Letter From a Father Jailed For Nonpayment of Impossible Child Support Order
Massachusetts Illegally Criminalized Dads for Many Reasons

The divorce courts have become a tyranny (literally) where judges do what they want to enforce their
personal agenda and beliefs in spite of the facts and law. They violate due process and the U.S. Constitution daily.
They pick random numbers for child support and throw people in jail who can't pay it.
The throw people in jail for losing their job too.
Men have been made slaves to their ex-wives under threat of jail. This is not equal rights this is slavery.
The excuse for this: "they have kidnapped your children" and you must pay the kidnapper "support" even if you want to take care of your children 50% of the time, which has been scientifically proven far better for the children.

Here is one fathers story for his fight to support his children directly.

My experience with the prison system began as a result of a contempt charge from a custody determination by a “Family” “Justice” “Court” (more about why I put these three terms in quotes later).

All in all, except for some promises about work release, a program which allows an inmate to work his regular job during the day, with restrictions, and return each evening and weekends, the prison was efficient as an institution.  I even got to borrow a book from the library.

But this letter is not about the effectiveness of the prison.  It is not about whining, or self-pity, or self-importance.  It is about the reasons why I and thousands like me, face incarceration in the first place and what we, and family, friends and children who are affected, can do to stop it.

You will find this letter is not about the ‘he said, she said’ of divorce, but about legal and governmental abuse under the color of law.

Let’s go back a few years.  I mentioned a book borrowed from the prison library.  The book, “Middle-Class Democracy and The Revolution in Massachusetts 1691-1780” by Robert Brown (1955), provides many collalaries to today’s custody determinations and associated government high crimes and misdemeanors.  These are not unique to Massachusetts, just as in colonial times the King and Parliaments crimes against free Englishmen was not unique to the bay colony.  Vast quotations and credit go to Robert Brown’s work.

Vast credit belongs also to those who are fighting the abuses of a government out of control with regard to crossing the threshold of the legal maxim “every man’s house is his castle”.

Ever since the Mayflower Compact, colonist “Americans” had been living in various forms of self-government.  Though Englishmen, they “had a charter that guaranteed protection of persons and property by provision for due process of law, trial by jury, and bail.”

In family court, there is no trial by jury.  This is a court which took my house, my present and future income, and my children (by diminishing parenting to 17% access versus true 50% access vis-à-vis the 14h Amendment).  This same court, without a jury, sentenced me to prison for ‘contempt’.  I could not meet the financial ‘order’ the judge, without a jury, required.  I did assert my fundamental liberty right to a trial by jury.  I asserted my fundamental rights to my property, children and present and future income.  Thomas Jefferson (Writings II) said that the people will not permit the punishment of men “whose sole crime has been the developing and asserting their rights”.

After all the freedom and self-government which the colonists had established, the British found economic advantage and indeed the threat to their empire as the free colony expanded.  “The Sugar Act and a whole host of restrictive regulations were imposed by the British which were particularly obnoxious to a democratic people:

•  Administrative courts without juries

•  British-appointed judges who got a percentage of forfeitures

•  Colonial damage recovery nearly impossible

•  Prosecution of British offices almost impossible

•  Proof of innocence rests with accused”[1]

In the family court, there is an economic advantage for the court to create two different “administrative” statuses for parents in a contested custody battle: custodial and non-custodial.  But it is so much more than administrative!

This custodial/non-custodial status is important, the court claims for “the best interest of the children”; more on this vague “standard” later.  We will see how it is every bit restrictive of liberty and allows the state to collect your tax dollars through federal funds reimbursements in Title IV-D Social Security programs.  The qualifier is that one parent must be absent.  By creating, in many cases, the absent “non-custodial” father, the state makes money by ordering child support wealth transfers.  The state and judiciary profit from this! I am being jailed without a jury trial, by an unelected judge who has immunity.  And, all the while, my ex did not have to prove my guilt.  In family court the non-custodial is “guilty until proven innocent”.  Ironically, Massachusetts is, as most states are, a “no-fault divorce” state.

Remember the 1700’s!  Cases concerning colonial property were to be tried without a jury by one appointed judge who got a percentage of forfeitures!

Initially federal reimbursements to states for “child support” collections were designed to reduce welfare payments.  Now an unfunded mandate exists in that the middle class is ordered into the state collection system.  Therefore, there is no incentive for a judge to order equal parenting time, which would, based on current ‘statutes’, void a child support order.  James Otis’s words “if property can be taken without consent, so can liberty” ring so true.

