Friday, December 09, 2011

Incompetence, greed, or ideology

A recurring theme on this blog is whether the enemy of the family court justice we seek is incompetence, greed, or ideology. It is all three. The question is what to emphasize. My opinion on this has shifted in the past few months.

One argument says that if judges, shrinks, and social workers were competent, and had wisdom about the BIOTCh (Best Interest Of The Child), then they would make reasonable decisions that we would all accept and appreciate. If so, then we should advocate better training for the govt officials.

Another argument is that the love of money is root of all evil. The corruption and bad decisions are fueled by financial biases. If so, we should work to cut off the money.

The third argument is that official are driven by faulty ideologies, and they will continue to do evil no matter how much training they get, and no matter how much their financial conflicts of interest are removed.

I have recently posted some of my beliefs, such as rule of law, confronting witnesses, not using psychotropic drugs for misbehaving kids, restricting experts to their expertise, and avoiding therapists. And most of all, I frequently argue that family autonomy should not be subject to some govt official's opinion of the BIOTCh.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with me. Maybe even most people, I don't know. And they disagree for ideological reasons. I thought that everyone agreed that our Bill of Rights guaranteed us the right to confront witnesses against us, but this right is hanging on by a thread in the US Supreme Court.

The arguments before the supreme court this week cannot be explained by incompetence or greed. Both sides were articulate and well-reasoned. The justices are split 5-4 on the issue. It is an ideological dispute that goes to the core of what fairness and justice mean. It is not exactly a Right-Left dispute, as conservative ex-prosecutors and statist liberals have lined up in favor of rules that fail to hold govt experts fully accountable in court for their work.

I can attack incompetence and greed on this blog, and everyone agrees with me. But when I attack the ideologies that seek to destroy family relationships, then I offend some people. I have become convinced that it is necessary to attack ideology to get at the root of the problem. Because if Judge Morse were more competent, she would do more damage.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, you right, it's hard to imagine the diverging views on witnesses and 6th amendment rights, but can you really compare Morse and Joseph to Supreme Court Justices ?

Competency ? At the Family Law court level, you have the kind of prof.s you'll find at the DMV. If these judges were more competent, they'd have clients and practices. Same wth the psych.s. Also, at least in your case, how do you figure Morse could have done more damage if she were more competent ?
Hasn't she done about as much as you could have ever imagined ?

Ideologies are subjective. For every attack, there is a counter attack. Competency is subjective too, and is influenced by your own ideology on the isssues, right ?
Now, greed is different. Regardless of the decisions, or one's ideology, we all view decisions predicated on one's personal gain masked as being in biotch. as wrong and and something that must be eliminated. This is why you attack the greed.

George said...

I do not compare the competence of Judge Morse to the supreme court justices. But she does share an opinion with four of them -- they don't believe in the right to confront witnesses.

Judge Morse's ruling against me doesn't even make any sense. Yes, I would be worse off if she wrote a competent decision against me.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if it matters much, but Morse did allow you to question Perlmutter, right ? Me, I figured that that was just to allow Perlmutter to charge more fees of you, though.

Maybe I'm confused about exactly how things transpired.

Anonymous said...

You'd brought up teachers...

Let's say that one teacher was incomptenet. Another had ideoplogies that were objectionable to many, and another who was taking money from students for good grades out of greed. We cold get rid of the atter, easily right ?

It would be difficult to get rid of the incompetent one, because that's tough to prove and tenure, etc. And with the ideological one, some might agree with the ideology. Now with the greedy, corrupt one, you have an attack that will flush him/her out.

I'm nt saying that all 3 teachers aren't bad for kids, but if you're not going to allow perfect to be an enemy of good, best to start off attacking/eliminating greed.

George said...

Okay, I accept the teacher analogy. I happen to think that there are many things wrong with the schools. But firing the greedy teachers who are taking bribes will not make a dent in the big problems.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but taking the greed out of family law will mare more then a dent in things.

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George said...

Yes, I am all in favor of taking the greed out of family law.

I got to cross-examine Perlmutter, but Judge Morse just ignored that testimony. I wish that I had a jury, or some neutral judge.

Anonymous said...

OK, I'll go back to this point. Whether it's ideology, incompetence, greed, or a combination, I'm betting that had you'd been in Nevada, where the players would have been on videotape, you'd have kept whatever it was more in check. Don't you think ?

We know that if it were exposed, it would be reduced. The fact that it is prohibited, suggests just one thing,, they don't want it seen or held accountable, do they ?

How about posting something about organizing for a petition mandating videocameras in all S.C. or Calif. courts ?

George said...

Yes, I favor video-recording all court proceedings. I have posted many times favoring audio recording, at the least. I also want to record all interviews, and I think that would do even more good.

Anonymous said...

Concur with 2:00pm comments.

Complete transparency will reduce many ills of family courts, CPS, police, schools. Every conversation or documents needs to be publicly available. By default all activities needs to be in video including off the record comments. Public and media scrutiny for all the government actions at hand.

No social work, lawyers, judges should utter a word to any without being recorded. All phone calls should be recorded 24x7 for government or quasi or non-profits officials.

I have come across many non-profits who are drawing money from state and federal. All they need is a client so they could draw funds by creating false information.

Break down all confidentiality and immunities. Corruptions ride on confidentiality and immunities.

In terms of ideologies, this money making machine of family courts spread across the world. Lawyers and legal system is finding this as goldmine even in other parts of the world. Greed is superseding ideologies. So, accountability will reduce greed. Send them to jail and take away their assets.

Public should able review case of George looking at if this parent genuine concerns have been heard and why this parent is denied when it is very important for children and also parent to be in regular and frequent contact. If we public feel, this has not been met, we should call administered Judge into stand. Public should terminate the judge position or suspend or fine punitive damages from judge assets and award to George.

I would assign $1M for loss of time per year per kid. In 5 years, that would be $10M for 2 kids. Let judge go homeless, isn't this what they're doing to families instead of helping.

Anonymous said...

Anyone think that the Co. that supplied/insatllled the videocameras in Nevada would back a petition/state proposition effort to make it the law in Calif. ?

Anonymous said...

What is judicial competency ? It's adherence to the constitution. Stray from it, by infusing ideology and you're incompetent. So, I don't know if there's any difference between an incompetent judge, and an ideological judge, regardless of their ideology, whether we're talking about Supreme Court Justices, or Morse.

Seems like everytime you're accusing Morse of incomptency, you're simultaneously, accusing her of being ideological, and everytime you're accusing her of being ideological, you're accusing her of being incompetent for being so because it's unconstitutional.

The family law court and c.p.s. do not adhere to the contitution. The constitution allows that, short of abuse, no one parenting style is in the better interest of a child than another. This is the rule of law.