I'm not important.
Yesterday, @socraticmthd and I had one of our long voice mail exchanges. It started out with nutrition and if a government has legitimacy to provide guidelines which influence many decisions all over. But that's not today's topic, maybe I'll discuss that another day.
Today is about me.
And a realization that I had today. About my role in the world, or the role of an individual in the government, and how individualism is causing so much bureaucracy that governments can't really function anymore.
Crazytalk?
Let's see. Those who follow me for a while know a part of my story as a father. When my daughter was 6 months old, her mother took her out of the country without my knowledge. I didn't know where they were for around 3 months.
I found out something very important then - fathers have very little rights in #Ecuador. Which in general is for good reason, there are so many fathers that escape their responsibilities. The laws as they are, are necessary. But they leave no room for exceptions like me, fathers who really try hard to be a good parent, but are continuously blackmailed, blocked and abused by the mother.
For years I was frustrated by that, asking myself why there are no rules for the exceptions, for me. During the interchange of messages, I suddenly realized:
It's the exceptions that create bureaucracy.
In both ways. How much time, energy and money is spend to create the absolute fairest society in an unfair world? In an unfair system? How much resources are spend on hunting down those who exploit the system, resources that could be used for the benefit of all in a way that make the exploiters insignificant?
I'm insignificant.
In the big and whole picture, I am. Not to my community, of course, and my community did stand up for me many times, helping me out in dire streaks to be able to travel to create that incredible bond that I have with Lily. My community couldn't change the law, but they could change my and in consequence Lily's life with that.
But in the nation? I'm an exception to the rule. And that means a lot more than one would think in the first moment. Yes, I suffer by it, but can I seriously ask to create a rule that covers the exception of the rule? Especially knowing the incompetence that so many governments and bureaucratic organizations carry? That exception, though it would help me tremendously (or, if really poorly crafted, make things worse) could easily be exploited, especially in a time where egoism and corrupted mindsets prevail all around the world and with that here, too.
Loopholes.
Most damage isn't done through flaws in the laws (only 1 letter difference). It's done through criminal activity. Knowingly. And yes, of course there's a critical mass when a legal loophole has to be fixed. Yet, to me, it would make much more sense to go after those who are actively breaking the law in a way that damages society. Because especially here, too many fathers are getting away without paying any child support. Without taking any responsibility whatsoever. Which is illegal. But nobody does anything about it.
It's complicated.
We had the 10 commandments. But that was too broad, so exceptions were created. And then more. And more. And they replaced moral. They replaced common sense. They replaced community. And suddenly, placing a comma wrong on a tax form can destroy your entire existence.
So much effort is put into detecting even the smallest slip in the taxes of a small business, or the incorrectly declared possessions of someone on the social take. What if that would all be spend on tracking down the active criminals, evading billions of taxes? I'm pretty sure that the benefit for society would be a lot bigger.
It's not fair.
I would love the world to be fair. But it is not. I would love to live in a state where I'm not the exception, but the rule: that's not reality. The reality is that the laws have to be like they are for the vast majority of mothers to even stand a chance. I don't want to take that away from them.
I'm not that important.
Also, I personally can deal with it. I learned so much from it. Improved so much as a person, am so much more coherent with my values now. I'm privileged that way, I know. But I've been in a activist group that fights for the rights of fathers here. And reading the comments, the way they expressed themselves, I felt like almost each of those didn't want the best for their child. They wanted to get back at their ex.
I'm glad they can't.
What are your thoughts about this topic? Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI, as well as read your own experience and point of view, I love to learn!
Pictures taken with a Motorola Edge 60 Pro, I reserve the copyright - but feel free to ask if you want to use one of the pictures!
Most of those active criminals evading billions in taxes are the the ones making and administering the law. It's my belief that the state is involved in much of drug importation and distribution, many of the mass casualty events and of course daylight robbery on a massive scale. For them, there is no law And as Leona Helmsley famously said 'only little people pay taxes'.
Yes, that is unfortunately true. Even more reason to believe that creating rules for exception will have more negative than positive outcome.
Honestly, I think part of the problem is the computerization of everything. Don't get me wrong, computers have increased efficiency dramatically, but programs are often not created with an ability to deal with edge cases or exceptions.
In the past where someone may add additional information on a paper form, there is often no room for comments or online forms will not process if specific drop down boxes can't be completed.
The problem with tax-evading billionaires is that they spend incredible amounts of money on legal teams that deliberately delay, delay, delay proceedings so that governments simply cannot afford to prosecute rich tax evaders, they can literally only afford to go after small businesses... when the US cuts the IRS budget, it's the working class that suffers.
I'm not sure I quite understand the computation argument. I don't think either way exceptions are made, as they're not covered by the rules, and every bureaucrat has to be able to justify their doings with rules. That is not easy, even if they wanted to.
And absolutely true on the tax evaders. But that, too, is a result of creating too many addenda to the law, being introduced to cover exceptions or loopholes, but in the end give a lot more options to delay a process.
The computerization basically prevents edge cases and exceptions from either coming to light... or maybe just getting deprioritized.
Say, 50 years ago, if a mother stole away her child to another country, the father could report it to police, and they'd write it all down and go through their processes.
