The Family

 THE FAMILY

We all know that "the family" is the foundation of civilization, right?  Its importance has been touted for generations as the cornerstone of all that is proper and good.  The family is important; family values are both necessary and good.  What can be more important than "the family"?

That may be the official proclamation, but we all know that it just isn't so.  The family has been and continues to be an impediment to all that is deemed valuable in a capitalist society and those in power understand this fully.  We, here in the United States, and Iowa in particular, do all we can to disrupt family life, make it difficult to maintain, and ensure that relationships between partners, spouses, children etc. are short and acrimonious.  

Before you say that I am an apostate and have no clue, let's go into a little detail about the State's view of marriage and other forms of partnership.  Divorce, or what they now call dissolution of marriage, is now very convenient; the legislature has made it quite simple.  One doesn't even need to hire an attorney any longer.  The documents needed are online and downloadable.  Quite easy really.  One can divorce oneself.  And then the statutes regarding protective orders where a person can go see a judge and get a protective order without an immediate hearing requiring the other party to be out of the house work really well in getting rid of an unwanted spouse when you can't wait for the dissolution.

The prime example though, and one of long standing, are Child-in-Need of Assistance proceedings.  Iowa has a Juvenile Code that is used extensively to break up families by taking children away from their parents.  This is done in every county of Iowa, probably weekly.  Kids are being yanked out of the home for various reasons by officials called "child protection workers".  This is another term for child snatchers.  And in order to get their kids back, the parents are required to go to through innumerable exercises visiting various counsellers and therapists and drug addiction gurus, and begging the court to let them have their children back all of which is usually pointless unless they do exactly what they are told for an extended period of time which for most people is unlikely or impossible (doing what you're told to do is the most important part).  Through the juvenile system, the State has honed its ability to destroy families; clearly with the understanding that those families who are now childless didn't deserve kids or family life in the first place; "we'll just give those kids to someone else".  And besides if both parents have to work at McDonald's to pay the rent, who's to watch the kids anyway?

The more recent efforts by the State to break up families are the domestic abuse statutes.  Domestic abuse is now similar to OWIs (DUIs), the more convictions you have the more severe the penalty.  All it takes is a call to the police, a statement "he hit me", and a red mark (especially on the neck) and off he goes to jail with a no contact order to follow that he can't go home and he can't contact his significant other, nor his children since he has to call mom to talk to the kids.   In addition to the above and since those examples may not be enough, a bevy of crimes have been passed regarding elderly abuse, sex abuse, child abuse, and all kinds of other abuse usually committed in the family room in front of the TV all of which result in someone being charged with Child Endangerment.  

You have to give it to the people in charge in this State, no family is safe.  We clearly find families unnecessary.  So in summary, it is clear that the State of Iowa is not pro-family but anti-family and does everything in its power to end this silly pro-family attitude that we all seem to still have that family is all important and is the bedrock of our civilization.  Those ideas are  nonsense and always have been and the legislature of Iowa understands this.  

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo