWA ignores the many diverse voices calling for common-sense dialogue and reform. VAWA initiatives too often have the real effect of destroying families and making trivial the pain of the victims of domestic violence, both men and women. In the least, VAWA should be gender-neutral (and, therefore, constitutional).
But domestic violence is now big business, providing significant revenue for attorneys and law enforcement, social services and judicial agencies. The system hides behind a stereotype of heinous abusers, but the reality is a myriad injustices. Men have been made bankrupt defending themselves against false accusations, and they have lost their children, jobs, friends, and homes and even taken their own lives as a consequence.
In his book, Darkness at Noon, author Arthur Koestler wrote of the Soviet police state in which those who stood accused were guilty and claims of innocence were viewed as acts of subversion. Today’s domestic violence industry operates in a similar manner: the system prosecutes you until you've confessed.
Mike Spaniola
# # #
1 http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0193.pdf
2 http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/mcelroy/2005/mcelroy072105.htm
1 Comments:
I watched people who work in the domestic violence field testifying against AB1307, California's Shared Parenting bill with bebunked myths.
See It's not Your Mothers Fathers Movement Anymore for more info.
http://tinyurl.com/9lphq
Teri
Post a Comment
<< Home