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Speech at November 7th Fathers' Rally
in Washington D.C.
by Stephen Baskerville
We are met here today in this city of government, where so many have assembled before, because once again
our Constitution has been betrayed by the government over which it was intended to reign.
As we stand on this historic spot on this fine autumn day, I see in the distance a copper dome that sits atop one
of the great buildings of this majestic city. That building is the Library of Congress, where for a quarter
century my father labored in this country's federal service to provide for his family. That building is a
monument both to the achievement of human knowledge and to the achievement of strong government with dedicated
public servants like my father.
But we are not here because of strong government. We are here because of intrusive government. We are
here because of invasive government. Because of government that is out-of-control. Government that
comes in the night and takes away the children.
We are here today to announce to the world that the stealing of children has no place in a free and decent society.
It has no place whether it is perpetrated by a stranger, by a parent, or by a court of law.
We are here because the tears of children, and the blood of their fathers, cry out to all of us against one of
the most shameful episodes in our country's history: a time when officials of our government, their lips cynically
dripping with the words "best interest of the child," ruthlessly use and abuse children to increase their
own, already dangerous power: They cry out, against crooked judges, who earn their daily bread by ripping
as many children as they can from the loving embrace of their parents.
- They cry out, against profiteering lawyers, who line their pockets with the patrimony of our children.
- They cry out against fraudulent psychotherapists, who pervert their trade into a system of institutionalized
child abuse.
- And they cry out, against the plainclothes secret police agents of the Office of Child Support Enforcement.
But that is not all:
- They cry out as well against cowardly politicians who have sworn to protect and defend our Constitution,
but instead protect and defend a national system of kangaroo courts, presided over by gangsters in judicial robes.
- And they cry out against pressure groups that profess feminism and practice Stalinism.
- Finally, they cry out against all of us, who for too long have tolerated the invasion of our families and
the violation of our children by petty tyrants who are supposed to be the servants of our democracy.
From these crimes in our land, none of us is without guilt. The fathers of this country have indeed
abdicated our responsibility. But we will not expunge our guilt with money, for that is not where we have
failed. What we have abdicated is our duty to protect our children from a dangerous and destructive machine
that is using children as pawns and weapons for the power and profit of grown-ups.
A great responsibility rests upon all of us here, a responsibility to our own children, yes, but also to
all children and all their parents who have lived and will live under our Constitution: to those who have come
before and those who will follow to the children who have baptized us with their tears and to the parents who have
hallowed our cause, in some cases, with their blood.
So as you join us here today and enlist yourselves in our cause, never forget that it is you: You who have
had your beloved children torn from your arms.
* You who are missing precious years watching your children grow tall and strong.
* You who may have no hope of ever again seeing your children in this world.
* You who have been reviled with the names of "batterer" and "deadbeat," who have seen
the hearts of your children turned against you, and their young minds poisoned with hate and bitterness.
* You who have endured reproach, and plunder, and jail for the love of your children. Remember that you
are the heroes of our time, and I promise you now that, God willing some day, somehow your children will know of
your sacrifice and your heroism. And when they do, they will say: That man, who spoke out against injustice
was my father.
* That man, who was not afraid of tyrants and bullies was my father.
* That man, who loved me so much that he sacrificed everything for me, and children like me, that man was
my father.
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