This bias, along with the earlier due process violations (no jury), make any order of these family “kangaroo” courts void.  Any divorce or custody judgment that diminishes even by 1% the liberty or sacred rights protected by the state and US Constitutions including the bogus “non-custodial” designation and its attending infringements, is void.

“Towns of colonial times, with elected representatives, declared unequivocally that as the people had always expected to be the judges of their own rights and liberties, so they rejected the pretended right of any Crown lawyer or any authority on earth to determine, limit, or ascertain in any way their constitution, charter, natural, civil, political, or sacred rights, liberties, privilege, or immunities…At one time, the king’s prerogative had been considered too delicate and sacred to be questioned.  Statements by James I that a good subject would be content with the king’s will as revealed in his law was called by Boston Town ‘mystical jargon’, ‘absurd and infamous rant’”.[2]  We have lived so long under “best interest of the child” and “child support” and “visitation” and “non-custodial” that we forget these are made-up “mystical jargon”.  These terms are made up by committees- often committees of family lawyers who benefit from custody battles- not “We the People” who live in the daily reality and repercussions of children brought up by a “super-parent” while another equally fit parent is marginalized.

Perhaps “best interest” was well-intentioned but not at the expense of fundamental and sacred rights of property, children, earning a living, and, as I am testimony, even body attachment.   The court said on 30May06, “if you can’t pay ½ the support [we] say you owe, you have to do the jail sentence” (body attachment).  What a racket!  Debtor’s prisons are illegal and unconstituitional and harken back to Dickens.

A pamphleteer of the time reminded the colonists in 1749 “under British Dominion of New England, their fathers had been stripped of their rights by Governor Andros and that when they pleaded English privilege, they were told that those things didn’t follow them to the ends of the earth”.[3]  In other words, the maxim of “every man’s house is his castle” didn’t hold in the colonies.  This gave the king and his appointed Governor much power.  Thus Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty were born.  “Writs and admiralty court cases [no jury] had increased popular opposition to government.  The people were taught that innovations, incompatible with English liberties, were confirmed under pretense of law by judgments of colonial courts and that the power of admiralty courts were always deemed grievous because they were unconstitutional.” (Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts, History III).  Even revenue acts like the Molasses Act of 1733 were unconstitutional according to James Otis.  “All security for life, liberty and property would vanish if the act was enforced by writs of assistance in admiralty courts before dependent judges without juries.”[4]  Is anything really different in today’s family court with the assistance of the Department of Revenue’s (DOR) reach, no jury, and a biased judge?

Other modern intolerable revenue acts in Massachusetts and perhaps your state include the DOR notifying the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) of alleged “child support arrearages” which include penalties and interest that penalize non-custodials and never benefit children but instead become “pickings” the government profits from.  Our fine Commonwealth, like other states, suspended 24,000 driver’s licenses of mostly men this spring.  What does driving have to do with supporting your children directly?  Only to drive in order to work!  The DOR also communicated with other licensing boards and suspended nearly 1000 business licenses.  They tried to suspend my temporary help business license.  Earning  a living is a fundamental right, not a privilege.  Driving, walking, biking the public way is a right.  Custody of children is a right.  All of these rights cannot be removed or converted into a privilege and made criminal by statute unless proven unfitness, neglect, or abuse.

Throughout legal history custody and support were reciprocal.  If for example, an intact couple dies, the person who receives custody of the children is liable to support them or the children become wards of the state and in its custody.  If the custodial parent cannot support the children without a transfer of wealth from the non-custodial, it makes perfect sense the “non-custodial” should have the custody.  Custody and support were illegally and unconstitutionally split by state statutes.  In court, I put on the record that in fact the statutes the family court was using to justify child support transfers and custody determinations were void because of this fact.

In summary, the custody statutes are vague and violate sacred rights that our state and US Constitutions are supposed to protect (not grant, but protect).  Judges are judge and jury so due process is non-existent. Other governmental administrative laws illegally appropriate income and assets, charge interest, and remove other fundamental rights such as travel.  Children are kidnapped from fit parents [dads by and large], who become visiting uncles.  Pretty Orwellian.  Coercive Acts just the same as the colonists experienced.