Now, you might make a police report, they write it down, but when they computerize it, your situation doesn't fit into their system properly (because it's unusual) so they don't know how to process it... or they put it all in properly, but because it's unusual it gets depriorized.
Maybe there is a law saying that a mother gets more rights over the children than a father, in case there isn't much you can do except organize to change the law... but more likely the laws say that no one can kidnap a child, but your case gets depriorized or lost in their systems because it's not neat or usual.
I don't think I've explained this well, my point is that the laws are just one piece of the puzzle, but the implementation and enforcement of laws is another massive piece of the puzzle that often gets missed.
That makes more sense now, thanks for taking the time to explain! I honestly don't think that it's any different now than then, at least in the result. The process, yes. It's a lot easier to track somebody down these days, though. And police are a lot better connected. It's just the will that is missing. If bureaucrats know that it's a lot of work, it falls of the desk. I wouldn't blame computerization for that, just common human laziness.
Here, and probably in most countries, those at the very top of the pyramid rarely pay any taxes at all, and criminals also. money begets money, they say and if a person has enough they usually have the means to avoid paying taxes. The little people like us carry them on our backs.
Becca 🌷
That's correct, but the more I think about those things, the more I get to the conclusion that it doesn't make much sense to think about them. It's a waste of time. Those who get into power won't change it even though they might have wanted so. That energy could serve well using it on something productive for myself, family or community, making the corrupt government a little more obsolete.
Your energy is best used in the ways that benefit yourself and those around you and I think there's very little most people can do to address issues that happen so far up above them it just seems pointless. I guess, I was just making a point based on what I read rather than suggesting anyone go ahead and try to affect what is outside of their control.
Becca 🌷
Thank you. You really hit me, and I wrote to my daughter, whom I’ve seen maybe five times over the last ten years…
I don’t know your story exactly, but from this post it’s clear that ours are very similar. Even though we’re in different countries, it feels like the law works the same everywhere. Though, thinking about it, I seem to recall there are countries where child custody rights are granted to men in 99% of cases. But that’s also an imbalance, which probably isn’t any better than what we have.
Actually, that’s not quite what I wanted to say. As sad, painful, and hurtful as it is for me to think about this every time, I made a decision not to fight. Any strength I might have is not on my side. For every court case I file (which I won’t have the money for anyway), I’ll be answered within the law with sophisticated lies. That’s how it was and still is. And meanwhile, I’d be eating myself up inside and eventually end up drinking myself to death or in a psychiatric ward…
I decided not to consume myself from the inside. Just to be there, to wait, and to remind her of my existence regularly.
There’s even more to this than what I’ve written. I think we could talk about it for a whole day. Because this is a non-standard situation, both from the point of view of the law and of life itself. In my circle and among people I know, I’m the only one who was pushed out of communication with his daughter simply by having her brain washed daily. And trying to win back from my ex-wife two hours or two days a week, supervised or not, is a naive hope to change the world with one speech…
Once again, thank you. Stay strong!
!ALIVE
I did something similar. When I didn't know if I would ever see her again, I started writing a blog with her name. She'd find it if she every searched for it. Just in case. Fortunately, the mom ran out of money and energy and came back.
And even afterwards I always focused on what I could do. There was no help from the powers, and the mom won't ever change. For years, I traveled 16h on the bus every 4-5 weeks to stay 10 days around my daughter, with her. I had some right to see her, as long as I kept paying the child support (which of course I did). I took advantage of that to the fullest, and created an incredible bond that through persistence and patience evolved into Lily coming to live with me.
I did fight, yet not against the mother, but for my daughter. And there are many ways to do so, even writing letters, trying to keep in touch.
It's still very complicated, quite the minefield to be honest, but the more Lily grows, the more she knows, the more she starts thinking of her own and the mom is losing power, day by day. One day, we might just be equals before the child.
It’s really cool that you seem to have made it work! I hope that in the end, time will put everything in its proper place for me too. 🙌
I really hope the same for you! Your child has a right to have her father, even though the law doesn't support it. And children want to know us, too. Eventually.
As painful as your experience sounds, im glad you refused to weaponize it. So many people use personal suffering as proof that the whole system is against them. You’re doing the opposite, that takes a lot of maturity and again I agree with most of this, but I wonder if accepting insignificance too easily lets institutions off the hook🤷. Yes, exceptions create bureaucracy but isn’t part of good governance learning how to distinguish bad actors ? Or is that expectation itself unrealistic and too complex?
That's absolutely true, but the premise there is "good governance". We have a highly corrupt government, no wonder as they come from a highly corrupt society. Good governance is incredibly rare these days, as individualism is taking over and the former meaning of politics, the serving the country, as turned into serving the ego first, then the pocket, and then maybe the country. There might be exceptions, but it's hard to find them for me.
And yet, you're right. The standards we should demand in politics should be just that. But politics stem from the people. And there's the incoherence that most people want politicians to adhere to those standards, yet the people themselves don't. There is not Top to bottom change, no trickle down of values. We have to work the roots before there will be any change. And nobody wants to work the roots. It's tedious. It's uncomfortable. Netflix is easier.