Posted on 06/20/2011 12:03:16 AM PDT by danielmryan
On June 15 around 5:30 pm, a 58-year-old New Hampshire father named Thomas Ball self-immolated in front of the Cheshire County Court House. Ball was pronounced dead at the scene.
Before he died, he sent a letter The Keene Sentinel to [explain] his actions. The full text of the letter can be found here. [Or here, in the second forum post, if the former page doesn't load.]
Ball said he set himself on fire in front of the courthouse because he was “done being bullied for being a man” by the US family court system.
Ball’s troubled started in April 2011.
He said he slapped his then four-year-old daughter, giving her a cut on the lip, when she refused to obey him after three verbal warnings.
His wife then called the child’s mental health provider. Ball claimed the health provider told his wife that if she did not call the police, both she and Ball would be arrested.
So she called the police and Ball was arrested. After six months, the couple divorced.
“So my wife called the police on her husband to protect the children. And who was she protecting the kids from? Not her husband, the father of these children. She was protecting them from the State of New Hampshire,” wrote Ball. [The suicide note explains why.]
“This country is run by idiots,” he added.
When Ball got to the court after his initial arrest, his charge was domestic abuse. He said being labeled a domestic abuser in America is “akin to labeling someone a Jew in Germany in the 1930’s.”
He then claimed he was put through a series of bureaucratic hoops and procedures involving the police, court system, and the mental health/counseling industry. He called these the Second Set of Books, referring to bureaucratic rules that trump the constitutionally-backed judicial system.
He said the whole family court ordeal -- including the arrest, restraining order, and harsh penalties for missing child support payments -- bankrupts the father, mother, and children and risks putting the entire family out on the streets or in the care of the state.
At the time of his self-immolation, Ball was possibly facing jail time for owing about $3,000 in child support. He had been unemployed for the last two years.
Normally, American’s can’t be jailed for debt because debtors’ prisons were thought to be a nonsensical and barbaric practice that was outlawed in 1833.
Yet, the failure to pay child routinely lands American fathers in jail. Even if the fathers become unemployed or hospitalized, the judge could deny their petition to have their child support payments reduced.
Moreover, if the fathers are imprisoned, the child support payments can accumulate. Upon release, they are expected to repay the entire amount. Unfortunately, the US jobs market is notorious for shunning anyone with a criminal record, so the prospects of gainful employment look bleak for many of these fathers.
What else can happen to fathers who don’t pay child support (even for legitimate reasons like hospitalization)? Their cars can be seized and their passports denied, thus further taking away their tools for finding gainful employment.
Ball claimed to have served in the US Army for 21 years. He also claimed the Ball family has been serving the US military since the Revolutionary War.
I suppose that’s one way to spite a system gone crazy. It sounds like the issue really burned him up... pun intended.
They need to go to equal custody. Equal time would make child support less. The system would be more fair. It would remove the financial incentive that drives a lot of the dirty tactics. And it would take a lot of bitterness out of the divorce, making it much better for the kids.
They need to go to equal custody. Equal time would make child support less. The system would be more fair. It would remove the financial incentive that drives a lot of the dirty tactics. And it would take a lot of bitterness out of the divorce, making it much better for the kids.
Wow. To out yourself in such a painful way means you were really, really, really pushed to the breaking point. I wouldn’t be surprised if we double that 9 in the next ten years.
Too bad he didn’t take out a few of the government idiots with him.
RIP
As an aside, I will say that I have no love for a man who would slap a 4-year-old in the face. But his case does illustrate that the goal of “family court” is to thoroughly de-ball, de-humanize, and demoralize the husband. How do they expect people to act when they get ground into dust by the courts? I’m surprised there hasn’t been more violent outbursts by men raped by the courts.
The “Family Court” judge dodged a bullet, so to speak. But I suspect most of those in the system are too drunk with power to realize how close to the edge they are right now.
Was not that long ago a guy in Reno knifed the ex, then tried to shoot the judge.
I think he got life.
The judge is notorious for his bias against men.
As I recall in this case he handed the ex a very lavish alimony/child support.
Funny how liberated women still need alimony, isn’t it?
"So she called the police and Ball was arrested. After six months, the couple divorced.
An awful lot has happened since April 2011.
"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Darned double negatives...
I can’t say the men have always been outstanding. In other words, sometimes the men deserved to be treated poorly. Other the other hand, mistakes like infidelity shouldn’t mean the man is financially ruined, lose the children, and treated like an indentured slave until his children are grown.
It actually makes me think that maybe it was best to keep him from his kids. Not a sane act.
I have a great deal of sympathy for fathers and their importance. But there may have been a good reason to keep the kids away from this one.
Men can be vicious; women can be vicious; actually, people can be vicious.
It’s not limited to one or the other sex.
Did you read his manifesto? Quite lucid and hard to argue against.
I’m glad I have no family nor crime issues. Once the system gets it’s claws in someone it can, and often does, wring the very life from them. It does it in the most frustrating, exasperating, dehumanizing, ways that it can. All on the pilgrim’s dime, everyone he meets getting a six figure taxpayer salary.
Sadly, for the man, his actions won’t have the impact he imagined. Nothing will change and people will hate him. His suicide is an ignominious end to his stolen life. A man alone and discarded.
Liberals are sick and deadly. People who maintain friendships and/or familial relationships with liberals share those traits, IMO. How can anyone of worth frolic with the essence of evil after witnessing first hand the utter torture and death they deliver?
Just watch the pop culture trash machine. TV shows, commercials, etc. The man is always some dumb rube, treated like the 'dumb' one by his wife, snidely treated by the kids as well. I'm sure you have seen it. The trend.
Never said it was. I just made the point that out of the numerous failed marriages I have encountered, women are generally more vindictive than the men. That's anecdotally speaking of course.
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