John Adams: “I said ‘there was no more justice left in Britain than there is in hell, that I wished for war’.  Then he chided himself for such rash boyish statements…Arthur Lee confided to Sam Adams that the enemies of America considered any claim to constitutional rights as a ‘pretense only on our part, for claiming absolute independence’.  From charging the colonists with this aim, he continued, these enemies had brought them first to consider it, then to claim it, and he hoped, to confirm it”.[5]

I asked my judge if his court was submitted to the state and US Constitutions.  He wouldn’t answer clearly.  I consider this treasonous.  I asked him if it was a court of admiralty.  Again, no answer.  I had previously demanded a jury and a removal to a different jurisdiction where I could get a fair trial including a ½ day evidentiary hearing.  I put on the record that the court was biased due to invidious gender discrimination and that my civil rights were being violated per US Code 42 § 1983.  I shouldn’t be treated any different than the “custodial” parent.  All for naught as the bailiff cuffed me presently.

The New Sons of Liberty are now inspired to take action like our forefathers did.  “Most of the towns instructions [to representatives] discouraged the most intrepid Governor but Worcester exceeded even this limit stating that the Charter of 1629 had been wrongfully wrested from the colony and the second charter had been nullified by acts of Parliament, troops and a governor rendered independent of the people.  The representatives should open the port, get the troops removed, impeach mandamus councilors as traitors and secure them for trial, send a delegation to get aid from Canada, and follow the advice of the Continental Congress to preserve unity.  Then declared Worcester, if all wrongs had not been redressed and all charter rights restored by the day the Provincial Congress met, the representatives were to consider the people of Massachusetts in a state of nature, absolved from all charter obligations to Britain and were to raise a new form of government in which all officials [judges too] would be elected by the people.” (Worcester Town Records IV).” [6] No wonder the British-appointed Governor cancelled the meeting of this General Court.

The family courts have created the charges and the actions.  This enemy of the “non-custodial” (fathers) have caused “We the People” first to consider total civil disobedience, then to claim our rights, and now, to confirm the presumption of total equality in custody, and if the other parent cannot support the children while the children are with them, to claim full custody and support of our children AT LAW (not at equity).

Lest this beef sound outrageous, consider the colonists’ with the British: Revenue Acts sought to support the colonies when the colonies were already supporting themselves!  And the Sugar Act was a “means of laying a legal foundation for planned changes in the empire and of providing ‘fat pickings’ for an army of placement soon to be sent from England.” (Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, Reverend Oliver M. Dickerson).[7]

Today there is an “army of placement” of Child Support Enforcement staff.  There are ten times the amounts of these enforcers than homeland security agents!  There are many “Intolerable and Coercive Acts” which have been passed by current governments.  Mentioned earlier, the DOR can and does garnish wages, remove licenses by cooperating with other state agencies and attack property, retirement, and insurance assets.  The famous question “Who’s your Daddy?” is loudly answered: “The Government is”.  These “fat pickings” are then reimbursed by the feds.  All in all, a whole host of hangers-on benefit from this picking of the American taxpayers pockets.

As our forefathers did , we “New Sons of Liberty” must “introduce truth into the presence of a Governor [and elect] bold friends of liberty, independence, and truth” (letter to Freeholders, 08May1749).[8]  The men who did this defeated Governor Hutchinson who had lamented that the colony was “governed not be weight but by numbers”.  We in Massachusetts, who in 2004 by a margin 84.5% to 15.5.% voted for Equal Parenting instruction for the representatives of these same towns are not being ruled by numbers but by the puffed up gravitas of judges and the “infamous rant” “best interest of the child”.

“The House declared that the charter granted them the rights of Englishmen and the powers of civil government, that they would resist an invading enemy to the last breath in defense of their rights, and that any threat to these rights from any other source tended to reject and dispirit them” (Acts and Resolves IV).[9]

Non-custodial fathers must be willing to defy any DOR order not entered into voluntarily.  They must represent themselves or find attorneys that will fight for Equal Protection.  They must, in court, on the record, demand “the rights of Englishmen”, including jury trial.  They must refer to the case law and common law which establishes that he who has the custody must support.  All citizens need to follow the money, including their hard-earned tax payments, and make the law the presumption of Equal/Alternating Custody.

