OK. I misread your intent.
Yeah, I tend to get a liiittle too heated up over issues like this. tee hee.
I disagree. Just Asking Questions is a rhetorical device that is meant to lead the discussion off into another direction, or provide a cover. It has nothing whatsoever to do with trolling, which I take to be a deliberate provocative statement meant to whip up discord, particularly when the maker of the statement knows the statement to be false.
This is clearly not the same thing.
At any rate, this is not the “just asking questions” technique we’re seeing from friend Bricker. It is more like the “Nobody can possibly comment unless you have perfect knowledge of the situation” technique. Unless we have the court records, affidavits, notarized statements, family counsellor notes and colonoscopies of all involved,we cannot possibly know if the esteemed Rep. Walsh owes so much as a penny to this woman (who may or may not be his ex wife; we cannot tell until we physically see the divorce decree).
This technique is frequently followed by the “It’s all old news, this has no relevance anymore” technique.
Of course it isn’t.
However, the point of this thread is not whether Joe Walsh owes back child support. It’s whether it was stupid of the Family Research Council to give him a family values award while the allegation is out there.
That said, I’m not entirely convinced that there’s anything wrong with the award regardless of Walsh’s financial peccadilloes, inasmuch as the Family Research Council has nothing to do with families or values. Or research, for that matter.
“Just asking questions” is a deliberate, provocative question meant to whip up discord. Happens all the time around here, and people all the time get called on it.
I mean, wasn’t Hitler really justified in distrusting the Jews? I’m not saying he was justified, I’m “just asking questions”.
I’m not even sure they’re a council, strictly speaking.
We do have an outright admission of failure to pay, albeit with an attached lame excuse:
If he actually did try to replace a court-ordered payment schedule with “a verbal understanding”, that in itself indicates him to be too incompetent at legal matters to be one of the people who write the laws.
That’s a very poor characterization of what I’m asking. I don’t ask for perfect evidence, or even overwhelmingly convincing evidence.
I asked what you were relying on. In other words, I’d like to see SOME evidence apart from the ex-wife’s claims.
I’m asking why her version is given weight and his isn’t, when (so far as I can see) both sides have the same type and quantity of evidence in play. She’s claimed he owes money; he denies it. I’m not asking for anything notarized – I’m asking why, with what we all know so far, you credit her and not him.
So – why?
That’s not fair.
I haven’t raised any questions along the absurd lines you mention, have I? I don’t think I’ve ever done that, in fact. Why would you accuse me of it?
I don’t agree with that. Going into court costs money. If they did agree on no support during that period of time, and he believed she was dealing in good faith with him, it’s not incompetent to replace a court-ordered payment schedule with a verbal understanding. Of course, it does assume a risk, but the magnitude of that risk rests on her good faith. Why do you contend that is per se incompetence?
Can a verbal understanding abrogate a court ordered payment schedule? The second is a written judge’s order; the second is a voluntary verbal contract. If they agreed on no support during that time, aren’t his actions still in violation of the court order unless the order gets dismissed or stayed?
HEY BRICKER READ THE WHOLE POST.
THE WHOLE POST BRICKER
ALL OF IT.
You see, sir, if you read the entire post, you are treated to the second link I posted. The one with the hearing at which he explains it.
I will now quote at length.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/8173663-418/rep-joe-walsh-i-had-verbal-deal-not-to-pay-child-support.html
Mr. Bricker, can you please tell me if one member of a family unit has the right to unilaterally decide to change the child support payments due without a ruling from a court?
Mr. Bricker, can you please tell me if two members of a family unit have the right to unilaterally decide to change the child support payments due without a ruling from a court?
Mr. Bricker, can you, perhaps, tell me if only the court can actually adjust child support payments due?
Mr. Bricker, can you tell me of the validity of a verbal agreement that only one party in said verbal agreement attests to existing?
Mr. Bricker, would you note that Mr. Walsh has had to have had his wages garnished before, because he has not been paying his child support?
Given these facts, can you come to any probable conclusions?
Let me repeat the established facts here.
He has admitted to not paying support.
The support was not changed by a court.
He is being paid 174,000/yr.
I would say that anyone who has even the tiniest bit of legal experience (equivalent to watching a few Judge Judy shows) would know that a subsequent verbal agreement would not stand up against a prior court ordered agreement.
He should try the “good faith” excuse on the judge. Even the judiciary needs a laugh now and again.
I’m fascinated by this informal negation of court orders. By chance, does the same principle apply to restraining orders?
Only if you do it “in good faith”
Mr. Bricker, you are a wonderful poster when you are not ‘pounding on the table.’ We admire your ability to argue the law. We admire your ability to argue the facts.
The thing is, sometimes you are pounding on the table and it’s really effing obvious to everyone, and you’re acting like the cat trying to cover up on the parquet floor.
Don’t be that cat. It ain’t cool.
If you can, by the way, find the transcripts of the two sessions I linked in my first post in the thread, it would be most wonderful.
You know, I hadn’t thought about it exactly like this before, but you may be onto something. It certainly supports the religious people, even the more moderate ones, who assume atheists are all sadistic heathens without rules to guide them, or homophobes who assume people can be ‘turned’ gay. As if everyone is one dropped Bible away from murdering their neighbor, or one gay wedding announcement away from dropping their wife and kids and heading a pride parade. So it’s natural for someone ‘good’ to simply slip and give way to evil, every so often, especially when they’ve only got black and white to choose between.
I admit I did not read the second link – just the summaries posted here.
No. But that’s not exactly what he says happened. He says that she agreed with him to modify the payments. If that’s true, then they generally do have the right to do that.
When the two members of the family unit are the only two parents, then yes, they generally do – as a practical matter, the court is not supervising the payments, after all.
“Actually?” Only the court can change its own order, of course. But if “actually” means "to all practical effect, then no – if the parties agree to a different number, and the party receiving the payments never raises the issue, then the effect of that decision is to adjust child support payments without the intervention of the court.
I don’t know what this question means.
If the agreement never happened, then it doesn’t exist. If the agreement happened, then it does exist.
I think you mean to ask about the problem of proof.
Consider these two situations:
A: Wife admits that she agreed that husband could skip six month’s worth of payments, but now comes to the court and says, “Even though I told him he could skip six months’ worth of payments, I now want him held to the written agreement and he should pay the entire sum.”
B: Wife denies she ever agreed to skipping payments and says to the court, “I now want him held to the written agreement and he should pay the entire sum.”
Do you see the difference between these two situations?
Yes. This is a fact I didn’t know before you quoted from that link.
So – when I asked, back there, “What evidence are you relying upon to believe her and not him?” a good answer would have been: The fact that he’s already had his wages garnished before for non-payment.
I find it hard to believe the Congressman couldn’t afford the $~50 filing fee required to have a support order modified pursuant to an agreement of the parties.