Tennessee to Revoke Hunting, Fishing Licenses of Deadbeat Parents

FoxNews ^ | September 17, 2008 | Staff Writer

[Tennessee Nana]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The state is warning parents delinquent on child support payments that they risk losing drivers licenses, professional licenses and hunting and fishing licenses if they don't pay.

A news release from the Department of Human Services Tuesday says letters are being delivered to parents across the state behind at least $500 and haven't made a payment in more than 90 days.

More than 7,000 licenses were revoked last year for failure to pay, and there are more than 20,000 licenses currently at risk. Professional licenses that could be revoked include those of registered nurses, real estate agents, security guards and teachers.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Not always. Child support does not stop until it gets to court, so, with an unsympathetic judge, a guy could lose his job, file, wait 90 days, ex won’t show, wait another 90 days for another court appearance, and the guy is on the hook, with no means to pay, for a half year of support. It’s that easy.

Trust me, i hate deadbeat parents as much as anyone, but your claim isn’t wholly truthful.

It sucks that it’s only money that is discussed when discussing deadbeat parents, i absolutely abhor parents who don’t spend every possible minute with their kids. The court does nothing aboutthat, just the money part.

[AbeKrieger]

How about we see some of these privileges revoked if you commit a felony, or are on public assistance and stealing money from the government?

Nah, just go after parents who are subject to onerous judgements not based in reality. Got it.

[Finny]

So they go after "chronic baby daddies who impregnate as many women as they can ...." Why don't they go after chronically stupid women who participate?

You naively tell wardaddy that "these laws are not targeting men like you." These laws are targeting any poor sap who can't swing the child support.

Responsibility 2nd, here's a hypothetical for you: A guy has a job that pays $50,000 a year; based on that salary, the courts have ordered him to pay, let's say, $1500 a month in child support. The guy gets let go from the job and cannot swing $1500 for the child support.

What happens next? Does the dad get nailed as a deadbeat dad?

I happen to know the answer to this hypothetical. DO YOU?

Divorce, child support, and child custody laws in so-called "Family law" courts (a sick and twisted misnomer if I ever heard one) are shameful in how they treat men and let women off the hook. NO WONDER there is so much teen suicide among boys. NO WONDER more and more young men are declaring (wisely, if you ask me) never to get married. NO WONDER rap lyrics are filled with such hatred toward women. NO WONDER girls, so many of them who've been deprived of a father's love, throw themselves at boys and become sexually engaged at such young ages. NO WONDER girls have such unrealistic expectations of their future husbands. NO WONDER so many young men are confused as to their own sexuality. NO WONDER our culture is experiencing the "metro-male" pansy-assification of the American MAN.

Our sadistic "family law" system, boosted by hysterical tendencies of women, a cultural willingness to deify and even celebrate single motherhood and simultaneously hold females morally and financially unaccountable for it, has treated American men like sh*t for the past 40 years. WE AMERICAN WOMEN SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISED when males young and old finally start treating US like sh*t. That they've resisted doing so to the degree they have only shows the truth depth of honor in the male heart, and the utter craven petty wicked stupidness of typical women. I am a woman, by the way, the sister of brothers and beloved men who, along with their children, were emotionally RAPED by the very system you purport is so great.

I am disgusted.

[BerryDingle]

The state is warning parents delinquent on child support payments that they risk losing drivers licenses, professional licenses

Isn't this taking away the ability to pay?

I wonder if voter registration will make the list?

[Responsibility2nd]

....by the very system you purport is so great.

I am disgusted.

Whew!! Quite a rant you threw down. And I won't flame back at your stating I think the system is great. Because I don't.

I hate divorce and family courts as much as you. I could go on my own little rant about how evil they are. About how no-fault divorce is ruining America. And on and on...

But BTTT... My point was about baby-daddies. Thugs who knock up the girlfriends they just met last week. Punks who leave women and children for Uncle Sam to raise with our tax dollars. The point I was making WAS NOT about the corrupt divorce courts that are ruining America.

I'm just positing that it is in the State's best interest to pro-activily go after the low class scum could but won't pay child support.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

They do this in Minnesota. I don’t want to spend any time in the woods with irresponsible dead-beats...

[Logical me]

It depends on the definition of a dead beat parent. If the person loses his job, has tried to find work using Government agency requirements, and cannot find a job, is this dead beat.

If a person breaks his leg, cannot work until back on his feet, is that a dead beat.

Lets be real. This law has to be reasonable. It you take away his or her ability by jail, the other will never get a penny and you have cost the taxpayers for the incarceration. Stupid, unless the person has the means and is able to work the court should decide, not some District Attorney or Department of Human Services in some States.

[Finny]

It may be in the State's best interest, but it is NOT in the best interest of human beings. I'm very glad to read that you detest the system as I do, however, THIS IS ABOUT UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, and it disgusts me that so many celebrate a law that has already proven to have horrible unintended consequences. This Nanny-State development in Tenessee is just one more step along the way of punishing men regardless and letting women off the hook.