All representatives must be contacted and lobbied.  “Committees of Correspondence” where New Sons of Liberty can organize must be raised in every town.  People need to run for office who put this issue as the cornerstone of all “family values” planks.  There are modern day British enemies to this cause.  They include Women’s Bar Associations and Domestic Violence funded organizations along with Family Lawyers, GAL’s (Guardian Ad Litems), court psychologists, and jails.  Even the joint Judicial Committees of the state, comprised of many probate and family lawyers, keeps things in committee and squashes the bills designed to be sure  children and fathers get Equal Protection.  In testifying before such committees, I’ve asked “if the current judges don’t apply the 14^th Amendment, what difference will Shared Parenting legislation make”.  In other words, judicial discretion MUST be curbed.

As John Adams said, there must be no compromise or we “might be deceived, wheedled, threatened or bribed of …freedom” (Adams Letters I).  John Adams would have willingly “given up public life, public honor, and his own property for peace and liberty; but these had to be sacrificed before he would surrender the right of his country to a free constitution. (Adams Works I).  Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts stopped the courts because of a fear that they were to be deprived of a constitution.  They said it was better to stop the courts that have justice dealt out piecemeal without any foundation to support it.  What they demanded was a bill of rights and a constitution.” (Massachusetts Archives CLXXXIVCCXX)[10]

And it’s not only in little old Worcester Massachusetts where fundamental liberty rights are stomped upon.  Anywhere English law is the foundation- South Africa, Ireland, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand- children lose access to their fathers and dads are denied due process.  If you hear this clarion call for action and do indeed act, your and my efforts will touch the world in the same way the colonists’ action did: “There is so much of a republican spirit among the people, which has been nourished and cherished by their form of government that they would never submit to tyrants or oppressive projects.  The same spirit spreads like a contagion into all the other colonies, into Ireland and into Great Britain too, from this single Province of Massachusetts Bay, that no pains are too great to be taken, no hazards too great to run, for the destruction of our charter. (John Adams, Works II)

“The Revolution was affected before the war commenced.  The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, a change in their…sentiments of their duties and obligations.  This radical change in principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution”. –John Adams

“Edmund Burke maintained that Britain should have won over the lawyers, presumable part of the upper classes, who took the lead in opposition.” (Parliamentary History XVIII).[11]  Currently the family court attorney and the appointed judges (most often also family law attorneys) and the judiciary committee and the majority of the legislature are lawyers who are “won over” by the status quo of custodial/non-custodial designation, support transfers, and “visitation”.  Again, all at great taxpayer expense.

All politics is local, said Tip O’Neill. Our New Sons of Liberty will fight to keep building coalitions and resist all efforts at the curtailment of our protected liberties, freedoms and rights.  The Intolerable and Coercive Acts, the admiralty courts without juries, the redistribution of revenue without representation and debtor’s prisons are not something buried in history books but occur every day in courtrooms across the land.  They say the courts are often “30 years behind the society”.  We shall reform family law.  May God grant my son and daughter never are subjugated by his tyranny.

What you can do:

•  Write back to me factually disclaiming anything you feel is not true and honorable.

•  Copy this letter and mail to friends and relatives.  We’re all affected, including our children and our children’s children.

•  Lobby your legislators for Equal Parenting presumption and especially trial by jury wherever fundamental rights are at stake.  A man can be acquitted by a jury in a Criminal Court and walk across the street and lose all Parental Rights in a “Family” “Justice” “Court” which has no jury.

•  Run for office and/or elect those who stand by sacred rights and the rights of families whether they are intact or not.

•  Oppose any custody battle, insisting on equal treatment under the law.

•  Oppose gold-digging attorneys, unconstitutional admiralty courts, state acts and statutes that steal rights and freedoms, and any orders which make dad absent involuntarily.

After I released my lawyer, I sign everything Propria persona sui juris, reserving all rights, waiving none ever, without prejudice UCC.  According to our founding documents, each person functions as their own Attorney General, keeping check on Government.  We the People are each Sovereigns.  May our children learn this because we lived it and made the sacrifices, as did our forefathers, to preserve sacred rights.  Never tire, never surrender, and never cease to protect what is yours inalienably.

If you have any questions, write or call me.  For more resources, check out:

www.fathersandfamilies.org      www.fathersunite.org    www.libertybellunion.org           617.SAD.DADS

www.laryholland.org                 www.fatherhoodcoalition.org     www.acfc.org

My best to you and your family.

George L. Mason IV, Propria persona sui juris, reserving all rights, waiving none ever, without prejudice, UCC
08Jun2006

Watch_pray2001@yahoo.com

508.735.6615