By the way, the answer to my hypothetical: If the dad gets fired from his $50,000 a year job and cannot pay the court-mandated $1500 a month, EVEN IF THAT DAD then sends whatever he can -- say, $1000 -- he is at a very REAL risk of having his driver's license and other professional licenses revoked (great for a guy who's job hunting, right???). That guy has to PAY (in our case, many thousands of dollars) for an attorney to take the thing back to court to have the child support amount redetermined. If he doesn't have the $$ to hire the lawyer, he's caught in a Catch 22. It's bad for EVERYBODY CONCERNED.

[Finny]

It you take away his or her ability by jail, the other will never get a penny ...

There is another more insidious evil that results. Boys and girls grow up with a perception of the male parenting/husbanding role (and the consequences of "failure") that is twisted, sick, materialistic, and immoral. THAT is where the worst damage takes place, and why these laws are so essentially WRONG.

It's like the FnFMac debacle. The government essentially took away the risk, and hence took away accountability for those leading Fannie 'n Freddie. The "deadbeat dad" crusade takes away the risk and accountability for the other half of the "deadbeat dad" equation. Is it moral to support that?

[Delacon]

Kids come first. You made a mistake chosing the person you married and then broke up with. If you MUST break up, take your lumps with the rules that were handed to you when you got married or when you chose to divorce. If you are crying in your beer, remember there are still married couples where only one spouse can work and has to work because 80 hours a week to make ends meet. The conditions of one’s divorce don’t void one’s responsibilities to their children. Gotta admit though, that no fishing thing would make me more attentive to my budget than divorce otherwise would.

[CGTRWK]

But BTTT... My point was about baby-daddies. Thugs who knock up the girlfriends they just met last week. ... I'm just positing that it is in the State's best interest to pro-activily go after the low class scum could but won't pay child support.

That's all fine and good, but the punishments in these modern day debtors' prison laws aren't in any way limited to the thug baby-daddies who can pay but don't.

Letting the militant feminists obscure the issues and quash debate under inflammatory terms like 'deadbeat dad' is how they twisted our system so badly in the first place. Don't help them out.

[CGTRWK]

Kids come first.

Nothing puts kids first like putting their father in jail for not supporting mom and her new boyfriend. The most important thing a father can do for his kids is participate in raising them. Paying mom is only tangentally related.

[wardaddy]

I understand that but there are laws on the books already to prosecute.

What’s next?

can’t buy beer?

cigarettes?

can’t borrow money?

it could never end...

it’s an enhancement like hate crimes

[tatsinfla]

sorry but i beg to differ.....at least in sunny florida...

[tatsinfla]

i didn’t cry in my beer and i fulfilled my obligations and was always there for my kids..but to make a point when my 14 yr old daughter made a choice to live with me instead of her partying mother the only way the mother would sign over custody was if she didn’t have to pay me support...i wanted what was best for my daughters well being and said no problem....its hard enough these days and then to punish a parent that is truly having problems paying what the state mandates by taking away thier drivers license is crazy, now you take away thier means of transportation to get to work and make a living and pay what they can....

[fleagle]

Your opinion does not equal fact. And as I’ve learned before in here, there is no intelligent debate available on this issue on Free Republic. I’m sorry for your circumstances but bitterness accomplishes nothing.

[tatsinfla]

i have seen the system at work in florida have been a part of it so i think i can speak with facts. go online and look at the scedule and formula used by the state of florida to determine child support to be paid for a parent. use this formula using your income and then get back to me. i think you will see what i am saying.

[fleagle]

Family court stinks, there's no doubt about that. When we have a child we're responsible for it, and in the case of divorced or never married parents we lose touch with much of that responsibility when it comes to how the money provided gets spent.

I just hate it that the irresponsible ones, be it mothers or fathers, set the tone for the attitudes in society about child custody and child support issues.

Whether we like it or not, child support goes to the parent to decide to spend as best as they see fit to support the child. I wish there was a way to see that, in fact, child support payments go to support the child, and not a lifestyle for the custodial parent. But there isn't. Unfortunately, and I do know this from experience, having a child with the wrong person can be hell, not just for a short while but for a lifetime.

[tatsinfla]

i am not saying and never have said that someone should not be responible for the child they bring into this world....but the system is broken and needs fixed...when a state is taking 1/2 or more of a persons net income for support and leaving that person in a bind to survive on a daily basis is not fair...(note i said to survive)our society today in most cases requires both parents in a household to make ends meet as it is.............

[fleagle]

I didn't say nor did I imply you advocated not being responsible for your child and I agree with you that the system stinks.

Do you propose changing the system by requiring that non-custodial parents pay less and custodial parents be required to contribute more? I don't have an agenda here, I'm merely asking.